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Local Government specific data on ICT adoption, trends and value for money.

Vendor and media independent analysis of benefits and risks of ICT solutions.

Evidence-based insight into ICT performance enablers and inhibitors.

2011

2010

Local Government CRM (Customer Relationship/ Request Management) read more >>

Financial Technologies in Local Government read more >>

Local E-Government (2011/ 2012 trends) read more >>

Infrastructure Asset Management Technologies in Local Government read more >>

scheduled for 2012 >>

2011/2012 ICT Trends in Local Government read more >>

Business Intelligence in Local Government read more >>

Mobile and Flexible Working in Local Government read more >>

Records Management in Local Government read more >>

2009 publications >>

CRM Technologies...........Published: December 2011

In this report, we analyse capabilities of Customer Relationship/ Request Management (CRM) systems from two perspectives:

a) the range of system functionality deployed in local councils and

b) system utilization by council staff.

The report also looks into key performance levers – namely, the alignment of related business processes with models supported by CRM systems and integration of CRM software with other corporate applications.

In addition to comparative data, this report provides related information, including sample functional requirements and CRM enabled business outcomes.

Content:

CRM utilization in four key areas:

• management of customer contacts,
• service request management (enabling efficient delivery of standard local government services, such as waste management and graffiti control),
• CRM beyond service management – the use of data on customer “relationship”/ interactions with their local councils in order to maximize the effectiveness of value-add local government services, such as outreach programs and social support case management, and
• decision support capabilities – utilization of CRM analytics and reporting for planning and organizational performance management.

Evidence-based analysis of performance enablers and inhibitors:

• integration of CRM with key corporate systems (GIS, Records/ Document Management, Property/ Rates Management, Financials), its impact on system capabilities;
• alignment of business processes with CRM, its impact, CRM customization levels, process improvement initiatives and their impact on CRM capabilities

CRM priorities: key focus areas, a gap between current CRM capabilities and business aspirations.

CRM investments: budget and staffing levels for local government CRM, anticipated changes in CRM investments.

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Financial Technologies..........Published: September 2011

Content:

• utilization of financial systems (across five key financial functions – accounts payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, budgeting and reporting)
• integration of financial systems with key corporate applications (status and impact on financial system capabilities)
• business process alignment (status and impact on financial system capabilities)
• systems consolidation (utilization of single vendor platforms vs multi-vendor solutions, use of auxiliary systems)
• data quality (data errors attributed to technology related issues)
• budgets and staffing
• priorities (ICT and financial management priorities).

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Local E-Government..........Published: June 2011

In this report, we revisit some of the challenges that were highlighted in our previous Local E-Government report published in 2009, and, in particular, we focus on issues surrounding transactional on-line services.

Content:

• E-payments of rates and other charges (eg infringements, registrations, permit fees)
• E-applications for development/ building/ planning and other services
• E-tendering
• E-self service (eg reservations)

data on adoption, user up-take levels, changes in transaction volumes, effectiveness and efficiency scores, delivery models, average solution age, performance inhibitors

• Performance enablers and inhibitors

comparison of different factors (operations, technology and strategy/ vision) that influence on-line service delivery, correlation between user up-take of on-line services and service effectiveness/ efficiency, correlation between delivery model and service effectiveness/ efficiency, core system integration levels, correlation between staffing and system integration levels, top business priorities, top technical priorities snapshots >>

• Utilization of social media

adoption, staff allocated to social media, key goals, benefits realization

• Budgets and staffing for e-business

ICT Web budget / total ICT budget ratio, changes in ICT budgets , correlation between ICT budgets and on-line service effectiveness, ICT web staff/ total ICT staff ratio, total (ICT and business) Web staff/ total council staff ratio, changes in Web staffing levels. priorities and initiatives.

