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Success Story: Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government Looks to Metaformers to Rescue Failed PeopleSoft Implementation
September 18, 2008
McLean, VA
Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and continues to be the financial and cultural center of the state’s Bluegrass Region. Once known as the “Athens of the West” for the cultured lifestyle of its citizenry, Lexington to this day boasts a reputation and regional influence far exceeding its size.
Since the early 1950s, Lexington's economy has increasingly become a manufacturing, technology-oriented, and university oriented economy. The city is a leading medical and commercial center for the state.
Lexington has a globally-recognized horse industry and rightly boasts that it is the horse capital of the world. The 2010 World Equestrian Games, held at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, will bring approximately 500,000 visitors to the region. This is the first time the competition has ever been held in North America, and the first time in Equestrian Games history that all events have been held in one location. This will be the largest equine sporting event ever held in the United States.
In 1974, the City of Lexington merged with Fayette County to form the first consolidated city-county government in Kentucky. The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG) employs almost 4,000 people and is responsible for the delivery of all local services.
Business Issue: Failed Implementation
Soon after taking office in January 2007, newly-elected Mayor Jim Newberry faced a serious challenge with the government’s financial management systems. A PeopleSoft solution implementation from six months before had gone poorly, leaving the government without access to reliable financial information. The AR/Billing implementation was unreliable as the government’s system of record. The Accounting team did not have beginning balances in their General Ledger. Commitment Control data was unreliable, as were the critical “budget to actuals” reports used by the administration and the city council. The administration faced a stark choice: terminate the $10 million implementation and start over, or resolve the long list of issues where possible, re-implement where needed, and move forward with its PeopleSoft solution.
Implementation Process Plan
Oracle introduced the city to Metaformers as a go-to consultancy for customers in critical situations. Metaformers quickly assessed the problems as being related to implementation decisions and not the software. The administration agreed with this assessment and decided to engage Metaformers to help them meet this challenge.
Business Goal: Automate, Streamline, and Modernize Business Processes on the Basis of their Enterprise Solution
The previous implementation created serious technical issues with Billing, AR, Commitment Control, GL, Asset Management, Purchasing, and the technical environment. Metaformers leveraged deep industry knowledge as well as PeopleSoft Enterprise experience to analyze each issue, reverse any existing errors, recommend a PeopleSoft Best Practices approach, and implement a long-term solution.
Business Benefit: Modernize Business Processes
As each best practice solution was implemented, LFUCG accrued the benefits of a properly functioning enterprise system. Period-end processes enabled routine closes of each fiscal month, validating the synchronization of Commitment Control and GL ledger data. LFUCG’s critical “budget to actuals” reports used by the administration and city council provided detailed and accurate data. LFUCG’s 2009 budget was formulated entirely with PeopleSoft EPM Budgeting version 9.0.
Business Benefit: Establish the Path to PeopleSoft ROI
In addition to the development of robust data, accurate reporting, seamless integration, Metaformers worked with the LFUCG executive team to establish a path that maximizes ROI. One key component to this plan focused on transitioning functional and technical knowledge to LFUCG to achieve ROI by enabling self-maintenance. This involved providing expert guidance, training analysts on the approach who then trained general users, and documenting the approach in the form of desk procedures for the benefit of the general user community.
Why Oracle PeopleSoft?
PeopleSoft Enterprise is the leading solution for government, supported by hundreds of millions of investment dollars from Oracle to establish and constantly improve the solution in line with government customer best practices and needs.
The most concrete sign that the government had truly turned the corner and was back on track to gain the ROI from its PeopleSoft Enterprise solution was when it chose to increase that investment. LFUCG moved forward in April 2008 with its 9.0 HCM implementation and 8.9 Treasury, Grants/Projects, Program Management, Inventory, Maintenance Management, and IT Asset Management, choosing Metaformers as implementer.
- Kyna Koch, Commissioner of Finance, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government
“Metaformers has differentiated itself through its understanding of PeopleSoft delivered best practices for government and through their ability to maximize ROI from the PeopleSoft solution.”
- Rama Dhuwaraha, Chief Information Officer, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government
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