ERP Evaluation

Project Profile 1

  • Government sector
  • Provincial
  • Agriculture
  • Lending/Insurance

Client: Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC) is a provincial crown corporation with a private sector Board of Directors that provides farmers, agribusinesses and other small businesses loans, crop insurance and farm income disaster assistance. AFSC is closely linked with (and partly funded by) government but also works closely with many private sector companies through key business alliances. AFSC reports to Alberta's Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (AFRD). AFSC has provided Alberta farmers with hail insurance for over 70 years, and has grown into a diverse Corporation with several core businesses: crop insurance, farm loans, commercial loans and farm income disaster assistance.

Project: To explore the risks and benefits of replacing existing legacy accounting and financial systems. To evaluate possible options. To select a vendor/partner through an RFP process and to create a business case that clearly shows ROI and all benefits and risks.
Budget: $50,000

Strategy: As Program, Manager at AFSC, I was responsible for planning the entire process of selecting an ERP system that would replace their old Peoplesoft system.  We performed a SWOT analysis on the old financial system, then I performed an opportunity evaluation and created teams to look at an ideal future state.  I used Gartner research to look for the best ERP vendors that could handle our requirements.  I then created an RFP with evaluation guidelines that required the vendor to perform a gap-analysis and then provide on-site demonstrations on how their ERP system could meet our requirements.  After this was completed I had a formal meeting with all stakeholders and summarized our findings.  The result was a clear direction to move ahead with SAP as our new ERP of choice.