Partnership in Wake County, NC leads to Best Fit Award for CGI and AMS Advantage
In August, The Center for Digital Government presented CGI with a "Best Fit Integrator" award at the second annual State and Local Government Integrator Summit in Colorado Springs, CO. CGI was honored for its work with Wake County, NC, under the categories of 'Elegant Design' and 'Tailored Teams' in the areas of finance and administration.
"Our legacy mainframe financial, HR, and budgeting systems presented several major challenges," said Bill Scanlon, Wake County, North Carolina, "That impeded our ability to meet our goals in the long term, including lack of timely management information, integration between systems, manual processes and several standalone systems to compensate for the lack of integration."
In 2004, the County evaluated alternatives to replace their legacy systems with the belief that if they eliminated manual and duplicate processes they would preserve scarce resources and utilize them more appropriately. After an exhaustive evaluation process, the County selected CGI and AMS Advantage ERP to improve data access, decrease manual, paper-based processes, improve information timeliness, reduce duplication in data entry and achieve an enterprise-wide technology vision.
"The County searched long and hard for the best partner," continued Scanlon, "And we have found that partner with CGI. They are committed to working with us side-by-side, every day to achieve our goals throughout the project. They have solid experience, and their "can do" attitude underpins everything they do.
AMS Advantage ERP's 98% fit out-of-the-box was critical to the County's evaluation, but it was the collaborative Envision Phase that helped them make well-informed decisions on project direction, control scope, and set clear expectations for stakeholders and sponsors at all levels.
"CGI assembled a seasoned team of experts committed to working collaboratively toward our success," continued Scanlon, "They helped us identify areas for modernization and highlighted requirements we had not originally considered. It set the stage for a solid foundation and is really where the "best fit" and trusted partnership with CGI comes into play."
Since going live with AMS Advantage Performance Budgeting in December 2007, the County has already seen improved access to information and the elimination of certain paper-based processes; for example, enhanced internal reporting capabilities, which enable staff to focus on data analysis instead of data management. Since going live with AMS Advantage Financial Management in March 2008, the County has improved financial operations and increased their accountability, internal controls and access to information.
Today the County is working toward the implementation of AMS Advantage 3 Human Resources Management in 2009.
"CGI has a greater synergy with their customers," continued Scanlon, "There are no 'walls' with CGI. There is no 'us' and 'them' – only team and collaboration. It is about working together, seeing the challenges coming down the road, preparing the team and stakeholders, and being ready, willing, and able to address them. They are in it for our success and they are going to make it happen."
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