Maximizing Performance with Best Practices and Consulting Services
By Jay Leach, Senior Consultant, CGI Client Services

Public sector organizations are unique and require best practice insights into how their peers leverage technology, optimize business processes, implement governance models and strategically align their organization to increase operational efficiency and effectiveness.

Research clearly shows that across the board, public sector organizations spend less, use fewer staff and generate superior results in finance, IT, procurement, HR and other processes when incorporating best practices into their organization. A key element of how they accomplish this is through their use of technology to enable process improvement. Without real change in the underlying processes, organizations can easily end up using software to simply do the wrong things more quickly, and generate little value.

At CGI, an AMS Advantage ERP implementation is more than innovative software delivered on time and on budget. It is the foundation of a lasting relationship between CGI and the public sector. A client's success is as important to CGI as its own — which is why CGI offers a resource to help public sector organizations receive maximum value from their solution and public sector best practices.

Reaching Full Potential
To achieve peak operational performance, CGI provides the public sector with access to software, technology and public sector experts to enable organizations to operate at peak performance levels by leveraging best practices in public sector processes. Through CGI's consulting services, clients identify opportunities for improvement that might otherwise remain hidden. These services draw on the experience and best practices of AMS Advantage implementations and top-performing public sector organizations.

Many organizations don't reach their full potential because they focus almost exclusively on technology implementation, ignoring the critical issues of process simplification, organizational alignment and information delivery. To overcome this, CGI takes into account an organization's unique characteristics — users' level of experience, the complexity of the organization and the amount of training needed — and uses the specific client environment to focus on complex processes and setup for improved operational performance.

Client Success with CGI Consulting Services
Many public sector organizations have found CGI's consulting services to be a great asset in enabling them to reach their full potential for peak operational performance. Sanjiv Shekhar, Manager of Application Services for the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, answered several questions regarding CGI's consulting services and their results.

What were your challenges prior to using CGI's consulting services and what goals were you trying to accomplish by partnering with CGI?
Prior to receiving CGI's consulting services we did not use the full support of AMS Advantage-related products. It was difficult for our organization to get domain expertise in the fields of finance, HR and payroll. We needed to examine how we could better use the system and be more efficient in our operations.

How did CGI help you overcome challenges and meet your goals with the consulting services?
I have been working with CGI for over two years now and they have been extremely helpful in partnering with us to achieve our AMS Advantage product implementation vision. CGI has participated in all aspects of planning to deployment. Their technical team has been very consistent in their follow-ups and it appears that their sole goal is to satisfy the client. Without the help of their outstanding consulting team, our team would not have received the several compliments that it did.

What makes CGI's consulting services unique?
The CGI consulting team is very focused on understanding the customer's needs and challenges. They delivered quality service on time with a deep understanding of government processes and how we can leverage best practices from similar government experiences.

What value and benefits did the consulting services bring your organization?
We were able to achieve our target goal — improved performance and efficiency — and complete the project on time and budget. The documentation and support teams were a real asset in guiding us through the project.

Why should clients consider using CGI's consulting services?
CGI provides a great team who understands government and is focused on customer needs; they are ready to work with the client's internal team and come up with solutions that help organizations overcome their challenges.

For further information on CGI's consulting services, including the value and benefits they can bring to your organization, contact Jay Leach at lay.leach@cgi.com or 1-800-321-0267 and visit www.cgi.com/publicsectorerp.