Objective journeys to the Mornington Peninsula

December 2, 2008: Mornington Peninsula Shire, the third largest Council in Victoria, has implemented Objective Corporation’s (ASX: OCL) Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution to underpin its information management strategy.

In a 650-user, enterprise-rollout, Objective forms both the foundation and delivery vehicle for the Council’s Seamless Access, Sharing and Storage of Information (SASSI) strategy.

“We are wholeheartedly focused on providing excellence in service to our community,” said Dr Michael Kennedy, Shire CEO, at Mornington Peninsula Shire, “In order to achieve this we knew that an information management solution had to provide more value than merely complying with recordkeeping and other statutory obligations.

“In implementing this solution we are able to capture, store and manage all of our information and then leverage this to create a platform for collaboration across the organisation, with our community partners and service providers and to the community,” said Dr Kennedy.

Using Objective’s document and records management modules, together with workflow and web content management, Mornington Peninsula Shire expects faster turn-around times for existing services and improved quality of services by providing more options for people to interact and collaborate with the Council.

“We don’t want to merely extend access to information, although this will be a positive by-product, we want to actively enable business transactions to be conducted 24 x 7.
“Further, in seeking improvements in business processes, we are always focussed on meeting the values of our Sustainable Peninsula initiative, to be environmentally, socially and economically sustainable,” said Dr Kennedy.

For example, the process of applying for Local Law permits will be streamlined and available at any time of the day. Potentially up to 8,000 to 10,000 applications for permits, licence renewals and other activities could be processed online in a year. Previously, people seeking a permit or license renewal would download a form from the web, fill it in, return it to the Council where it would be scanned by the Records Management team and then forwarded to the relevant officer for review and further processing or approval, followed by outbound
correspondence generation and subsequent filing. Using Objective, the request will be processed completely electronically, routed using workflow to single or multiple authorities
and granted, communicated and stored in a single, streamlined process.

Objective will be used across many and varied business processes throughout the entire operations of Mornington Peninsula Shire. From navigating the highly paper-intensive process of statutory planning to drafting, publishing and distributing agendas, minutes and actions to Councillors. It will also be used for public consultation and community engagement, for example, online surveys.

In addition to delivering a platform for document, correspondence and records management, the first stage of the implementation will involve Objective being integrated with the Shire’s Property Management System, TechnologyOne Property and Rating (ASX:TNE), and following that, other corporate systems such as Geographical Information System (GIS) and Merit, the customer relationship management (CRM) system.

In selecting Objective as its ECM solution, Mornington Peninsula Shire conducted an exhaustive planning and evaluation process.

“We saw this process as implementing a new philosophy and way of working throughout the organisation, not simply the purchase of a software solution.

“There is genuine excitement and anticipation of the rollout of the solution which is helping enormously with our change management program,” said Dr Kennedy.

The Shire is very focussed on ensuring complete adoption of Objective throughout the organisation and has detailed change management and communication plans in place that are focused on individuals’ needs, tailored to their roles and responsibilities.

“Ensuring successful user-uptake was one of the reasons we selected Objective.
“The software’s ease-of-use and its ability to work seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook and Word was seen as essential in minimising the impact of change on our users. People are working with tools that are familiar to them and are not required to learn something new.
“Objective was also chosen because they were clearly experienced in delivering solutions to Local Government. Their reference sites and performance in scenario testing gave us a high level of confidence in their ability to deliver not only software, but a solution that would meet the vision of our strategy,” said Dr Kennedy.

Mornington Peninsula Shire Council is the third largest of 79 local Councils in Victoria. It has a population of more than 140,000 people, increasing to more than 200,000 during the peak summer period. It covers 720 square kilometres with costal boundaries of 192km (10% of Victoria’s coastline).

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