CASE STUDY | GOVERNMENT | FP&A
Decision Inc. Australia helps State Government department achieve faster and more accurate planning outcomes
Solution Overview
Industry
Government
Solution
FP&A Intergration
Technology
Workday Adaptive Planning
Location
Australia
Client
The department enables services to better work together to deliver services with a more unified and collaborative approach.
Requirement
Standardisation of systems with three other state government departments, it required a new FP&A solution that would enable accurate, secure and consistent reporting.
About The Client
The department is a multi-divisional state government department that employs nearly 20,000 people directly and indirectly to deliver various services across its jurisdiction.
When it embarked on standardising its finance, HR and technology systems with three other state government departments, it required a new FP&A solution that would enable accurate, secure and consistent reporting. By collaborating with Decision Inc. Australia, it achieved these outcomes while improving experiences for staff, for suppliers all whilst lowering operational costs.
The Requirement
In 2021, the department together with three other state government agencies began consolidating their finance, HR and technology systems. The initiative, called the Process and Technology Harmonisation Program (PaTH), is aimed at making it easier for employees to track, support and report their work.
The strategic benefits of a PaTH program are clear. It improves the employee and supplier experience, enables efficient and effective shared services, provides better insights and data, lowers the cost from Machineries of Government, and fosters workforce mobility and organisational agility. To implement an effective PaTH program however requires one to look at all aspects of the organisation’s technology footprint and its processes, and often this search unearths the need for systems to be upgraded.
– Tony Butler, Managing Director, Decision Inc. Australia
The initial stages of the rollout revealed the need for a new finance planning and analysis solution. Each department historically had its own planning solution ranging from excel spreadsheets to third party software applications, resulting in fractured data and processes.
The team set about finding a partner that would manage the design, planning and implementation of a FP&A solution that could seamlessly integrate with its SAP system. It was important this solution was standardised, allowing different departments to balance consistency with flexibility when meeting reporting, planning and analysis requirements, and that data was user-friendly for staff, consumable across departments and well-represented to executive stakeholders.
The department required a partner that would help the team overcome challenges, namely the program’s rigid timetable, which meant the migration had to take place in both a quick and low-risk manner.
The Solution
The department had a long and trusted partnership with Decision Inc. Australia, who had supported its financial planning and analysis capability. Given the history of successful delivery and support this project was a natural extension of this relationship.
After assessing the project requirements, Decision Inc proposed an expansion of the department’s Workday Adaptive Planning solution and a development to a robust and modern integration service into the underlying SAP environment.
This included the formulation of a containerised base build of its mandatory financial structure, which could be replicated across divisions and scaled to meet the department’s growth.
The Benefits
The department now has access to a standardised finance planning and analysis solution (Workday Adaptive Planning) that seamlessly integrates with its new PaTH SAP system, allowing for integrated reporting across departments.
The implementation of the PaTH program by utilising Workday Adaptive Planning has enabled better insights and data, which support operational management, reporting and organisational performance analysis. It has led to a better employee experience, as staff are able to leverage consistent and simplified processes and tools and new additions are onboarded much faster, leading to higher productivity. Suppliers benefit from relying on one process when interacting with six clusters.
Staff across departments now have access to efficient, modern, and evergreen systems supporting transactional services. With greater automation and back-office efficiencies, processes are quicker, and the department is able to scale. Its finance department is now better able to collaborate with its stakeholders to identify and implement ongoing improvements.
The Department now has consistent technologies which enable effective and efficient Machineries of Government, along with increased technical consistency for management, upkeep, and licensing. Furthermore, its clusters, departments and agencies are a lot more nimble, allowing them to adjust and adapt well into the future.
The coordinated investment and PaTH implementation has helped the department lower costs, and maintain increased technical consistency for management, upkeep and licensing.
Many people across the state rely on this department, and any slowing down of its processes, or inaccuracies in its reporting, can impact access to its services and have potentially disastrous consequences. We’re very proud to have played a part in streamlining the department’s operations, and ultimately bringing better outcomes to government staff and communities across the state.
– Tony Butler, Managing Director, Decision Inc. Australia
ABOUT DECISION INC. AUSTRALIA
Decision Inc. Australia is a leading independent data and analytics consultancy which delivers value from data faster.
As seen in The Australian Financial Review and The Weekend Australian, we serve the community and industry and believe great data and analytics expertise will underpin economic recovery and prosperity. We provide insights and accelerated business improvement capabilities to help our clients in their pursuit of progress.
Decision Inc. Australia is a proud carbon neutral company. You can read about our mission to achieve carbon neutrality here and Great Place to Work certified.
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