"The events of this year have demonstrated all too clearly that work sometimes needs to get done outside a physical office," says City of Mandurah chief Mark Newman.
The City has introduced new software enabling staff to access information anywhere, anytime, from any device.
The major upgrade to information technology systems is expected to see wide-ranging benefits for Mandurah residents.
Australian software provider, TechnologyOne was engaged by the City to modernise tech infrastructure using its OneCouncil SaaS solution.
"This will make us more flexible and resilient moving forward," Mr Newman said.
Mr Newman said the council had a singular focus on customer service but had found itself with a problem - the software supporting key administrative functions such as finance and human resources were no longer up to new challenges being thrown at it, resulting in a patchwork of solutions designed to fill the gaps.
"That was making our IT infrastructure more complex, less flexible, more expensive and less customer-focused.
"It was limiting our ability to innovate and deliver on key goals like increasing opportunities for our community to self-service and access council services via mobile devices," Mr Newman said.
"Mandurah's council views its responsibilities stretching well beyond the traditional local government remit of roads, parks and waste.
"Early this year we launched Transform Mandurah, a major campaign to encourage private investment in the area and bring jobs and growth.
"The council also launched Restart Mandurah, a $5 million investment program to counteract the effects of the pandemic and build business sustainability and growth.
"A key part of funding development projects like this is making sure the council is operating as efficiently and effectively as possible.
"We need to be getting the basics right first. And it really showed why we need an IT system underpinning our operations that provides a platform on which to innovate for the future," Mr Newman said.
The City moved its finance, supply chain management, asset management, human resources, payroll and electronic document management operations to TechnologyOne's OneCouncil SaaS solution.
The new system went live in late September and, while the upgrade was transparent to visitors and residents, the change to a modern, integrated technology platform is already delivering benefits behind the scenes, says Mr Newman.
"Some of the aspects of the new system we're excited about are reporting and budgeting. We have a strong customer service focus so the analytics tools in the TechnologyOne solution will help us to better measure how we're doing. We also expect the budgeting process will be faster and simpler," Mr Newman said.
The payroll team will likely be happier too. The council's practice is to hold pay runs open until the latest possible time to ensure late changes are quickly reflected in employee's pay-packets. That often meant some after-hours work but the new system is expected to reduce payroll run times from hours to minutes.
Ed Chung, TechnologyOne's chief said Mandurah's project was an example of resilience in the face of COVID-19.
"Mandurah Council's IT team was entering a testing phase in March when the pandemic emerged and team members at Mandurah and TechnologyOne transitioned to remote work. Despite the challenges, the two were able to continue with the implementation and deliver the project on time," he said.
"When COVID-19 hit we understood very well that the pandemic was going to highlight the challenges of on-premise and hosted cloud environments and accelerate the move to SaaS."
