The Strategic Vision: Aligning ERP Modernization with Public Sector Organizational Goals

In an Avero Advisors Live broadcast, the Megan & AV discussed the importance of strategic visioning in digital transformation projects. They emphasized the need for a clear vision and understanding of the desired outcomes before embarking on such projects. The role of the CIO was highlighted as crucial, but it was noted that they should not be expected to understand every aspect of the business. The speakers also stressed the importance of regular communication and engagement with stakeholders, as well as the need for ongoing change management. They also touched on the importance of data hygiene and security, and the need for regular review and updating of strategic plans.

Stay up to date on industry trends!

Download our free eBook:
➡ https://bit.ly/2023techguide

Learn More About Avero:
➡ https://www.averoadvisors.com

Connect With Us:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/averoadvisors
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/averoadvisors
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/averoadvisors
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@averoadvisors

Connect With AV:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/verekar

(865) 415-3848 | info@averoadvisors.com

Transcript

Megan (00:00):

Good morning everyone. Welcome to the a Avero Advisors Livecast, where today we are going to be discussing strategic visioning around digital transformation projects. What does that look like? How do you do it? How do you do it from your own seat? I am joined today by my boss and our founder, and CEO, Mr. Abhijit Verekar. Hello, AV. Good morning.AV (00:23):

Hey, good morning. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas.Megan (00:25):

Yes, AV wearing a tie.
(00:29)
Yeah, and I'm decked out in Christmas attire.
(00:34)
So Santa's joining us today. But yes, Merry Christmas. And if you're joining us today, comment where you're joining from. Please ask questions and help us stay on track, and we love to hear your thoughts. Let's kick off AV. I want to know what this topic means to you. I know anytime that we're in a presentation or we're doing a live, we always go back to if you're building a house, you don't just say, Hey, go build me a house, right? You have to start with the blueprint and the vision of the house and what land am I going to put this house on? How many windows, how many doors, how many bedrooms, right? So what does this topic mean to you and why is it important to vision before we think about transforming digitally?AV (01:29):

And before I go into that, just a reminder to our viewers that this live stream happens every Wednesday morning, which then turns into our podcast and newsletter, which is really fun. And we'll throw in some links in the chat box here for you to go check it out. But going back to your question, Megan, visioning and aligning with what I consider the legislature's goals is very important because that really reflects what the people want from you as a city council or a county commission or a board of an K through 12 organization or a utilities board. The board is the people's representative, the people that you serve. So if the board setting some objectives, the board is setting some strategies, the board is setting some goals. That is the general direction where the organization needs to be going. So if you're doing digital transformation, ERP modernization, any kind of project or a large public works project or a schools project, it needs to always align with strategic goals that are set by the organization at the highest level, which is the council, or any elected body that oversees the operations or is eventually responsible for the city, county or the organization's performance and service delivery.
(02:47)
That's where everything starts. And going back to where we've done it, strategic plans and presented to council, we always make it a point to tie our recommendations, strategic goals or council goals for the year for the next three years. So it all comes together. It's not just technical mumbo jumbo that council members who tend to be firefighters, teachers, dentists don't necessarily understand all of the jargon. So you always have to tie it back to strategic goals.Megan (03:19):

So how can leaders ensure their digital vision is flexible enough to adapt to the council or multiple departments and the end user?AV (03:30):

I don't think it's a matter of flexibility. I think it's a matter of communication and teaching. We always say a lot of what we do is education and teaching before we actually get to do the work. People are not necessarily up to speed with govtech or tech of any kind, they're just looking for outcomes. So in a similar vein, CIOs or whoever's running these transformation projects need to be clear about what they're going to deliver to the end user, what they're going to be delivering to the council, to commission, to the citizens of the organization, people they serve. So it's a great topic because we are about to do a shoot and a video series on how to communicate between CIOs and business council because a lot of times what we see is that's where things fall apart. If CIOs are extremely technical and they're good at what they do, but some of them are not very good at communicating with the business users. So we're doing a whole series on that tune in. But back to your question, it comes down to communication.Megan (04:43):

It does.AV (04:44):

What are we telling the people that matter that we're going to deliver to them or to their constituents?Megan (04:52):

