Back to school: GFOA helps college procure ERP system.(Solutions)(Government Finance Officers Association, Enterprise Resource Planning)

Although GFOA has provided technology procurement consulting services to public agencies for a number of years, we just recently took on our first higher education client. Higher education is one sector in which technological advancements have had a significant impact on operations. Colleges and universities find that they have no option but to keep pace with these advances. Our community college client recognized that a totally integrated enterprisewide solution would improve its ability to provide high quality service to students, faculty, staff, and the community.

The generally accepted definition of an enterprise resource planning system (ERP) includes all of the modules necessary to accommodate an organization's financial and human resources-related administrative functions. For this particular client (and most other colleges and universities), however, the student information modules are just as important, if not more so, than the financial and human resources modules. And because college students are one of the most technologically advanced populations, constituent relationship management (CRM)--including self-service capabilities for applying, enrolling in courses, paying fees, and so forth--is also an important component of the college's enterprise technology solution.

The request for proposals released by the college included all of the modules listed in the box on page 52.

The expansive scope of the RFP was rather daunting to both the college and to GFOA. However, by following GFOA's proven procurement methodology, which divides the process into manageable tasks, we are now in the process of helping the college obtain the best enterprise solution for its needs.

DEFINE THE DETAILED BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS

Defining the detailed business requirements for an ERP system is one of the most important tasks in the procurement process, not only because it is an effective way to differentiate product offerings, but also because we recommend that these requirements become part of the product warranty. This can be an overwhelming task for clients. While subject matter experts are familiar with the capabilities of existing systems, they are often unfamiliar with the functionality of modern systems and find it difficult to communicate their needs to vendors.

By the time GFOA was hired to assist in the procurement of a new enterprise system, our college client had made significant progress in defining business requirements, especially for the student information system. As a result, we were able to focus on validating those requirements and filling in less complete functional areas. GFOA has a database of baseline requirements from which to draw, so our clients do not have to develop an RFP from scratch. The ability to shop for requirements from a database such as ours makes it much easier to define specific organizational needs and greatly reduces the time it takes to develop the business requirements matrix.