Any organization investing in new software must justify that their investment will pay off and that is certainly the case with the significant investment required by an ERP implementation, such as the STAARS project. To ensure Alabama can expect a return from its investment, the State requested the University of Alabama complete an independent business case that will provide reasonable assurance the STAARS project is a good investment. The University of Alabama actually completed two business cases. The first was prior to project start and was based on improvements as seen by other states and applied to State of Alabama measures. The second business case was developed using a sample of key processes from a group of agencies that were selected to be representative of the entire state. The results of both showed the State of Alabama can expect significant savings from our investment in the STAARS project.
Beyond the financial benefit, there are many other benefits that we can expect from a modern ERP solution such as CGI’s Advantage ERP. The following provides an overview of a few of the benefits that will bring savings to the State of Alabama:
Improved Processes: The obvious direct benefit is more efficient business processes, such as real time processing eliminating the need for overnight processing to complete a transaction; fewer manual reconciliations; electronic signature; automated workflow; and transaction approvals via mobile devices.
Flexibility: The Advantage software is easily modified. If our business requirements/needs change it is much easier to respond to the change and update the functionality in the system. This translates to easier management of new and changing requirements, processes, laws, and even organization structure.
Lower Maintenance: A result of the flexibility offered by Advantage is the ability to make changes at a lower cost. In addition, STAARS provides many self-service features such as developing and generating reports versus relying on technical staff.
Paper Reduction: Another obvious area for savings is the reduction of paper. However, a facet of reducing paper that we do not always think about is the cost of handling paper. Delivering documents for signature or spending hours attempting to locate a lost or misplaced document is costly to the State.
The most often cited benefit for an ERP implementation is cost savings and most organizations actually achieve savings, but do they always achieve the level of savings they estimate in a business case? To get the most out of our ERP implementation, STAARS must focus on process change versus focusing on the software itself. Although the software is the mechanism that provides the foundation for change and makes many of the cost saving changes possible, we must recognize that the true benefit comes from improving our processes. Organizations implementing an ERP system that do not realize the benefit they expect most likely did not focus on changing their processes for the better. It is hard to put a value on a project such as STAARS, but we know that STAARS will provide the foundation for improvement that will eventually allow us to realize significant cost savings. It is up to us to take advantage of this opportunity and change the business of state government for the better.