So in your opinion, what are some effective ways to communicate this vision or to come up with the vision and then distribute it? What are some effective ways to communicate?AV (05:05):

I think you have to take advantage of things that are already going on. The councils are doing council meetings, they're doing council retreats. They have council meetings every month or twice every month. Take those opportunities to get engaged with council members, take those opportunities to understand what their pain points are, what they've been elected to do, how they're going about their responsibility, what's important to them. And it's an ongoing thing. You can't just say, here's our IT strategic plan and council, please give us money to implement it. That's when it doesn't go so well because that's when you'll be questioned in public in a council meeting, and that's not the best venue to have that discussion. So constant touch points, constant communication and the formats can vary. Like I said, you go attend meetings, go to council retreats if you're permitted to do so, but seek our opportunities to just talk to council members one-on-one so that they can then talk to each other. And then if we have a real agenda item to bring to them to vote on, it becomes a lot easier. But ongoing communication, frequent and early and often, like we say in our project management approach to things.Megan (06:24):

So when we're talking about visioning, in your opinion, how much research, I can't talk today, excuse me. Research should go into planning research on digital transformation, what other counties, what other cities, what other organizations are doing before you really sit down with your team to set the bullet points, to set a vision.AV (06:50):

Again, it's ongoing. You can't take a snapshot if you want to really be on top of things. This is where we excel, right? Because of the breadth of our services and the reach we have. We know what's going on in the industry at all times. So take advantage of that, not it could be us or some other consulting firm, preferably us, but keep an eye on the industry, go to conferences, study articles and newsletters and vendor material, right? Yes, most guys put out a lot of stuff that's new in the market. So again, it's not a one-time thing, but yes, you have to call on references. If you're buying a certain service and you're about to pull the trigger, make sure you're calling on references. If you have an RFP process and there's references in there, we tend to put our most favored references. Why wouldn't you? So the vendors, so take that with a grain of salt and do your own research as much as possible. And again, it's an ongoing thing. You can do it right before you make a purchase or you're about to make a decision. But as a CIO, as a council, as a city manager, you need to constantly be educating yourself. And it's not always a classroom educationMegan (08:10):

And gathering multiple opinions, right? From different areas and different organizations. For sure. So in your opinion, what are some key components of a successful digital strategy?AV (08:26):

Well, our philosophy is three-pronged, right? You need to take care of cybersecurity first. And we've talked at length about what that means. But at a council, you're talking about public sector organizational goals. Number one is safety, right? You need safety of your people, of your premises, of your infrastructure. And now it's data which applies to all of the above. So keeping that in mind, cybersecurity is the number one priority. You have to patch your holes, make sure you're not vulnerable. And again, that's not a one and done thing. It's an ongoing thing. So that's where the team comes into the picture, who you have as partner organizations. You have an MSP that works with you. All of that needs to be buttoned down. The second key facet or pillar as I call it, is your IT infrastructure. What's the core technology stack that you're running on?
(09:26)
You may have outsourced stuff, you may have things stuck in the cloud or with a managed services provider, but you still have some core infrastructure in your buildings that helped you stay connected, helped you stay backed up, help your people playing wifi when they come in, digital signage. All of that still exists, even if you are a mostly cloud or software as a service organization. So second is infrastructure needs to be resilient. It needs to be have enough bandwidth. You need to have fail safe. So if something fails, you can roll over. You need to have a DR site that's infrastructure and ties closely into with cybersecurity. And the third is enterprise systems. And by that we mean the software you use on a daily basis. How do you create purchase orders? How do you do work orders? How do you track your assets? How do you bill your customers for utilities?
(10:23)
How do you apply for grants and track them, just your general, what we call business applications and how they're managed, how modernized they are, how much they foster an environment of efficiency and automation and transparency where needed. So those three are critical pillars of any digital transformation strategy, and you need to layer on top of that constant change management education, organizational development, because changing technology as difficult as it is, is also the easier part of any transformation. Change management is critical. People management is critical. Taking people along, not just by dragging them along, but making them understand how this impacts not just their jobs, the organization, but the general public, right? When you implement a new utility billing system, you're going to open it up to the public to pay bills online so they don't have to come into the utilities building or city building. It impacts everybody. So you can't take it for granted. So change management and communication with the end user is absolutely critical. So those are three point one-ish pillars and it's evolving. So we might come up with more.Megan (11:41):

