Who would’ve thought? The results are surprising considering ERP has the stigma of being exactly the opposite -- a clunky, expensive system that has been the cause of many a wasted dollar. One that customers keep pouring more money into to try and make this dog of a system that has already cost so much actually return some value.
Take the instance of Launceston City Council. It was running a legacy system called Genesis for finance and payroll. However the company behind Genesis started running into trouble, it had been taken over a few times, and thinking long term, Launceston City Council felt it should replace the package.
The council put out a tender and chose Technology One’s Proclaim One software for its property rating system, Great Plains’ Empower software for human resources (now owned by Microsoft), Esri for its geo-spatial system, and Dataworks for workflow management. For the financial system, the Council decided to go with Oracle, a company with a strong track record in the public sector.
After a lot of effort put into setting it up, a little while later the Powers That Be in the council decided it 
Asking Gilbert if it was an easy decision to move away from Oracle, he pauses. For others at the council it wasn’t a hard decision, but for Gilbert it represented a lot of work going down the drain. “I think it was a tough decision to move from Oracle, we put a lot of effort into setting it up.”
He says the implementation was completed over a very short timeframe -- less than three months -- and in retrospect he says it was too short. However it is now more than three years since Oracle was replaced and Gilbert can see how the current system is proving to be more efficient.
The Council replaced Oracle with Technology One’s Finance One software, and added an asset management package from MRO Software called MAXIMO. The asset management software has been integrated with Finance One, Empower, and Esri and is being used for purchasing, managing service requests, internal audits, and processing invoices. MAXIMO has actually taken over some of the processes of the previous Oracle system and has cut out some duplication.
When asked about the benefits currently being shown, Gilbert is still cautious. “We still have a long way to go with it. In certain areas we see benefits in it but in others it will be a long haul.
“The disadvantage is integration, it can be quite complex. When we were first sold the solution we were told it would be a seamless integration, and it’s not quite as easy as that,” he says. “When we have everything sorted out it will be good.”
Common problems
The experience of Launceston City Council is probably familiar to more than a few other government entities.