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Municipal Infrastructure Asset Management Technologies..........Published: March 2011

In this report, we look into utilization of asset management technologies for three key municipal asset classes - roads, water and buildings. The report provides factual and unbiased analysis of the impact that key factors - the number of asset registers, data quality, system integration and business process alignment - make on effective use of asset management technologies. snapshots >>

Content:

• asset management capabilities - asset knowledge (inventory of council’s assets, analysis of asset condition, management of asset performance), asset analytics (asset accounting, asset trends analysis and predictive modelling), asset decision support (risk management and renewal planning), asset maintenance and operations;
• asset data quality - asset data quality indicators (accuracy of data stored in asset management systems, currency of asset data, completeness, integrity and integration of systems used to store asset data), impact of asset data quality on asset management capabilities;
• asset management system integration - integration of asset management systems with other core business applications, impact of system integration on asset data quality, impact of GIS and CRM on asset management capabilities;
• business process alignment - alignment of process models supported by/ embedded in asset management systems with business processes practiced by council staff (management of customer service requests, management of work orders, procurement), impact of business process alignment on asset management capabilities;
• asset management technologies - satisfaction with AMS technologies;
• priorities and initiatives.

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2011/2012 ICT Trends in Local Government in Australia and New Zealand ..........Published: December 2010

This report on the use of ICT in local government is produced every two years and provides the basis for ICT budgeting and strategy planning.

The report highlights a number of changes that emerged since our 2009/2010 ICT Trends report.

• increased ICT budget and ICT staffing levels,
• increased levels of contract staff,
• a relative decline in ICT infrastructure optimization initiatives (eg server virtualization, network consolidation) and a shift towards more effort dedicated to consolidation and rationalization of councils’ business applications.

Content:

• ICT financial metrics: changes in ICT budgets, % of council revenue spent on ICT, Opex and Capex ratios;
• ICT staffing: ICT team composition (by function), ICT staff to total council staff ratio, staffing changes, contract staff levels;
• ICT team capabilities: sector average scores across key capability areas (technical skills, business knowledge, change agility, succession planning, key person risk), staff management priorities, ICT training budget;
• ICT delivery models: current and desired levels of ICT work a) delivered by in-house ICT staff, b) outsourced to ICT vendors, c) delivered through Shared Services. Barriers to the set-up and expansion of Shared Services. snapshots >>
• ICT environment: support ratios for ICT Help Desk services, desktop support, server administration;
• ICT priorities: relative priorities of initiatives grouped by key business benefits (cost reduction, efficiency and productivity improvement, risk management, customer service improvements);
• ICT value: ICT contribution to key local council functions (economic development, community/ social development, infrastructure/ land use, environment management and governance).

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Business Intelligence in Local Government in Australia and New Zealand ..........Published: September 2010

The requirement for open government practices puts additional pressure on local councils to review and improve their BI capabilities. Comparative peer data presented in this report enable the comparison of the “top 10%” best-performing local councils who make very good (or excellent) use of BI with their less successful peers. snapshots >>

Content:

• organizational BI capabilities across local councils,
• external and internal use of council data,
• business value of BI technologies,
• BI user take-up rates,
• BI utilization by business function,
• BI deployment considerations and lessons learned,
• benefits realization,
• organizational risks,
• risk / benefits profiles of new BI product deployments and system upgrades,
• BI system support requirements,
• adoption of emerging BI technologies,
• data integration and data integrity across local councils.

This report is designed to assist local councils with priority-setting and BI road map development.

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Mobile and Flexible Working in Local Government in Australia and New Zealand ..........Published: July 2010

The growth in m-government initiatives is driven by the diversity of mobile solutions, short deployment timeframes and relatively low investments they require. However, feedback from local councils suggests that realization of business benefits is challenging and this might slow down the expansion of mobile technologies beyond pilot implementations. Comparative data presented in this report aim to support local councils’ executives in decision making on the role of mobile technologies in their organizations.

