City Selects ERP System To Improve Its Service To Citizens

CLIENT OVERVIEW

• Operates in some ways more like a business than a government entity
• Runs 14 diverse departments with the assistance of private entities
• Provides water utility services and manages charter schools

CLIENT NEEDS

Panorama was engaged by the city to select and assist in the implementation of a new ERP and related systems. Framed as an initiative to bring a high “return on citizenship” (the amount and quality of services received for taxpayer dollars) to the city’s constituents, the project’s goal was to implement a platform that would provide the same (or better) quality services to its citizens as what they receive from many private-sector providers. Because the city runs 14 diverse departments with the assistance of private entities, a government-focused ERP was not necessarily the only option for the organization.

PROJECTED BENEFITS OF ERP INITIATIVE

• Improved customer/ citizen insights
• Elimination of duplicate or lost transactions
• Time savings through mobile capabilities for billing reviews and approvals
• The ability to use historical data for future bidding and estimating
• Reduction in purchasing costs through aggregated spending

OUR APPROACH

Panorama led an effort to determine the city’s business requirements across the organization. In addition to all the departments and functions typical of many municipalities, we examined and identified requirements in areas as diverse as utility billing and student information systems (SIS).

As a result of this assessment, the city issued an RFP with Panorama’s guidance. Following all city procurement policies, we invited responses from vendors who typically target the commercial market as well as vendors concentrating on the public sector. This allowed the city to contrast the system capabilities of a broad set of vendors.

Given the nature of the city’s needs, we broke up the selection process into two separate but related streams: one for the ERP solution and another for SIS. At this point, the ERP solution is being implemented (with assistance from Panorama), and the SIS selection is in progress.

"OUR SELECTION APPROACH FOR THIS PROJECT WAS DESIGNED TO
HELP THE CITY ACHIEVE OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE WHILE INCREASING COMMUNICATION
AND CREATING VALUE FOR EVERY AFFECTED EMPLOYEE AND CITIZEN."

Rich Goluskin, Director of Client Services
Panorama Consulting Group

SELECTION RESULTS

The ERP solution has been selected and successfully negotiated, and the City Commission has fully approved the purchase and authorized the implementation project to proceed. Panorama is helping the city implement this new ERP in a project oversight capacity, ensuring that the vendor meets its obligations and delivers the solution as contracted.

The SIS selection process has reached the point where there are two finalists competing head-to-head for the business. Panorama continues to support the city in its SIS selection, similar to how we supported the ERP selection process.

IMPLEMENTATION RESULTS

Panorama expects the ERP implementation to result in the following benefits:

• The ability to standardize templates for job estimating and bidding by branch, saving time in spreadsheet set-up and avoiding potential errors
• Reduction in time spent to approve bids as a manual email process will no longer be needed
• Increased productivity driven by improved customer insights and predefined workflows
• Online and offline requisition capabilities eliminating duplicate or lost transactions
• Pre-configured reports and dashboards reducing the time spent manually creating reports
• Time savings through mobile capabilities for billing reviews and approvals
• The ability to use historical data for future bidding and estimating
• The ability to aggregate and negotiate spending by accessing data on purchase history and viewing vendor scorecards of performance and lead times
• Improved project management leading to improved financial performance

Panorama Consulting Group is a technology-agnostic consultancy specializing in Digital Business Transformation and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System Implementations for mid- to large-sized private- and public-sector organizations worldwide. This highly respected firm is 100% independent of software and technology vendor affiliation. They offer a phased and integrated approach to strategy alignment and execution, enabling each client to achieve its unique business transformation objectives by transforming its people, processes, and technology.

Panorama clients include multi-national conglomerates from Amazon Robotics to Valcor Engineering, as well as governmental entities, including state and local governments, municipalities, school districts, state offices of the attorney general, and tribal governments.

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