Build an ERP Strategy and Roadmap – Local Government

Align the departments and IT to successfully deliver on your ERP initiative

EXECUTIVE BRIEF

Analyst Perspective

A foundational ERP strategy is critical to decision making.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a core tool that the organization leverages to accomplish its goals. An ERP that is doing its job well is invisible to the organization. The challenges come when the tool is no longer invisible; it has become a source of friction in the functioning of the organization.

ERP systems are expensive, their benefits are difficult to quantify, and they often suffer from poor user satisfaction. Post-implementation, technology evolves, organizational goals change, and the health of the system is not monitored. This is complicated in today's digital landscape with multiple integration points, siloed data, and competing priorities.

Too often organizations jump into selecting replacement systems without understanding the needs of the organization. Alignment between the departments and IT is just one part of the overall strategy. Identifying key pain points and opportunities, assessed in the light of organizational strategy, will provide a strong foundation to the transformation of the ERP system.

Robert Fayle
Research Director, Enterprise Applications
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive summary

Your Challenge

Organizations often do not know where to start with an ERP project. They focus on tactically selecting and implementing the technology but ignore the strategic foundation that sets the ERP system up for success. ERP projects are routinely reported as going over budget and over schedule, and they fail to realize any benefits.

Common Obstacles

ERP projects impact the entire organization – they are not limited to just financial and operating metrics. The disruption is felt both during implementation and in the production environment.

Missteps early on can cost time, financial resources, and careers. Roughly 55% of ERP projects reported being over budget, and two-thirds of organizations implementing ERP realized less than half of their anticipated benefits.

Info-Tech's Approach

Obtain organizational buy-in and secure top management support. Set clear expectations, guiding principles, and critical success factors.

Build an ERP operating model/business model that identifies process boundaries, scope, and prioritizes requirements. Assess stakeholder involvement, and change impact, risks, and opportunities.

Understand the alternatives your organization can choose for the future state of ERP. Develop an actionable roadmap and meaningful KPIs that directly align with your strategic goals.

Info-Tech Insight

Accountability for ERP success is shared between IT and the departments. There is no single owner of an ERP. A unified approach to building your strategy promotes an integrated roadmap so all stakeholders have clear direction on the future state.

Insight summary

An organization-led, top management supported initiative partnered with IT has the greatest chance
of success.

• A properly scoped ERP project reduces churn and provides all parts of the organization with clarity.
• This blueprint provides the departments and IT the methodology to get the right level of detail for the business processes that the ERP supports so you avoid getting lost in the details.
• Build a successful ERP Strategy and roadmap by:
  • Aligning and prioritizing key organizational and technology drivers.
  • Clearly defining what is in and out of scope for the project.
  • Providing a clear picture of how the business process and underlying applications support the organization strategic priorities.
  • Pulling it all together into an actionable roadmap.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems facilitate the flow of information across departments. It allows for the seamless integration of systems and creates a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making.

The ERP system is often considered the lifeblood of the organization. Problems with this key operational system will have a dramatic impact on the ability of the organization to serve and grow.

A measured and strategic approach to change will help mitigate many of the risks associated with ERP projects, which will avoid the chances of these changes becoming the dreaded "career killers."

Enterprise resource planning (ERP)

What is ERP?

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems facilitate the flow of information across departments. They allow for the seamless integration of systems and create a holistic view of the enterprise to support decision making.

In many organizations, the ERP system is considered the lifeblood of the organization. Problems with this key operational system will have a dramatic impact on the ability of the organization to serve and grow.

An ERP system:

• Automates processes, reducing the amount of manual, routine work.
• Integrates with core modules, eliminating the fragmentation of systems.
• Centralizes information for reporting from multiple parts of the value chain to a single point.

ERP use cases

• Product-Centric
  • Suitable for organizations that manufacture, assemble, distribute, or manage material goods.
• Service-Centric
  • Suitable for organizations that provide and manage field services and/or professional services.

ERP by the numbers

50 – 70%
Statistical analysis of ERP projects indicates rates of failure vary from 50% to 70%. Taking the low end of those analyst reports, one in two ERP projects is considered a failure.
Source: Saxena and McDonagh

85%
Companies that apply the principles of behavioral economics outperform their peers by 85% in sales growth and more than 25% in gross margin.
Source: Gallup

40%
Nearly 40% of companies said functionality was the key driver for the adoption of a new ERP.
Source: Gheorghiu

ERP dissatisfaction

Finance, IT, Operations, and other users of the ERP system can only optimize ERP with the full support of each other. The cooperation of the departments is crucial when trying to improve ERP technology capabilities and resident interaction.

Info-Tech Insight

While technology is the key enabler of building strong customer experiences, there are many other drivers of dissatisfaction. IT must stand shoulder-to-shoulder with departments to develop a technology framework for ERP.

Info-Tech's methodology for developing a foundational ERP strategy and roadmap

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:
ERP Business Model	Align your departments, and technology goals and objectives in the current environment.
ERP Operating Model	Identify and prioritize your ERP top-level processes.
ERP Process Prioritization	Assess ERP processes against the axes of rigor and strategic importance.
ERP Strategy Roadmap	A data-driven roadmap of how to address the ERP pain points and opportunities.

Key deliverable:
ERP Strategy Report	Complete an assessment of processes, prioritization, and pain points, and create an initiative roadmap.

Executive brief case study

City selects ERP system to improve its service to residents

INDUSTRY: Local Government
SOURCE: Panorama, 2021

Challenge

The City had approximately 1,800 business requirements across areas that included finance and accounting, public service/utilities and billing, procurement and contracts, city clerk, building and maintenance, community services, public service, human resources and payroll, planning and economic development, and schools.

Due to the complexity of city's business requirements, the selection process needed to be divided into ERP and SIS (student information system).

Solution

The ERP and SIS solutions have been selected and successfully negotiated, and the City Commission approved the purchase.

The SIS selection process has reached the point where there are two finalists competing head-to-head for the business.

Results

The expected benefits of the ERP implementation are:

• Standardized templates for job estimating
• Reduction in time spent to approve bids
• Increased productivity driven by improved customer insights and workflows
• Preconfigured reports and dashboards
• Time savings through mobile capabilities for billing reviews and approvals
• Historical data for future bidding and estimating
• Access data on purchase history scorecards of performance and lead times
• Improved project management

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

"Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful."

Guided Implementation

"Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track."

Workshop

"We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place."

Consulting

"Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project."

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is between eight and twelve calls over the course of four to six months.

Workshop Overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Phase 1

Build alignment and scope

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

• Build a common language to ensure clear understanding of the organizational needs. Define a vision and guiding principles to aid in decision making and explain how the ERP supports achievement of the organizational goals. Define the initial scope of the ERP project. This includes the discussion of what is not in scope.

This phase involves the following participants:

• Primary stakeholders in each value stream supported by the ERP
• ERP applications support team

Build an ERP Strategy and Roadmap – Local Government