Objectives

The client had been considering upgrading their finance system for a number of years. The client was looking for advice on a suitable system to be procured and implemented. The client asked Bridgewey for advice on finance / ERP system choices and indicative costs of appropriate systems, the procurement process and a detailed project plan to guide the client through the implementation of the procured finance system.

The Organisation

The organisation operates in the sporting sector and has a turnover in excess of £300 million a year. As a result of the activities of the organisation large volumes of transactions are undertaken. The organisation had not upgraded its financial system since 2009 and was looking to change the way that the finance function interacted with the rest of the organisation. The organisation was implementing a new strategy, thus the finance system to be chosen needed to be flexible and scalable.

Tasks

The project was broken down into four different components as follows:

  1. Requirements – Current and future requirements were gathered from the business.
  2. Market research – undertake, systems ability compared to the current and future requirements of the organisation.
  3. Short Listing and Ranking – the ERP systems were ranked against each other based on product offering.
  4. Final interviews – The short-list of suppliers and their systems were interviewed, compared and a preferred system selected.

Results

Following the system presentations the project team recommended to the project committee the system to be purchased and implemented. The project committee concurred with this decision and a budget for the procurement and implementation of the ERP system was produced, agreed and approved following discussion with the system vendor and implementer. A detailed timeline was produced for the client following which Bridgewey handed the project over to the client’s internal resources.