Lánluas guide helps public sector maximise ERP investments

Lánluas Consulting has released a guide designed to aid public sector finance teams in leveraging their digital investments and enhancing business transformation efforts.

The guide follows Lánluas research which reveals that organisations in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK rate themselves as an average C+ in terms of extracting value from their ERP investments.

The research suggests that organisations may be hindered by a preference for maintaining the status quo or a lack of awareness of modern possibilities. This mindset can prevent public sector organisations from fully realising the potential of their enterprise systems.

Finance teams in the public sector face specific challenges during digital transformation, including strict governance standards, minimal tolerance for disruption, and change management issues given their reliance on long-established processes.

Although teams recognise the benefits of digital transformation in terms of improving service delivery and stakeholder satisfaction, there is often a lack of understanding on how ERP enhancements can optimise workflows and processes.

There are significant potential rewards available. Organisations overcoming digital transformation challenges report productivity boosts of up to 60%, as well as revenue gains and cost savings up to 10%, alongside improvements in staff and citizen satisfaction.

End-of-year finance processes present a key opportunity for transformation. EOY procedures can be problematic, as they are often unclear or fragmented, and critical knowledge can be lost when key staff leave, causing stress and inefficiencies.

Structured EOY workflows can centralise and standardise these processes, reducing dependency on individual team members, decreasing errors, and creating efficient and repeatable procedures. These improvements often utilise existing system capabilities without requiring significant investment, representing a "quick win" for finance teams.

Lánluas partners have realised substantial benefits, such as a 60% reduction in process times, a 70% reduction in communication overheads, automation of over 40,000 events, a 79% reduction in system complexity, a 50% improvement in IT response times, and 191% ROI over five years from automated accounts payable processes.

Richard McManus, Lánluas Chief Executive, remarked: "These success stories highlight the substantial benefits of partnering with an independent, knowledgeable, and experienced enterprise systems consultancy. By leveraging independent expertise, organisations can not only overcome their digital transformation challenges but also achieve significant operational improvements and financial returns as they navigate the path of digital transformation".

For finance leaders in sectors such as local government, healthcare, and education, there is a clear path to maximising digital investments.

The recommended steps include an initial assessment of current system utilisation, strategy development aligned with specific organisational needs, systematic implementation focused on automation and efficiency gains, and measurement to demonstrate ROI and maintain stakeholder support.

The Lánluas Guide to Unlocking the Potential of Transformation in Public Sector Finance provides a best practice approach to maximising ERP system value with practical examples on financial process automation and centralised EOY workflows.