Hamilton City Council's Ground Breaking Dynamics Ax Implementation Makes an Impression at Local Government Forum

Last week Koorb presented at SOLGM alongside Hamilton City Council and Microsoft. This Forum is an annual event that is designed to highlight current and emerging financial management issues relevant to local authorities, to provide opportunities to identify and discuss solutions, and showcase best practice within the local government sector. This year’s theme focused on solutions and actions you can take to deliver more for less, in our procurement, in the way we manage services and in the way we work with others for the benefit of all. The Forum was attended by Local Government Managers with responsibility for strategic financial management, long term and annual planning, financial reporting and financial and treasury risk management.

Hamilton is New Zealand’s largest inland city and is the principal centre for employment, retail, entertainment and business activities in the Waikato region, and is likewise the region’s cultural and recreation hub. The Hamilton City Council (HCC) is the fourth largest council in New Zealand and represents and supports the needs of over 150,000 residents, providing services which include local roads and footpaths, water, sewerage system, rubbish, recycling and landfills, 145 parks and gardens, 63 sports area, recreation centres, libraries and pools, dog registration, civil defence and social housing.

Being a government organisation, transparency and accountability is a key focus for HCC and its 22 business units. The council has launched a new Financial Management Information System as part of its Business Excellence Framework, geared toward aligning systems and processes for measuring performance against international benchmarks. This fulfils the Council’s business requirements in improving information access, quality, timeliness and security. HCC’s legacy ERP solution was old and unsupported. This meant it was costly to maintain and also posed an organisational risk. Critically, the solution no longer represented a good fi t for the Council’s current business footprint. The choices open to the council were to commit to a costly upgrade to the 10 year old platform, or to find an alternative solution.

The inability of the legacy ERP to meet local government compliance requirements in terms of financial reporting also posed a potential problem to the council. After due diligence, the Council decided to migrate to an ERP solution that would deliver more value to the organisation. In selecting an ERP solution for its increased visibility and transparency needs, HCC considered its use of existing Microsoft platforms within the organisation, such as SharePoint, which it uses for internal collaboration and the Council’s Hosted eServices platform.

The Council ultimately decided on Microsoft Dynamics AX, with benefits which included compliance with financial reporting rules and regulations due to new levels of data accuracy and higher levels of efficiency and ability to respond to and service the needs of residents. As Eion Hall, Chief Information Officer at HCC said, “Ultimately, our shift to Dynamics AX was beneficial in change management. We are running more efficiently with reduced maintenance and training costs. The community benefits from the improved transparency in terms of financial reporting by the City Council.” Koorb’s implementation at Hamilton City Council saw them shortlisted for the 2015 Microsoft New Zealand ERP of the Year Award. For further information please go to www.koorb.co.nz