Nowadays public sectors and governments concerned with balancing their growing constituent demands with reduced budget should appreciate the importance of ERP systems for a range of challenges. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 offers a full range of capabilities for the public sector that are worth exploring, from citizen services to managing funding to human resources, and even, one could argue, for weighing the gravest decisions like declarations of war.
A government that serves its people must consider the citizens as its most powerful asset, and also its primary customer in delivering services. Dynamics AX 2012 can improve citizen services through customer relationship and case management capabilities. The Dynamics CRM Connector and the Dynamics AX public sector module make it faster and easier to serve more citizens more efficiently.
Serving the citizens
Grants funded by the government should also be handled properly so all interests know where and when these funds are used. Dynamics AX 2012 can manage every fund or grant as a project to track multi-year budgets and improve project management through integration with Microsoft Project Server 2010.
And what about the government employees? Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012's public sector module in combination with the Human Capital Management capabilities enable government officers to manage their human resource including benefits administration, absence management, compensation management, injury and illness tracking, employee development, and competency management.
It is true when we say that the governments should maintain transparency of information, and ERP help in making a single version of Truth and trustworthy that cannot be questioned. That makes Dynamics AX2012 Public Sector module help increase government agility and ensure organizational compliance with laws, regulations, policies, and business rules.
For Mike Bailey, the CFO of City of Redmond, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 Public Sector capabilities have transformed his city government. Here were his comments after the implementation done by Microsoft:
“What is fundamentally different today is the mindset about how the city works and how we can use technology to be much better at what we do. Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is probably the strongest example of how technology can help us improve constituent services so that people can interact more easily with the city, get their questions answered faster, and experience a much more transparent, responsive municipal government.”
Executive decision support
The decision support requirements of a business are not far from what a nation's president needs when making an important decision concerning the national security of his country. And when it comes to war, there must be a strong justification, considering that a "war budget" will cost billions of dollars. Can he analyze this data, understand the country's resources, and make the correct decision on whether to go to war?
If you implement ERP in all public and government sectors, and if you train your legislators and cabinet secretaries well on how to use such a solution, you would easily gain insight into the money and resources available before you get into a war. Don't you want to decrease the budget deficit and debt of your country? When you adopt modern ERP solutions across your government, these fiscal goals become so much easier to understand.
You may find my approach odd, but when making a decision to war, a president should be collecting the right information from the public, private, and government organizations, as well as the military's own budget, to find out whether the nation has sufficient funds to support the decision of war or not.
Of course, a decision to go to war rests on other factors too like political crises, the actions of other nations, and threats that may be beyond a leader's immediate control. And declaring war will affect so many people, organizations that it is undoubtedly one of the most difficult decisions to make and a big responsibility on President's shoulders.