Yes. So one of the things I kept hearing was understanding your current digital landscape, which brings us to our next topic in this live stream. So why is it important to understand your current infrastructure to be able to move to a newer operational efficiency, I guess, or a newer technology?AV (12:07):

I think efficiency is the key component there. We've talked again at length about what that might mean to someone. It's different. Efficiency is different to different people. Of course, in an engineering sense or finance sense, it's easy. How can you get the most output for the lowest dollars or energy used or material used? And technology tends to be a little different because efficiency could mean different things to different departments, to different people. So arriving at the definition of what we're after early on is really important. This is where business process redesign comes in the picture. This is why we talk about doing this upfront. We are always talking about don't just go and buy something. See how it fits into your overall strategy, see how it fits into your current structure, how it fits into your current cybersecurity, posture, infrastructure, and other applications you might be using.
(13:05)
We've seen so many RFPs that are looking for one brick. Instead of thinking about how this house is going to be built, they're looking for a brick. I need a brick to build a toilet, but without any attention to what this house looks like, what kind of infrastructure do you have? Does the brick fit? Is it the right color? So there's a lot of information you need to gather upfront and think about things to use. An often used analogy, building a house, architectural drawings come after you've thought about building a house, you've thought about conceptually what you would like in this house, and then you fill in the details. You can't just go to a contractor and say, Hey, how much for a house? They'll tell you based on how you're dressed, howMegan (13:52):

Much well, and you understand your current living condition. You understand what your current home is in order to make a better home, and you understand what it looks like and how much space you need in a closet or in a room. That's so important, so important when you're looking to take on a big project like this. So how can departments share knowledge and share resources when they are planning or trying to understand their current situation?AV (14:26):

So it depends on who is running the show. And by that I mean you might have, and we've seen this often, right? You have a strong-willed, loud voiced department head that usually gets their way because they are the loudest. That doesn't mean that should be that way. It should be business needs based. What mean is when you create an overall strategy for your organization that is technology based, you need to be clear about who needs what in what order, and how much is that going to cost you. That's going to avoid a lot of back and forth and pain in terms of interdepartmental fights for limited resources. So this is why it's critical. We've also seen places where you go in and finance and HR are at odds with each other because one thinks they're more important than the other, or one wants a specific system, the other one wants another system and doesn't think that the two shit interface a whole host of combinations we see every day.
(15:33)
And the best way to tackle that is from the top. The best way to do it is have a strategic planning project before you embark on any of this. And it could just be limited to any ERP strategy. It doesn't have to be a whole digital transformation, but it's recommended because then you can actually see the whole jigsaw puzzle and how this one piece is going to fit into the bigger picture. But by all means, you can still do an ERP needs assessment and strategy and have everyone agree on what is going to be before you set on this path. It's time consuming. Sorry Megan, it's time consuming, but it's the right way of doing these things because you will end up having those discussions and fighting over those things and going back to the board if not during implementation, post-implementation.Megan (16:23):

I was just going to comment on the overall visioning of a digital strategy. With that vision, you can actually prioritize tasks of what needs to be done first and sort of make a list, because a lot of times it's not replacing an ERP, the whole system. Sometimes it's just, Hey, let's redesign this one process over here that's clogging things up. So that was the comment I was going to make. ERP strategy versus IT strategic plan or digital transformation plan. Right. We do have some questions in the comments. I apologize guys. I have not seen this. So how does ERP modernization directly impact the quality and efficiency of services provided to the public?AV (17:17):

Good question. Usually it doesn't, meaning it's the tip of the iceberg that the public see. You may see if your city or county has included utility billing in part of their ERP, then you're going to see the tip of the iceberg being the public facing customer portal. You log in to see what you owe to pay the bills to dispute, to start a new account, to close an account if you're moving. That's one example, and there's several others. The city might be using some open data portals that really give you access to data sets that give you access to the reporting dashboards. There's lots of ways that an ERP modernization can impact the public. Historically, we've seen that these systems have not been able to be open to the public. You need a third party overlays to provide that HTML interface, and now you can buy third party interfaces or whatever ERP system you have more often than not will have a public facing portal that you can use lots of use cases.Megan (18:31):

