The best solution for a centrally funded IT department (or similar) is to run a single flexible system that can be customised for each user group at the point of contact.

Surely that argument reduces to "a university only needs one database". And sure, in theory, you could capture every aspect of every piece of information that passed through a University in a single database, with enough centralised control. But surely the predominant information management paradigm is for independent but interoperable services? One can (and should) have a portal that joins all the information systems together, but why should all the control be vested in one place?

Each group appears to be using a bespoke system but it all feeds into the same back-end.

But if the financial records management requirements are as different from research article management as I imagine, in what sense is it truly different facades on "the same back end". 

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Les Carr