Hawke's Bay raises its glass to digital transformation

Joins growing list of NZ local government entities choosing TechnologyOne OneCouncil solution

11 August 2020 – New Zealand’s Hawke's Bay Regional Council is embarking on a major digital transformation, future-proofing the Council and enabling more tech-savvy community services, following a five-year deal with Australasia’s leading enterprise Software as a Service provider, TechnologyOne.

Hawke’s Bay Regional Council protects and manages the environment in one of the country’s leading primary production and wine-producing regions, with a population of 174,000. It is a new customer for TechnologyOne, whose enterprise software already powers more than 30 New Zealand local government authorities.

According to Jessica Ellerm, Corporate Services Group Manager at the Regional Council, the catalyst for change was running a legacy system last renewed in 2009, offering limited flexibility to grow as a platform and support decision-making.

“We realised our IT infrastructure built up over time needed streamlining and updating, and we wanted a reliable partner to help us simplify that back-end and give us a more integrated system.”

“We also needed to maintain compliance with complex government regulations, have better access to real-time information and work with the flexibility and resilience of operating an anytime, anywhere virtual platform,” added Mrs Ellerm.

“We selected TechnologyOne because of their proven OneCouncil solution and experience in local government in New Zealand. We also wanted a group of people we thought we could work with and trust.

“TechnologyOne will provide us with a modern enterprise-wide system, starting with our financial applications, to make compliance with complex government legislation much easier. This will give us better information to support decision-making,” Jessica said.

Stuart MacDonald, TechnologyOne Chief Operating Officer said his local team’s ability to deliver under pressure, was demonstrated during Stage4 COVID-19 lockdown, when Queenstown Lakes District Council went live with their strategic asset management model almost entirely remotely.

“Hawke’s Bay Regional Council is as passionate about digital transformation as we are, and we’re pleased to see another organisation in New Zealand choose a best of breed solution developed in this part of the world,” he said.

“With implementation starting as early as later this year, Hawke’s Bay Regional Council will adopt TechnologyOne’s OneCouncil SaaS solution and replace a series of legacy applications underpinning the Council’s finances, budgeting, procurement operations and revenue and ratings, as well as HR and payroll,” he said.

In March, TechnologyOne launched a package of free tools for customers designed to help them weather the COVID-19 crisis. The “Together As One” package has received wide praise. In particular, the analytics have proved popular, with more than 20 customers taking up the package including notably, several local government entities.