And what advice would you give to public sector leaders who are considering or are in the early stages of an ERP modernization project? That's a good question too.AV (18:45):

I would slow down. This isn't something you're going to do overnight or within a year or in six months. The second thing is really think about what outcomes you're looking for. Because if it's public sector leaders, and by that I mean the legislatures councils commissions, they're not in the day-to-day of the operation of the organization, right? They're high level, they're setting the path, they're approving the leadership, and they don't necessarily understand the nitty gritty. So take the time to understand it. Don't just dictate that you want a certain thing done by a certain time. That's not how these things work. Think about the outcomes, agree on the outcomes, assign responsibility to the right people within the organization and have a plan before you do anything else, before you approve any sort of purchase, unless it's an emergency. Really look at the planning aspect of this, how it fits into the overall strategy, how it goes back and fits into your council goals. And that should be the first step.Megan (19:52):

Yes, get a holistic picture of what this means to you and to your organization. Katie and I talked a little bit about this last week. Don't always believe what your software vendors tell you because they are going to tell you, Hey, you can get this done in six months. And that is not logical. It is not realistic, especially if you are really wanting to dive in and make necessary changes to where your day jobs are more efficient. So like AV said, the outcomes are important because those outcomes then become almost your requirements for what you want in a software. And then if the software can't provide that to you, then you have some problems, big problems.AV (20:41):

And think of it as a funnel. You have to stop the funnel with all kinds of ideas and think out of the box, go research. This is when research comes in handy. And when we do an ERP needs assessment or an ERP project, we do a lot of lunch and learn where we'll bring in a vendor just so that the users can see what a modern system looks like before they start thinking about requirements. Because a lot of times these users that have been using the same system for 30 plus years, they don't know what a modern system looks like.
(21:16)
So to get the juices flowing, we bring in a vendor non-committal, pre RFP, and it really could be anyone, whoever's available at the earliest time we bring in, and that helps end users think about what's new and what's exciting and what they want in their new system. And then you stuff that into the funnel and then you refine it based on what's realistic, how it interfaces with the other systems, or does something like that exist or not? I've seen some really pie in the sky wishlist items that you could custom make, but it's going to be more work than benefit, so it doesn't make it to the final requirements list.Megan (22:00):

This wasn't on my list of things to talk about, but I think it is important, and we are fixing to do a whole video series around this. So when we're talking about setting a vision for the overall organization, where does my IT department fit into this and what role should they play and what role should they not play? When we're talking about digital transformation,AV (22:27):

It's a critical role. It's often misunderstood as the most important role in talking to CIOs across the country for almost 20 years. It's apparent they're good at the CIO, they're good at the infrastructure cybersecurity or they should be, but you can't expect them to be good at every very specific business use case that you have in mind. You can't expect them to be experts at housing authority business. You can't expect them to be experts at K 12 business side of things. So that's where things tend to fall apart is when A CIO is handed a large ERP or digital modernization project, and when they step outside of their core areas of expertise and people expect them to know everything. So not seeking help from department heads, other SMEs getting their inputs is detrimental to projects. So if you are going to run a large scale ERP or financial system implementation and you don't talk to the CFO or the accountants, then what are you doing?
(23:56)
Right? This goes back to what does going live mean? Does it mean that all of your lights in the data center are green, or does it mean that your accounting clerk can run general entries and make payroll on that particular day? The role of the CI is very critical with hosted services, with software as a service, everything going to the cloud, the CIO, is critical in making sure that you have great connections to the internet, to cloud systems that you're secure not just by giving antivirus software to every desktop, but that you're keeping up with the patching. You're keeping up with your sim, you're paying attention to notifications that your cybersecurity systems are throwing out, that you have your policies, procedures, and manuals in top order that if there is an incident, exactly what do your people know exactly what to do. You should be the chief education officer for the organization as far as cybersecurity, modern modern systems modernization, almost like an internal consulting firm. But what tends to happen is they get blamed for, they get given the projects for, they're expected to understand the nitty ties of accounting of HR or finance of housing authorities in pursuit of a modern ERP system. So that's where we come in. Really we become that arm for the CIO or for the CFO to help translate between the two.Megan (25:32):

