Burlington - Land Management / Amanda Review
Learn how we helped the City of Burlington and its key Planning, Permitting and Licensing leaders determine their go forward systems strategy.
The City of Burlington had long used Amanda as its core business solution for planning, permitting and licensing activities - alongside a variety of other services and processes.
However, frustration at the pace at which advancements had been made, and pressures from SDAF and the Ontario housing crisis prompted a re-evaluation of the situation.
Perry Group’s team of planning, permitting and technology specialists were engaged to help determine the path forward.
Working closely with a working group consisting of stakeholders from across the organization, and funded by SDAF, and subject to tight timelines; our team conducted reviews of key processes and consulted broadly with stakeholders, systems users and those involved in managing the system. We conducted a broad market scan and talked to many municipalities that have recent experience of implementing new systems or enhancing existing ones, we talked with vendors and assessed the various options.
Our recommendations, provided a clear graduated path forward, with budget and resource estimates, timelines and ongoing product management and evolution strategies and tactics.
Hastings County - HR Systems Review and Strategy
Read how we helped Hastings County review its HR systems and processes and map out a future systems strategy.
Perry Group Consulting’s core business for many years has been information technology and digital strategic planning. In those years, we have also built extensive service offerings and expertise in:
Process reviews and process optimization.
Needs assessments and solutions requirements development.
Solutions reviews and systems planning.
Solutions architecture and integration design.
Procurement strategy and advice
Hastings County was looking for a thorough needs assessment and review of the current state of its HR processes and systems in an effort to address multiple issues identified by staff. We worked closely with the HR and IT teams to review and help standardize and streamline their HR business processes. Utilizing funding from the Province’s Municipal Modernization Program, we helped the HR department identify opportunities to simplify their processes, move to a self-serve model and increase visibility into operations and the workforce, we conducted a fit-gap assessment against their current systems and identified their target systems needs.
We also provided a recommended implementation strategy and a go-forward procurement strategy.
York Region - Regional Digital Planning and Development
How we helped the Region think through the future of digital planning and collaboration in York.
We recently worked with the folks in York Region and their 9 area municipal partners to review the opportunities for increased digitization of the planning process and for enabling improved digital collaboration between municipalities and agencies around handling development applications.
We evaluated current as-is processes between local municipalities and the Region. We looked closely at how school boards, conservation authorities and other parties, including provincial agencies fit into the process.
The level of duplication between agencies is significant - and this duplication contributes to delays in the process.
The consulting team built a set of recommendations around a future strategy focused upon digitization of the application process and the back office process in those municipalities that don't yet have digitization. But, at the centre of the concept is a data exchange hub that will automate data and document transfer between agencies. A clear business case was built that shows a very clear return on investment for all agencies across the Region.
Cambridge - IT Finance and Service Delivery Review
How we helped Cambridge review its IT financial management processes and re-think services from a digital-first lens.
As part of this AAF project we conducted a comprehensive review of Cambridge's IT financial management practices, including a close examination and analysis of budget management, cost management, benefits management and realization processes and practices. The review benchmarked the City's technology investments against peers, carried out a deep dive analysis of expenditure trends, and identified opportunities for savings and reallocation.
The second workstream of the project worked with service owners around re-imagining ten City services (including parking, special events, building and planning inquiries, development approvals and newcomer services) as fully digital-first services - identifying the people, process and technology changes required to realize digital service delivery.
Orillia - ECM Review and Business Process Optimization
How we helped Orillia review 28 business processes to determine high priority opportunities for process improvement, set out technology priorities and a roadmap for implementation. Also, how we helped them figure out whether they could use Office 365 for their document and records management needs.
PROJECT: ECM REVIEW AND BUSINESS PROCESS OPTIMIZATION
DESCRIPTION
Funded by the Province's Municipal Modernization program, the City of Orillia's project had two goals a) Review and determine whether Office 365 could meet their needs for a corporate Enterprise Content Management system replacement, and b) to conduct a BPO review of 25 business processes.
OUTCOME
On the ECM portion of the project we worked with the City's IT and Records Management staff and representatives from all business units to review records management practices and develop a set of business requirements. We assessed Office 365 against the requirements and confirmed that the vast majority of required features could be met, out of the box. The recommendation was to implement Office 365, without add-ons to replace their current ECM product.
The BPO portion of the project conducted as-is and to-be business process design against 28 services and processes, including Utility Locate Requests, Building Permits, Road Occupancy Permits, Complaints and Service Requests, and Tax Certificate Request Management.
The review identified over $900,000 of potential savings, significant customer service improvements and the elimination of waste.
Importantly, we identified the technology and people required to support the implementation of the process improvements, and a roadmap to follow for implementation.
PROJECT DATA
Population: 30,000
IT Team: 5
Budget: 150K
Timeline: 9 months
Town of Lincoln: Systems Review & BPO
How we helped the Town of Lincoln learn how to apply Business Process Optimization and how we helped them rationalize their IT Application portfolio.
DESCRIPTION
Digital transformation is driving municipalities to take a critical look at aging systems and technology infrastructure. While it is tempting to jump straight into systems planning and replacement, it is essential to step back and think hard and in detail about how services and processes are designed first.
Working with the Town of Lincoln’s leadership team, Perry Group helped them understand and embrace the criticality of Business Process Optimization before systems implementation.
Business Process Optimization (BPO) has already enabled The Town of Lincoln to begin transforming its accounts payable process, with many more processes to follow.
Haldimand County: Business Process Optimization
How we reviewed and optimized 15 business processes, identifying 8 candidates for digitization resulting in up to $700,000 in cost avoidance.
PROJECT: BUSINESS PROCESS OPTIMIZATION
DESCRIPTION
Funded by the provincial Municipal Modernization program, the County was looking to review a series of business processes and to train their staff on conducting similar exercises in future.
OUTCOME
We worked with the County team to identify, prioritize and select 15 candidate processes and services for business process optimization. We trained County staff on our methodology by leading 5 BPO review processes, mentoring County staff through the next 5 processes and supporting and advising on the final 5 processes.
For each of the 15 BPO candidates we ran online working sessions to capture as-is business processes, to identify process improvements and to design new to-be processes. The output was a BPO package that presents a recommended to-be process, actions (and budgets) required to implement the improved process, and a cost-benefits assessment that identifies the return on investment. In this case, of the 15 processes reviewed, 8 emerged as high potential candidates with clear ROI, and with a collected benefit of over $700,000 in annual savings.
PROJECT DATA
Budget: $45k
Timeline: 4 months
Year: 2020