Federal agencies are under pressure to get American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grants out the door rapidly to stimulate the economy. Many agencies face challenges to responding quickly with their current systems given the specific ARRA mandates for increased transparency and accountability. State and local governments will also face increased scrutiny as grantees to manage and report their use of ARRA funds.
CGI Group Inc. (TSX: GIB.A; NYSE: GIB), a leading provider of information technology and business process services, today launched a hosted solution to help federal, state and local agencies meet the ARRA requirements for distributing and utilizing their stimulus funds while maintaining complete transparency, accountability and oversight.
"Government agencies at all levels face extraordinary pressure to distribute stimulus funds to help get the economy back on track. CGI's solutions can help by providing a rapid start up while meeting ARRA requirements," said George Schindler, President, CGI Federal. "There is a very real need to ensure the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of the funds being distributed and CGI solutions are designed to meet these needs to support all levels of government," added Caroline Rapking, CGI Vice-President, U.S. State and Local Government.
At the federal level, CGI has partnered with Grantium (www.grantium.com), a world-leading enterprise grants management solution provider, to offer Grantium's G3™ Grants Recovery Act Management System (GRAMS). With ARRA compliance requirements built in, GRAMS allows agencies to rapidly automate their grant processing. The G3™ GRAMS solution also offers agencies the option to either process applications through Grants.gov, or through the G3™ Front Office Applicant Portal.
To get agencies up and running quickly, GRAMS is offered as a hosted application at CGI's Federal Shared Service Center in Phoenix, AZ, which is fully compliant with federal financial management shared services and security standards.
At the state and local level, governments must now grapple with stringent Federal ARRA reporting and accountability requirements for grant recipients and, at the state level, serving as both a grantor and grantee of stimulus funds.
CGI's AMS Advantage Grant Lifecycle Management (GLM) provides a centralized view of grant revenue and status, managing the entire grants lifecycle efficiently and effectively, from opportunity to closing. Developed in conjunction with Los Angeles County, GLM is integrated with grant accounting applications, making the management of funds post-award easy and efficient. GLM is available as part of the AMS Advantage financial management system, or as a stand-alone hosted application.
About CGI
Founded in 1976, CGI Group Inc. is one of the largest independent information technology and business process services firms in the world. CGI and its affiliated companies employ approximately 25,000 professionals. CGI provides end-to-end IT and business process services to clients worldwide from offices in Canada, the United States, Europe, Asia Pacific as well as from centers of excellence in North America, Europe and India. CGI's annual revenue run rate stands at $4.0 billion and at December 31, 2008, CGI's order backlog was $11.4 billion. CGI shares are listed on the TSX (GIB.A) and the NYSE (GIB) and are included in the S&P/TSX Composite Index as well as the S&P/TSX Capped Information Technology and MidCap Indices. Website: www.cgi.com.
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For more information:
Linda Odorisio
Vice President, US Communications
linda.odorisio@cgi.com
703-267-8118
Peter Cutler
Director, Communications
peter.cutler@cgifederal.com
703-227-6933