Well, yeah, we help bridge the gap, right? Because a lot of times the communication is lost. Like we said, one doesn't know how to communicate with the other or what questions to ask because they live in two different worlds. It is strictly, like you said, data backups, the cloud, the blinky light things, and then you're your CFO or your head of hr. They're all in the day-to-Day operations, and they know how the government side of things work where it is not. So it's a touchy subject, but I think if we can bring both parties to the table and strategize together and clearly define what role you're going to play in this project and why, I think that's crucial in digital transformation really.AV (26:22):

Absolutely. CIOs, IT managers, directors have a huge role to play and no modernization. Come on. You're talking about technology. So they have to be at the table. You can't blindside them with buying systems around them just because it's SaaS, you don't need it, don't need it. Those are fallacies. You need them, and it's veryMegan (26:46):

It does happen.AV (26:47):

Yeah, it absolutely happens.Megan (26:48):

It happens all the time and vice versa. So it is weird. That is very siloed and avs exactly right? That's where we can come in and help bridge that gap and help with the communication piece, I think is really what it all boils down to. What does this party need? What does this party want? And vice versa. So with that being said, I do want to go into our next topic, which is change management. And I think we could do a whole video series around change management, but how do we effectively communicate and engage with stakeholders from different departments? That's my first question when we're talking about change, is how can we effectively communicate what we want?AV (27:37):

My method has always been, again, early, often and comprehensive, meaning different methods, and nothing works better than one-on-one communication with stakeholders. Of course, you can't do that with the whole organization, but when you go into client side, that's asking you for an assessment of some sort. So needs assessment for ERP or an IT strategic plan, you have to go in and get a 360 view of the organization. And that can happen through several different paths, right? You've got information that's written down in an RFP. You have anecdotal information that you can get from people that have been there for a long time. And this is where the importance of being present onsite cannot be overstated. You can only do so much on Zoom when you go on onsite and spend a couple of weeks with the client living and breathing their environment, their processes, their systems, understanding what makes them tick, what doesn't.
(28:43)
People's sense of humor is important. Again, it comes down to the people, to people interactions. And in my experience, that's been the most fulfilling part of consulting to me, and it produces the most results because again, you can only do so much by looking at a screen. You need to go to where these people are working, get to understand what the roadblocks are in their pursuit of efficiency and where does your service fit in? Where does transformation fit in? Where does a new ERP system fit in? And that also gives you a great chance to start the change management process because if you are going to recommend an ERP system, if they're going to do that in the next year while you're doing BPR and you're doing needs assessment, strategic alignment, what have you, it's a great chance for you to really dig in and make people understand what this is going to do for them, their careers, this organization, the citizens in the long run, and also prepare them for a pretty bumpy, most times it is bumpy, no matter how much you try to make it smooth, there are bumps, there are roadblocks.
(29:59)
So change management starts from that standpoint and then it continues because during implementation, you rely on the vendor, the software vendor to do the configurations and you rely on them to do the management on their side. But as a third party independent consultant, it's your job to make sure that we're herding cats at the client side, that they can do their day jobs while doing this project and just be there to support the client in any way that you can. So we've done everything from just bare bones project management to providing staffing resources as they go through implementation. So change management is a constant thing?Megan (30:42):

It is. It is. And it's about us being that trusted advisor. I mean, they don't want to go through this change. I don't want to go through change in my own job, but as long as I know that I have somebody I can lean on who is the expert and who can see the bigger picture when I can't, I think that's the key, right? They need someone there to know that they have support in this change. But with all of that being said, what methods work best for addressing specific concerns between departments? HR has their own specific needs, finance has their own specific needs, but they talk to each other. So how do you go about addressing those specific needs and redesigning a process between the two?AV (31:32):

