New Zealand local governments say SaaS is the way

14 November 2023 – TechnologyOne, the leading provider of enterprise software solutions to New Zealand’s local government sector, says the era of ‘on-prem’ is over with 100 per cent of its customers either using or committed to moving to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology to power their core back-office and administrative services.

With 73 per cent of Australian and New Zealand residents living in councils powered by TechnologyOne, the Australasian software company said it was proud to report a large majority of the sector had switched to a modern platform.

Within New Zealand alone, TechnologyOne has partnered with Taupo, Queenstown Lakes, Waikato, Waipa and Ashburton District Councils – already on SaaS – as well as Hastings District Council and Rotorua Lakes Council recently having signed up to start the transition – just to name a few.

Alan Adcock, General Manager of Corporate at Whangarei District Council, one of TechnologyOne’s council customers in New Zealand already on SaaS, said: “For years, we had made platform and system changes to solve the problems and support the aspirations of individual departments and functions, often with ‘best-of-breed’ solutions. In doing so, we had created a maze of conflicting version dependencies, disparate data sets and multiple versions of the truth. We had lost sight of the bigger picture. We wanted to be business-led, not IT-led, and at the same time adopt ‘out-of-the-box’ solutions that were cost-effective to support.”

TechnologyOne’s local government expert, Loretta Libke said: “With 36 years of industry experience, we have supported hundreds of councils to simplify, streamline and save time and money within their day-to-day operations and deliver quality services to their communities thanks to SaaS.”

“The pandemic made it clear that councils needed to move to a platform that would allow staff to work anywhere, anytime from any device, while also servicing their communities and allowing their citizens to interact with them remotely. Since then, we have seen councils across the globe start their digital transformations and make the move to SaaS, and we are incredibly proud to be part of that journey with so many of them.”

In a recent report, commissioned by TechnologyOne, IBRS surveyed citizens across New Zealand to gain an understanding of how they use local and central government digital services. From a tech and social perspective, the report found that investing in core SaaS solutions, a robust digital adoption strategy, and strong citizen information processes enhanced digital government services for all, especially those most in need of support.

TechnologyOne’s CEO, Ed Chung said: “Our SaaS solution enables both operational resilience and exceptional and flexible digital service delivery. Our team members understand what councils and their citizens need – each and everyone of us has interacted with our own local governments in some way, shape or form, whether that’s registering our pets, paying our rates, or checking when bin day is. We built our OneCouncil solution to deliver a seamless integrated SaaS ERP experience, built specifically for local government, better connecting council employees, field workers and customers and transforming the way councils serve their communities.”