The Council seeks a supply partner or partners to deliver software product(s) which will singly or collectively deliver the concept of a Corporate Enterprise Solution (CES), designed to deliver the full range of operational services across the Council.

The CES will initially have the capability to deliver enhanced CRM and Business support functions in the areas of financial management/procurement, performance management and programme/project management. However, it will also be assessed in its ability to grow to become a full corporate enterprise tool serving many of the remaining back office functions at the Council, including HR/Payroll, asset management, income management and business intelligence. The Council is not simply buying a one off supply of software; it is the intention that the chosen supplier(s) becomes a trusted partner delivering a long term plan of service improvements and a software solution to support significant business change over several years.

The delivery of an Enterprise CRM Solution, which will reduce the complexities of, and enhance the Councils ability to manage customer contact, process requests for services; and deliver those resulting services. It has 2 key delivery elements, encompassing the first 2 outcomes of the wider project. The first is the delivery of an enhanced CRM system that will be used to manage all customer interaction across the Council; and deliver end to end service delivery processes. The scope of the enhanced CRM solution will have the potential to provide capabilities such as customer and transaction management, Omni-channel capabilities, customer self service options, data reporting, knowledgebase, customer engagement methods, artificial intelligence supported enquiries and process automation and workflow capabilities. The product will also need to work in conjunction with other customer management products including the Councils contact centre and website capabilities. The second element is the delivery of professional services to enable the transfer of customer-facing service transactions into the enhanced CRM system, in entirety where possible, or delivering frontline activities in CRM and providing 2 way integration to retained business systems where needed. The benefits the Council are seeking from the delivery of such enterprise CRM solution are:

(a) improved access options for customers;

(b) delivery of a single view of the customer model;

(c) enhanced first contact resolution, with a right first time response;

(d) focus on customer- based transactions, as opposed to silo service transactions;

(e) consistent, simplified, optomised, and digitally enabled processes;

(f) services that easy to grow and adapt;

(g) invaluable customer insight and business intelligence;

(h) supports organisational transformation to a customer-centric organisation.

In addition, the council are also looking for optional services, including but not restricted to performance management capabilities, and would consider the consolidation of this system within the Enterprise CRM solution.

The Council has the view that consolidating back office support functions (potentially with our customers-facing service provision), through a corporate enterprise solution, would give significant benefits in the long-term. These benefits would include improved efficiency, service management, working practices, and business intelligence opportunities, as well as modern business support systems which can support our transformational changes. The Council are therefore looking to transfer back office support functions and business applications, into a corporate enterprise solution. Within this lot, the Council are looking to deliver specific business support functions at the start of the contract whilst also assessing any product for fit with its aspirational wider enterprise business support vision. The initial requirement is for a financial management system capable of supporting government legislative and regulatory requirements in financial management and procurement functions. The solution shall include account payable, accounts receivable, general ledger, bank reconciliation, purchasing, invoicing and wider procurement functions, budget planning, budget management and financial reporting capabilities. Any chosen solution will be assessed for its ability to support further business support functions (optional services) in the areas of HR, Payroll, asset management and income management and the ability to provide business intelligence tools.

In addition within this lot the Council also seeks optional services, including but not restricted to programme and performance management capabilities.

The benefits of an enterprise business support solution are:

(a) improved financial management capabilities to support the Councils emerging regeneration, commercial and investment activities;

(b) ability to join up processes and data across a range of functions easily and simply to support management and employee functions;

(c) improved service and management intelligence at the fingertips of Council managers;

(d) enabling data led decision making;

(e) provides greater ability to deliver business intelligence in the future.