Well, those two are distinct department function, but at the same time, they share so much the core business functions within any organization. You're managing your money and your people and the needs are different from a functional standpoint, but we need to make them understand how these two combine to deliver value to their end user. And this comes into play typically when you are replacing a system that they both use, both are unhappy with, and now's the opportunity for them to go get one new system or best of breed solution, that's the rub. So having that debate upfront is not useful because you haven't gone through a process redesign, you don't know what your future processes should look like because that then dictates the requirements that dictates which software vendor you're going to pick. And then once you have a few choices, you can see if the one solution can do both things for you or you'd really need to go best of breed. But having this debate early on is not useful in my experience. I mean, you can have it at a philosophical level, you can have it to get the juices flowing in terms of what the requirements should be, how we are different from you, but making decisions at an early stage on whether we should go with one system or best of breed is counterintuitive and not productive.Megan (33:09):

We do have a question in the chat. What feedback mechanisms are important in change management during ERP implementation?AV (33:19):

Good question. I think being open to feedback is critical During any implementation. We've done surveys, we've had an open portal to get people's feedback anonymously or not based on what phase you're in at the end of the phase or milestone, we might do a milestone check-in with the end users and get feedback on that at the end of the project after go live. We definitely want to get feedback and that dictates not only the project team's performance, but how this product is going to be used in the future and how it's going to improve operations for the client. So really important to have feedback. And an open door policy, like large scale ERP implementations usually require an onsite project management office that people can pop into, ask questions, raise concerns, in addition to everything else that all of the other tools that are available for the feedback loop to happen.Megan (34:24):

And with that feedback, I mean any digital transformation project is a great time to change how you've always been doing said process. So I think you can utilize the feedback to hear what your end users have to say and then make those changes while you're already changing systems. I think that's important as well. Let's move on. I want to talk a little bit about data strategy and cybersecurity. So how can a unified data strategy be implemented or developed among departments and among organizations as a whole?AV (35:07):

It depends. Sorry, I have to say it. A unified, unified data strategy. I think starting with the outcome is important, starting with what that means to you because it could be in so many things. Not every department produces the same kind of dataMegan (35:22):

And there are different data needs, butAV (35:25):

It bubbles up at the executive or management level to cross-pollinate and make sense of what this means to your department or what it means to the entire organization. How these data elements rise up to tell you a story of where the business is headed. That's important to have that. You need to have data hygiene. You need to have cleaned up your data before you moved it. You need to decide on how much data you're going to move from an old system to a new system, and how are you going to use it going forward? Because if you're moving from a green screen ass 400 system, you are used to having data in a certain format. You are used to having 30 years plus of transactional data. But what we are seeing or recommending these days is don't bring that much data because there's tons of archival mechanisms. You can just bring forward three years of balances, one year of transactional data, and then if you need to go back and look at something from 1981, there's an archival mechanism. So making those key decisions upfront will help in creating a data strategy because going from an older system to a newer system is the first step. Refining the data to migrate is the first step. And then how you use that data is a whole other element of management and data science that needs its own live.Megan (37:01):

So you mentioned clean data. What does that mean to have clean data?AV (37:10):

Several examples. If you're moving from an older system to a newer system, the data might be in a different format, one than what is accepted by the newer system. So you need to one, change the format. Changing format might mean that the data gets corrupt or jumbled up. So you need to then make sure that when you import this data into the newer system, that the new system understand what each column means. And when you transfer data, it's done through an XML format or Excel. And it's like looking at a spreadsheet. What does this column mean? What does this column mean? So the new system needs to understand what each column means before it starts ingesting it. Otherwise, you're going to have data that's not useful. So cleaning data means making sure that the formats line up that your data is accurate, right? Do some spot testing, historical reviews, and make sure that you're not feeding the new system bad data, garbage in, garbage out. So you have to make sure that your data is clean before you import it. And that's a whole other process. And this is why bringing over 30 years of data, transactional data is not recommended because that will eat up your budget just in cleanup.Megan (38:31):

And this is also why you should have a good relationship with your IT department because this is where they play, right? Yes. These are the things that they understand that our department heads may not, right? This is where they live. And so I think as we mentioned earlier, it's so good to have a good relationship and knowing what roles each play. So let's talk about data integrity. How can we ensure data integrity across all departments within an organization,AV (39:08):

Data integrityMegan (39:11):

And security.AV (39:13):

