Who They Are.

• 3 independent agencies within NSW government

• +500 staff

• Manage NSW government sporting venues

• Manage sport and recreation centres across the state

• Support Australian athletes to become complete with the world’s best

• Provide grants to develop sporting at all levels across the state

• Provide opportunities for community groups and clubs

Business Challenges.

• The agencies are small and it was costly to sustain separate systems and corporate services operations. The HR and finance systems were old and required upgrading / replacing.

• NSW government set a direction to move to standardised ERP processes and systems, encouraging agencies to move to common systems.

• Agencies are seen as “desirable” for ministerial appointments and are frequently moved between clusters, impacting governance and centralised reporting.

Project Scope.

• The following SAP Modules were included: purchasing, financials, accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed asset accounting, real estate, travel and expenses, HR and payroll.

• Integration from frontline booking systems.

• Integration to Business Data Warehouse.

• From March 2019 to November 2019.

Project Objectives.

• Consolidate 3 agencies onto 1 ERP platform.

• Establish a common business process architecture.

• Standardise master data.

• Implement modern systems.

• Introduce/extend shared services.

• Improve opportunities for economies of scale in processing.

• Improve compliance and traceability.

The Process of ERP Implementation.

• Develop and obtain approval of the business case.

• Work with the program office to establish governance over the project.

• Review common process standards and confirm alignment “as standard as possible, as local as necessary”.

• Identify options for system procurement and implementation.

• Run procurement process to source systems integrator.

• Document project strategies for resourcing, change management, test management and data migration.

• Work with program office to engage systems integrator, build the project plan and deliver the project.

Results.

Changes and Success

• Common database and business processes lead to more trustworthy and reliable data.

• Staff efficiencies cannot be achieved immediately. Time to stabilise and learn new processes and systems is necessary.

• It was necessary to tweak some procedures (e.g. invoice processing) outside the system in the first weeks after go live.

• Old habits were hard to break (e.g. regularly reconciling the clearing accounts) but a solid system enabled better audit and investigation.

• Improved systems reduced errors.