Skip to main content
Home

Surrey County Council Selects Unit4 People Experience Suite to Deliver Organization Wide Transformation Program

London, UK

September 25, 2020

Unit4, a cloud leader in enterprise software for people-centred organizations, today announced that Surrey County Council has awarded Unit4 a £30 million contract for the replacement of its SAP ERP system.

With Unit4’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Financial Planning and Analytics (FP&A) Talent Management and Proactis Supplier Management, Sourcing and Contract Management solutions, the Council will be able to address urgent technical drivers for change, while also enabling the council to achieve its ambitions to transform services, drive efficiencies, improve management decision making and to fully enable a flexible and mobile workforce.

The implementation of the Unit4 platform will result in effective decision making and an agile and flexible way of working. The Council, its employees and customers will be able to request leave, manage performance and development information, view real-time information and analytics via dashboards and reports, as well as forecast spend and monitor budgets, more quickly and efficiently.

Surrey is a large county in the South East of England, with a population of over 1.15m citizens and an annual operating budget of £1.2bn. Surrey County Council is one of the largest Local Government organizations in the UK. It has ambitious plans to deliver a digital transformation program that will include:

  • Intuitive digital self-service processes
  • Increased automation of transactional processes
  • A single trusted source of accurate and timely financial, people and procurement data
  • Improved evidence-based decision making
  • New income generation streams

With an initial seven-year contract the program will see the replacement of the incumbent SAP system, that had been in place for some 15 years, with the Unit4 People Experience Suite deployed to 6,500 full time employees and deliver a HR and Payroll bureau service to approximately 36,000 external users covering schools and teachers. The Council will benefit from:

  • Modern, future-proofed solutions, powered by AI, machine learning and industry best practice processes
  • Streamlined budget planning, forecasting and analysis
  • Greater procurement value from strategic sourcing and contract management
  • Enhanced supplier lifecycle management
  • The ability to swiftly adapt to change with easily configurable tools
  • Gain real-time, meaningful insight into data that will provide a single source of truth on one platform
  • Enable managers and teams with tools to boost productivity, engagement and growth
  • A reduction of time spent on administrative activities
  • A platform to support the future growth aspirations of the Council

This large scale program will see Unit4 working collaboratively with Elite Implementation Partners Embridge Consulting to deliver project excellence and an industry best practice approach. The combination of Unit4 and Embridge Consulting has a proven track record of supporting Council-wide transformation programs and delivering tangible value to the Public Sector.

We needed a true cloud platform that would deliver high-level business outcomes across the Council ecosystem and Unit4 is the solution to deliver this for us.

Leigh Whitehouse

Director of Resources at Surrey County Council

Leigh Whitehouse, Director of Resources, Surrey County Council said: “Our vision for a transformation program meant an end to-end review of the finance, procurement and HR and payroll processes and systems we had in place with our previous IT supplier. We needed a true cloud platform that would deliver high-level business outcomes across the Council ecosystem and Unit4 is the solution to deliver this for us. It will be a bold step change in the user experience, empowering people with accurate and insightful data for enhanced, intelligent decision making, and ultimately future-proofing our workforce.”

Chris Richards, Regional President UKI, Unit4 said: “We are very proud to have been selected by Surrey County Council to help them with their transformation program. This decision further cements our leading position in Local Government. The most progressive and digitally savvy organizations are adopting far more agile approaches to help increase engagement with the public to develop the local services that matter. Working in partnership with Embridge, together we can help connect, inform and engage Surrey County Council’s stakeholders more effectively and efficiently.’’

Emma O’Brien, Founder and CEO, Embridge, said: “Once again, Unit4 is leading the way in supporting Local Government and we are very pleased to be working with them on this project to support the implementation delivery and deployment of the Unit4 platform. Our teams are excited to be working alongside Unit4 and Surrey County Council on this flagship program."

Related resources:

To keep up to date with the latest content and information from Unit4, subscribe to the blog.

Press Contact

Lisa Stassoulli
Global Communications Manager
[email protected]
+44 (0)7870 916827

[email protected]