So integrity means to me, it's like are we putting in the right kind of data into the right spots, right? And data security ties in with the overall cybersecurity posture. So this can come from it. This is a role that CIOs can play, is making people understand that it's key to not just put garbage into your system because then you'll suffer with reporting with other things that go wrong. And on security two-factor authentication is very critical. Not opening your ERP system from a wifi at the Holiday Inn on the beach is important. Lots of key things that CIOs and IT departments can overlay on top of sound project management and making sure the product goes live efficiently after that. All of these things that relate to data hygiene come into play. Got some audience questions here?Megan (40:18):

Oh, okay. Go for it.AV (40:20):

Sam Miller. Thanks Sam for joining. How do you work with municipalities who are still in the nineties technologically where all their data is completely at risk and their leadership is against new technology? Sam, thank you. That's a very insightful question, Sam. It's how do we work with them? I think it starts with the leadership. The first thing is making them understand that it's not a want, it's a need. They need new technology, so you need to convince them. This is where it becomes an educational and a sales job. After we've already sold the project, we now go into council chambers and commission boardrooms to teach them what is going on, what it means to them in lay terms and why it's important to invest at this point. I'll give you an example. We were working with our home county, great, brown County, Tennessee, and the first task was to convince 21 county commissioners that they need to spend about three to $5 million on tech modernization when they hadn't spent that ever in a fiscal year.
(41:35)
The budget was really small. So it came down to setting a strategy, like I talked earlier, meeting with council members, commission members on a almost daily basis to answer questions, build trust to make sure that they understand that this isn't just buying new computers, which is what they were setting out to do. They had set out, I don't know, $150,000 or something or maybe a million dollars just to buy new computers and put up new cabling, but what they needed is much larger. They needed a five-year, IT modernization plan that cost three times as much to really take that county from the 1980s to the 2020s, to the point where they're a pretty well established IT organization now under Justin McClure. But really it starts with leadership and it has to be a sales job. You have to sell it. You can't tell them you need something, it has to be their idea. So yeah, go ahead. Sorry, Megan.Megan (42:41):

No, I think it's about showing the people, right? It's about painting that picture, as simple as that may sound, here's where we are today, here's where we could be in the next year. And I think this is where as a consulting firm, we bring our vendor friends in to do a clear demo and they discuss where data lives and how it's transferred and how easy it is to enter. And then also I think the story is how does this not only impact my organization, but how does it impact the citizens that we serve? Are we still taking in paper applications? How long is the process to take that paper application, scan it, put it in a file, take it to 10 different departments, get a stamp and bring it back? How many days, much time do we save? I think showing them the benefits of what a new strategy could do for them and their day jobs is key asAV (43:44):

Well. And I'll add that it's important to have leadership, someone in there that gets it.
(43:52)
In the case of Blond County, it was the CFO and they brought us in to then spread the word and convince others. And it was a long process before we even got to the part of implementation. So it's important that leadership from an execution perspective, from the mayor's office gets it and they push down the change because you can't do it alone as a consultant or as a CIO. You need the partners in the mayor's office and the city manager's office that get the big picture and allow you the freedom to go through the organization and make change happen.Megan (44:34):

Yes, yes. But again, going back to our overall topic, it's just important to know what you want those outcomes to be and what the overall vision is for the organization. And we can most certainly help you with that if you need our help. Just a small plug,AV (44:52):

Kent has a comment. So true. Regarding data hygiene, bad practices cost major dollars. Yes. Du Kent, thank you for joining us.Megan (45:01):

Yes. How can we ensure that our vendors are using good data practices?AV (45:11):

I don't think we can ensure it. We can certainly set the stage and expectation for it. And really it comes down to your users in the end on data practices. Because once the systems live, the vendor's job is to make sure that it's available to you at all times. And they're not so much responsible. They're responsible for data security and keeping it backed up, but not necessarily for the hygiene. But what they are responsible for is security, like I mentioned. So it's important to make sure that they are made to understand what cybersecurity, posture and standards you have within the organization and they better meet or beat it. There is no other option. They can't come to the table and say, well, we don't meet your CSEC standards, but still buy a product that's a no-go. So when we do requirements definitions for our clients, we have a section, a whole section in there that dictates what our posture is, what the client will accept at a minimum as far as your security standards and how the minimum standards at which we will let you host our data. Because it's critical. And it's not just ERP solution, it applies to everything you do. You have to make sure that you have high standards for cybersecurity and that your vendor community is following the same.Megan (46:40):