Content:

• current and anticipated levels of mobile and flexible workforce,
• adoption of mobile technologies by service line (eg asset management, health services),
• benefits realization (staff productivity, customer service, cost reduction),
• organizational risks,
• project budgets and duration,
• technology trends (eg device use, operating systems).

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Records Management in Local Government in Australia and New Zealand ..........Published: March 2010

About a half of local government agencies report that ICT related issues negatively impact their organizational capabilities in the records management area. This report enables local councils to self-assess how well they manage their records and to identify areas where their organizations are leading (or trailing).

Content:

• trends in records services (volume changes, pricing models, on-line delivery)
• trends in electronic records management (volume changes, policy effectiveness, strategies for the management of different types of records)
• trends in paper based document management (volume changes, policy effectiveness, changes in paper use and storage requirements)
• common issues (including, ERDMS utilization levels and training levels)
• deployment of ERDMS (project budgets and duration, system integration levels)
• benefits realization (key business drivers, benefits realized in the areas of staff productivity, compliance readiness, cost optimization and customer service)
• system management (storage trends, e-mail management)
• budgets and staffing

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Local E-Government in Australia and New Zealand ..........Published: December 2009

Content:

• analysis of local government e-capabilities in three areas - information delivery, transactional services and resident engagement,
• current and anticipated customer take-up of e-services provided by local councils, including tenders, permits and council rates and charges,
• typical IT spend and resourcing for Web-related work, and
• examples of website features, including Web2.0 techniques, used by local councils.

This report enables local councils to self-assess their e-capabilities against 19 'good practice' criteria for the design of local government websites, and use comparative peer data for prioritization, budgeting and planning of their e-initiatives.

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Disaster Recovery in Local Government in Australia ..........Published: August 2009

Content:

Changes in Disaster Recovery priority, strategic drivers, focus areas, DR budget ratios, DR budget composition, DR budget changes, DR testing status, organizational impact of technical recovery tests, organizational impact of walk-through tests, causes of major incidents / DR invocations, DR adoption trends (virtual servers, e-mail, web, desktops, laptops, mobile technologies, databases, applications), peer ratings for selected DR solutions.

2009/2010 ICT Trends in Local Government in New Zealand .........Published: July 2009

Content:

IT budget changes for 2009 and 2010, IT budget ratios, IT department composition (by IT function - project management and business analysis, service desk, network / databases / server administration, applications, architecture and strategy, vendor and contract management, IT management), IT staffing ratios, IT service desk ratios, outsourcing adoption trends (service desk, applications, storage, information security, unified communications, servers, network, desktops) technology adoption trends (Web 2.0, server/storage virtualization, document/records management, business intelligence, collaboration, cloud computing, mobile computing, RFID, Google applications /mail ), practice adoption trends (BCP/DR, ITIL, Green IT, SOA, Project Portfolio Management, Agile Software Development, Six Sigma), core applications trends (areas of dissatisfaction, system age), IT priorities.

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Core Applications, Local Government, New Zealand and Australia ..........Published: July 2009

Content:

Areas of user dissatisfaction (across seven core applications - GIS, Asset Management, Document/Records Management, Financials, HR, Property and Library Management), systems age, IT support ratios (for selected systems).

2009/2010 ICT Trends in Local Government in Australia ..........Published: June 2009

Content:

Revenue changes for 2009 and 2010, IT budget changes for 2009 and 2010, IT budget ratios (by state), IT staffing changes, IT staffing ratios, IT department composition (by IT function - service desk, applications, network/database/server administration, vendor and contract management, strategy and architecture), contract staff ratios, outsourcing plans (service desk, storage, applications, servers, desktops, network, information security, unified communications), technology adoption trends (Web 2.0, mobile computing, collaboration, business intelligence, SaaS, RFID, storage/server virtualization, Google mail / applications), practice adoption (Green IT, ITIL, SOA, Project Portfolio Management, Agile Software Development, Six Sigma), business priorities, IT priorities, challenges.

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