DIY ethos yields results for Aurora
DIY ethos yields results for Aurora
Business intelligence brings in a new dawn in information management.
As a new business, Aurora Energy found the legacy systems of its previous parent company didn't fit its needs.
Aurora Energy is the sole power provider for Tasmania and a handful of islands in Bass Strait. It generates $587 million in annual operating revenue from energy distribution and retailing, with core assets totaling $715 million and an employee base of 820 people at around 19 locations across Tasmania. Government owned Aurora has also experienced some substantial growth, and has been subsequently forced to re-evaluate its business intelligence tools and decided to have "a major overhaul of our financial systems".
Enter the Navision edition of Microsoft's Business Solutions software, which has recently been implemented by Aurora. The legacy system it replaced was configured for Tasmania's Hydro-Electric corporation, which was split into three different business divisions in 1998, one of which was Aurora Energy, the distribution and retail arm. Aurora Energy's legacy system had been only loosely configured to their requirements over the past four years.
"[The legacy financial system] no longer met the needs of the new business, it wasn't integrated with our other systems and were expensive to maintain and upgrade," said Gina Salier the co-manager for the project.
Eight business intelligence (BI) vendors submitted proposals to Aurora Energy and after testing every application, Navision representatives and solutions provider Data #3 were chosen for the project.
"We had a preliminary screening process whereby we didn't totally go out to the market. The chosen solution provider needed to have a presence in Australia, a small system footprint, and software that was compatible with our existing PC's," he said. "We tested and priced a number of systems before submitting anything to our stakeholders. Tier one applications were off the cards because of their price. So we did our homework very thoroughly first up, and then presented the options to our stakeholders."
The Navision Edition met Aurora Energy 's criteria of stability and a long-term future in the market. According to Aurora's project sponsor and then chief financial officer, John Devereaux, Navision was chosen because it is "owned by a company that had a substantial balance sheet and resource capability."
INTEGRATION
The scope of the project was driven by the integration. The application needed to function in harmony with Aurora Energy 's other core systems, namely the in-house electricity billing system, the payroll system and the works management system. This is where Aurora Energy 's approach to integration went down a different path. Rather than outsource the integration, Aurora Energy decided to give its own workforce full ownership of the software changeover.
"The model we used was much harder on the business. We have 830 staff and withdrawing up to 40 of them from their usual tasks for extended periods of time required significant organisation. However, it meant greater business involvement and less expenditure on consultant's fees."
Aurora Energy wanted to rely on the collective knowledge of its organisation, and reduce the expenditure associated with outsourcing.
"We didn't have the money to throw at a large external team. But, more importantly, we have some very competent people and we wanted to give them the opportunity to acquire valuable new skills," said Ms Salier. This somewhat progressive approach was eventually embraced by business intelligence integrator Data #3, who worked as part of the team, and who were, according to Ms Salier, expert at keeping a tight reign on the projects budget so that Aurora Energy "didn't get any unpleasant surprises." Input came not only from Aurora Energy and Data #3 project factions; feedback from staff at all levels were fed to the consulting team over the course of development, which enhanced the "company driven" nature of the project.
Aurora Energy's "DIY" approach to implementation has implications for organisations across the spectrum; Aurora Energy emphasised that there were very tangible pros and cons that should be considered by an organisation before it embarks upon on its own course of system implementation. They had a formal structure for gathering the information it required and appointing a core team of ten employees from different sectors of the business: management, accounting, retail, distribution and services staff. This team received requests and suggestions from a business advisory team of thirty staff, whose input was trialed and gauged by the core team for possible implementation. John Devereuax said that any organisation considering a similar approach to Aurora Energy 's needed to consider the ramifications that such a project would have for the company's human resources.
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