Yes, absolutely. So as we wrap up today, I want to talk a little bit about measuring success because I think it's important once you set the vision, once you make the changes, how do we know that the changes are made and how do we know that those changes continue to stick? Right? So how do we measure a successful digital transformation project?AV (47:06):

One is, did you achieve your outcomes? So going back to the initial thought, set a stage for outcome, set a stage for your vision, and did you achieve it? A great example is our client, the city of Wilsonville, Oregon. I did a strategic plan for them in 2016, and they reached out again in 2022 and said, we would like to redo the plan. And more often than not, the plans that we make don't get implemented because run out of funding, political turmoil, what have you. Wilson will actually completed everything we had recommended, well, 90% of it, which was great to see, right? So now the challenge was how do you top that? Because when the bar set low, it's easy to create an IT strategy. But they had done everything. They had followed the plan, and now the challenge was taking them to the next level. So that was a great success because we could look back and say what was recommended, gosh, eight years ago, and how much they have done in the last eight years. So very successful project for us and them because they actually followed through, which means that our recommendations weren't pie in the sky. They were smart, measurable, attainable, and timely. So that's important to setting the stage and the vision is very important for measurement of any goal.Megan (48:39):

Sure. How do you think in regards to Wilsonville, how do you think their executive leadership held their organization accountable to the plan, or at least to making a change to the plan or revisiting the plan?AV (48:52):

I think the city manager at the outset was very clear that he wanted an actionable plan. So we had our task cut out. Most city managers say that, and then they had good leadership, the new CIO, Andy Stone and Beth and everybody, there were champions of change. They wanted it from the core of their being, right? It wasn't just something that the city manager was making them do. These guys were driving it. And that was the difference. The IT organization at Wilsonville access their internal consultants and drives change internally without being told what to do. In fact, they were so harsh on themselves whenever we did the first project and the second one, and you could see that these people want to change. They just needed guidance from the outside on best practices and what's going on in other places. What are the trends? And they took it and ran with it, and it was beautiful to watch.Megan (49:52):

Yes. So what ongoing processes can be established to ensure improvement and to ensure that we are staying with the changes that we made?AV (50:03):

I think taking another look at your, so let's just say it's an IT strategic plan or a digital transformation plan. You need to look at it annually because when we do a plan these days, it spans three years or five years depending on where you are. But the rate of change in technology is so rapid that you can't look at it in five years and say, well, what did we do? We have to look at it every year, which is also what Wilson will, going back to that project City of Wilson will did is they actually went back and looked at the plan every year and changed some recommendation because they weren't relevant in 2018, what we said they should do in 16. So commendable how they handle that. So we recommend that to everybody. We'll give you a plan if you want to have a stick around and help you implement it, we'll do that. But really take a look at it every year to make sure it's still relevant and attainable.Megan (50:59):

So what are your, we'll say top two key takeaways from today's discussion.AV (51:07):

My takeaways one is that the CIOs are extremely important.Megan (51:15):

They are.AV (51:16):

They should not be expected to understand everything about everything. Just because a project says software in it doesn't mean that the CIOs should know everything about everything. It's a business software and they need to lean on business to understand what needs to happen. And the second is long-term thinking. Again, we are huge fans of long-term. Long-term thinking and talking to commissioners and council members is critical as a CIO, as A CFO, anybody to understand the top level strategic goals and visions and council metrics and how your part plays into achieving that for the entire organization.Megan (51:59):

Yes, I think mine is, it's one thing to have a vision and to have ideas and to think long-term, but it's another thing to communicate that vision downwards and how to get everyone on board. How can I be a change champion? I think that was a key takeaway for me. Thank you guys. If you want to hear from us again, we go live every week on a Wednesday. We're live on all platforms. If you have questions or you have topics you would like to hear about, please reach out to us. We're very easily accessible and I hope everyone has a very, very merry Christmas. Thanks, AV.