Services Transformation (ERP)

South Kensington Imperial

Achieving a more efficient and streamlined ‘one Imperial’ approach to service delivery in support of the College’s activities and desired growth.

 

Overview

The Services Transformation project sits within the Professional Services Transformation Programme, set up to evolve the College operating model to provide more effective support to departments and to promote a ‘one Imperial’ approach to service delivery.  

The Services Transformation project is focused on the delivery of finance, HR and research administrative functions in support of the College’s activities and desired growth. The aim is to achieve a more efficient and streamlined service delivery through improving the processes and supporting technology used to deliver these functions across the College to support working in a better, less complicated and more engaged way. This includes replacing ICIS, the College’s current enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

The focus of this project is on a simpler, easier and faster experience for all involved. Achieving a more cohesive service that has greater capabilities and flexibility through consistency, data visibility, reliability and automation will allow us to better understand how these services are working, adapt to meet future demands, and enable staff to invest more time in value-adding activities, to enable the College to grow. 

 

Objectives

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Improved experience

A simpler, easier and faster service experience for all users requesting or managing regular recurring activities.

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Process simplicity

Faster service delivery through consistency, defined roles and reduced manual effort due to streamlined workflows and automation.

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Improved data quality

Unified datasets, consolidation and systems interoperability for better data quality and visibility to support decision making.

Our approach

Our work is shaped around the following key design principles:

  • People come first, meaning the focus is on a simpler, easier and faster experience for all involved.
  • Processes are assessed from an end-to-end perspective, cutting across activities taking place in departments and services.
  • Processes will be standardised, consistent and efficient with clear roles and responsibilities.
  • Benefits of the transformation will be quantified and tracked to measure the impact of the change.
  • Data will be consolidated to build a “single source of truth” supporting transparency and decision-making. 

Many staff members have already taken part in workshops and focus groups to help map processes and to identify current pain points. We are currently working with digital transformation agency UBDS, who has convened a project team of nominated cross-College subject matter experts from HR, Finance, the Research Office and representative academic departments to use these contributions to help define how we can change for the better and the impact of doing so.

Timing

A business case is being developed and will be presented to Provost’s Board in the autumn to seek approval for a system procurement next phase of work.