Customer Overview

The City of Yarra is a local government area in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It covers an area of approximately 19 square kilometers and is home to around 100,000 residents. The City of Yarra Council employs around 350 people across various departments and agencies. These employees work across a range of roles, including administration, customer service, community development, and infrastructure.

The Challenge

The City of Yarra is a local government municipality in Victoria, located in the inner Eastern and Northern suburbs of Melbourne. City of Yarra have implemented the Ready Contracts (powered by Open Windows) Modular Procurement Suite to 250 users who manage approximately 500 Contracts and $419 million in committed expenditure. Before implementing Ready Contracts (powered by Open Windows), the City of Yarra was heavily reliant on paper based, manual processes to manage procurement requests (Request for Tender and Request for Quote).

This practice resulted in inefficiencies and a lack of visibility, leading to delays in the process and an inability to forward plan procurement workload and resourcing. Without a centralised system for contract management, City of Yarra had insufficient access to key contract management information such as contract financials, key dates, variations, insurances and documents. As a result, City of Yarra did not have the reporting or auditing capability they required. City of Yarra required a system with streamlined process that would allow them to improve efficiency, reduce risk and provide visibility and control in contract and category spend.

The Solution

The Ready Contracts (powered by Open Windows) Modular Procurement Suite provided City of Yarra with a centralised procurement and contract management system which allowed them to build standardised online processes, enable reporting, financial tracking and reduce the administrative workload associated with Insurance Management. To facilitate whole of organization single entry contract management, City of Yarra implemented Finance One integration for financial information, and HP Content Manager integration for document storage. City of Yarra initially implemented the following Ready Contracts (powered by Open Windows) modules from the Modular Procurement Suite;

- Processes
- Contracts
- Supplier Relationship Management
- Sourcing
- Budgets
- Compliance

Yarra City Council is currently implementing the SRM PORTAL to further streamline their Supplier communications, insurance management and supplier relationship management.

Project Result

Implementing the The Ready Contracts (powered by Open Windows) Modular Procurement Suite has delivered a range of benefits to City of Yarra, including:

Designed workflow processes

The Ready Contracts (powered by Open Windows) configured process workflow templates allowed City of Yarra to transition their practice from a paper-based process, to one that is
managed entirely online. Procurement and contract managers can use the processes to simply step through their required tasks, ensuring consistent data entry and structured and secure electronic approvals.

Improved Efficiency and Planning

Using The Ready Contracts (powered by Open Windows) has provided the procurement team with a tool that allows them to forward plan their resourcing and workload as they are now automatically notified of upcoming work at the commencement of a procurement request.

Improved Quality

By using workflow and automated notifications, City of Yarra has been able to ensure that consistent data is being captured. Controls are now in place to ensure Contract Managers are using compliant documentation in the procurement processes and that contract management activities such as closeout, renewals, insurance expiry, and variations are being managed in a centralised system.

Greater Visibility

The Ready Contracts (powered by Open Windows) Modular Procurement provides real time visibility into the status of procurement activities and processes. Procurement and Contract Officers now have simple access to critical contract information such as key contractual dates, financial and governance information.

Stronger Compliance

Prior to implementing Ready Contracts (powered by Open Windows), City of Yarra identified a significant risk with Insurance Management. By using automated notifications for insurance certificate expiry and HP Content Manager Integration they can now ensure all insurances and certificates of currency are being managed.

Time Savings

The use of process workflows to manage the Request for Tender and Request for Quote procurement activities has significantly reduced the lead time previously experienced. With improved insurance management the procurement team has reduced their administrative workload as they no longer need to follow-up on certificates of currency.

Accurate Financial Reporting

Ready Contracts (powered by Open Windows) Modular Procurement provides fast and easy access to contract and category spend reports. These reports are configurable and available to all system users through the Advanced Export feature.

Improved Financial Controls

City of Yarra now has appropriate controls in place via the Finance One integration to ensure that purchase orders are not being raised against expired contracts or being raised for contracts where an approved variation may be required.

“If you are running a procurement department and you don’t know how much you are spending on your tenders and quotations, then you are not providing the organisation with the data that they need.”

Graham Wilsdon - Coordinator Strategic Procurement