
Excel 365 it is, then.
West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) is on the hunt for a new £3m ERP system amid an IT services revamp. A tender notice described the way in which the English local authority – created in 2014 to bring together projects across Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds, Wakefield, and York – intends to "transform how the …
Sorry mate, you're going to need to add a few zeros to that if you want an all-in-one solution.
And you're going to have to wait a few years before you get the full package.
Then you're going to have to ask for fixes and updates for a decade or so, which will inevitably up the costs by at least 80%.
Good luck on your cloud project, though. You'll need it.
Clueless end user here: assuming councils up and down England operate in roughly similar regulatory territory and provide roughly similar services, is it not possible to develop a 'shrink wrap' CouncilAsAService platform once and for all and just put them all on it?
Coat: OK, I'm walking towards the door backwards and not making any sudden moves...
Well, yes assuming your assumption is correct, I suspect however that you'd find that the value of your target market is actually relatively small when compared to development and operational costs, thus prices would probably be too high for most councils.
c.f. there is a company that does a similar thing for University Students' Unions, provides a "membership solutions" package entirely aimed at SUs and is used by over 50% of SUs in the UK.
Last time I looked a few years ago, to keep it profitable the company was <5 people to do business development, sales, operations, development and maintenance. Things may have changed since as it has grown a bit but that probably gives a bit of an idea...
future proof... ERP? i suggest they try hieroglyphs instead on anything from the computer age.
we have accounting records that have lasted since the time of the pharaohs, in hieroglyph form, engraved on stones.
the same cannot be said about modern information storage methods... most computers today can't even read a 3,25 inch floppy disk - usually because it was accidentally erased when stored behind the loudspeakers in the archive room.
£3 million is rounding error territory.
I'd guess someone looked at all the PC's they had. Figured a few hundred a computer and then went to lunch.
(full disclosure, I know an ex-WYCA bean counter figures like this would be tiny on the budgets he was telling me about, especially in light of some of the cost write offs).
Anon because I have sympathy for the devil a bean counter.
Decent ERPs are only affordable when the automation they provide custs the cost of human labour by their own cost. Presumably the council thinks this can be a add-on rather then an instead-of. Oh and yes, there should be a national, customisable ERP for councils if taxpayer money is to be used best.
Interview In a month that has seen nearly a fifth wiped from his company's share price, Bill McDermott is remarkably cheerful.
"I see growth everywhere," ServiceNow's CEO tells The Register.
For context, it is not just ServiceNow that is getting a rocky ride. Some estimates suggest Big Tech stock has lost $1 trillion in value in the last week, with all the big players down.
Greater Manchester Combined Authority has launched a £31m tender to find a single supplier to provide a software-as-a-service HR system for all its member and partner organizations.
In a procurement document launched earlier this month, the authority, which oversees strategic decision-making in the greater Manchester area, said it wanted to create a single supplier framework agreement accessible to its member authorities and associate partners.
The winner would be expected to offer the authorities signing up – Manchester, Bury, Oldham Rochdale and Salford among others – "a platform to enable our employees and customers to utilise a first-class HR and payroll solution that is at the forefront of our digital transformation that will be able to offer both on-premise and cloud-based services."
Swedish ERP and business application provider IFS has signed global contracts with Japanese businesses Konica Minolta and Japan Airlines.
The printer and imaging equipment manufacturer has chosen IFS Cloud to support its field service operations a move that promises to establish "a predictive and optimized service model" across its 10 national operating companies. Konica Minolta currently serves two million customers in 150 countries.
According to the companies, the predictive maintenance model will help Konica Minolta to plan the deployment of field service staff more efficiently and try to ensure maximum equipment uptime, reduce engineer call-outs, and achieve a heightened customer experience. It is also trailing IoT in printers to aid with maintenance. These are grand aims.
Gloucestershire County Council (GCC), a public authority in the sleepy west county of England, is preparing for a major upgrade to its ERP system in a project using the so-called "RISE with SAP" program.
A contract award notice says the authority has signed a £7.3m contract with the German software giant for the "further competition for the cloud-hosted software as a service Resource Planning System (sic) known as SAP RISE (sic)."
Although small, the deal marks a milestone in SAP's push with its RISE program into the UK's public sector.
City, University of London is sizing up the market for a new SaaS ERP system set to replace its SAP ECC software in a contract worth up to £17m.
According to a tender notice published this week, the 20,000-student institution is looking for a supplier to provide, implement, and support the software and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to replace the existing ERP and associated systems used by human resources (HR), payroll, finance, and procurement.
"City is seeking a SaaS solution that will enable improved visibility of strategic information across the university for HR, payroll, finance, and procurement whilst improved usability and control will support our staff, students and partners," the document said.
Hull City Council has launched procurement for a £6m SaaS-based ERP system after deciding to ditch an Oracle E-Business Suite it has relied on for 20 years.
The council has issued a tender for a cloud-based pay-as-you-go ERP system after extending support for Oracle R12 using a third party. Although the deal, signed in 2016, saved the council around £300,000 a year, it meant that significant Oracle upgrades ended.
In a tender document, the council said it was seeking to replace its ERP system which links with other 40 internal and external systems including software for benefits payments, foster carer payments, and housing rent.
European mid-market ERP specialist Forterro was bought by Partners Group this morning for €1bn and Germany's Software AG has acquired data integration platform vendor StreamSets for €524m.
Partners Group invests in private equity, infrastructure, and real estate organisations. In buying Forterro from Battery Ventures, it is underscoring the software firm's prospects for growth, said Bilge Ogut, head of private equity technology at Partners Group.
Forterro was founded 10 years ago with the acquisition of Sweden's Jeeves Information Systems AB and has since acquired software brands Garp, Proconcept, Sylob and Clipper. It employs more than 1,200 people in 40 offices.
Universities across Scotland are clubbing together to soften up the market in preparation for an enterprise software procurement estimated to be worth £42m.
UK tabletop wargames specialist Games Workshop has published the latest chapter in the long-running saga of how mighty IT warriors valiantly battled the intransigent forces of ERP.
A Surrey councillor has slammed his county council's £1bn-budget effort to replace its ERP system, describing it as "inept project management."
Resources and Performance Select Committee chairman Steven McCormick told a council meeting the public body was mismanaging taxpayers' money by overpaying £3.2m on a new Unit4-based SaaS system to support payroll, HR, finance and procurement functions.
At a budget meeting yesterday, he said: "This is an inexcusable waste of public money, wholly avoidable with proper planning and competent implementation."
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