Watch our X4U Public sector highlights
Last week saw over 3000 Unit4 customers, prospects, and partners come together to celebrate ‘People Experience’ at our global Experience4U conference.
Attendees spent two days learning how to empower their people to focus on what really matters: making an impact through their work. Nowhere is this message more poignant right now than in the public sector, where organizations are quickly realizing the need for cross-organizational collaboration and modern, cloud-based systems that drive greater efficiency.
Unit4 CEO, Mike Ettling, kicked off the show with a powerful keynote sharing his vision for how Unit4 will transform ERP's meaning from ‘Enterprise Resource Planning' to 'Experience Real Purpose.’ Attendees also heard from other inspirational speakers, including Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia, Lady Mariéme Jamme, Founder of iamtheCODE, and leading industry analysts.
Day 2 covered a series of sessions, focusing on Unit4's public sector solutions. Unit4 customer Guildford Borough Council and Unit4 partner Embridge Consulting discussed their recent implementation experiences and what they've learned using Unit4's public sector industry model.
Case Study: Guildford Council – Lessons learned from a recent implementation
Facing a £12m budget gap due to austerity measures and increased demand for services, Guildford began a transformation program to improve customer focus and modernize services and systems. The goal? Identify savings and make the council more efficient. They quickly realized that significant ICT investment was needed.
They did this by working through Unit4 partner Embridge Consulting and leveraging their vast experience and industry model implementation methodology. This meant they could deliver fast time to value and meet tight timescales.
We have seen a 14% headcount reduction, equivalent to £1.3m savings from our Future Guildford transformation program, and have consolidated our systems into one ERP, resulting in streamlined processes.
Claire Morris
Director of Resources, Guildford Borough Council
The Covid pandemic has emphasized the need for government organizations to modernize their systems, automate processes, and reduce costs through improved efficiency. For most, this means a move to the cloud, often unchartered territory for this sector.
During X4U, attendees heard from Southampton Council about their recent move from on-premise to cloud software and the challenges and benefits this presented.
From on-premise to the cloud: Building a cloud-first strategy in government - Southampton City Council
Southampton Council is a unitary authority in the South of England, with 3500 staff and an estimated annual expenditure of £515m. Every day they deal with complex payroll and job/pay structures and a large number of suppliers for purchases, services, and buying commodities.
It’s been an interesting and challenging journey at times but well worth it given the benefits we’ve realized and sets us up well for the years to come working with Unit4.
Gavin Muncaster
Head of IT, Southampton Council
The pandemic has also taught us the importance of financial agility.
Agility in financial planning and underpinning social value objectives
In this session, Unit4 experts discussed how Unit4 Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) helps businesses plan for the future and prepare for the unexpected through predictable reliability. Changes in funding, fluctuating demand, and priorities are real-world scenarios that public sector organizations have to deal with. Business-critical decision-making relies on real-time data, accountability, and a single version of the truth, that just cannot be achieved using Excel spreadsheets.
Citing the East of England Ambulance Service, Richard Ludlow, FP&A Lead at Unit4, talked about the time multiple budget holders are spending auditing spreadsheets rather than adding value. This prevents organizations from making timely decisions and being agile and responsive to their environments. Imagine having a tool that could leverage enriched data to predict likely outcomes allowing your organization to measure progress against key objectives and be more strategic.
Finally, in the public sector track, was a session on Unit4's cash and income manager product and how this is evolving to solve public sector organizations' needs.
Managing public money: Best practices in cash and income management for the public sector
Within the public sector, we see an increasing need to provide modern and safe ways for citizens to pay while being mindful of back-end processes. This session covers the latest evolution of cash and income management through partner Heycentric.
