Adelaide’s City of Marion Council has been a long-term user of Civica’s Authority platform for property rates, building, and planning services.
Understanding the importance of keeping their business-critical system up to date to avoid potential risks, the Council decided to make the upgrade to Civica’s Authority Altitude. The transition not only modernised their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, but also streamlined processes and improved efficiencies across the organisation.
The Challenge
The City of Marion faced increasing security risks, inefficiencies, and accessibility issues by delaying an overdue upgrade. With an IT team of around 30 professionals, the Council required a modern, cloud-based solution that integrated seamlessly with existing software while enabling continuous improvements.
Why Authority Altitude?
Authority Altitude provided the flexibility and integration capabilities needed for a smooth transition. The implementation, which began in late 2023, was successfully completed four days ahead of schedule.
Grant Cox, Senior Project Manager, joined the City of Marion Council two years ago to manage the transformation.
“A major contributor to this success was Civica’s Business Process Alignment workshops, which ensured best practices were followed from the outset,” said Mr Cox.
“I would highly recommend that any council looking at upgrading or purchasing Authority Altitude take advantage of Civica’s business alignment workshops. Natalie Tubbs, who conducted the workshops, is awesome. She made sure all our key workflows were the best they could be.
“One thing you can say about Civica – they have a lot of people who have been there a long time, with not only amazing knowledge of the product but also the industry as well. The training prior to the user acceptance training was very useful.” – Grant Cox.
Key Success Factors
– Business Process Alignment Workshops
Civica’s workshops helped the council assess and refine their business processes, ensuring an efficient and well-structured implementation.
“Having a great start allowed for a well-staged change process for our staff. The gap analysis helped prioritise areas of improvement and enabled me to work closely with key stakeholders to incrementally deliver the benefits while effectively communicating the next
steps,” said Mr Cox.
– Strong Change Management and Stakeholder Engagement
To facilitate a smooth transition, the council implemented a structured approach, including a steering committee, a cross-functional working group, and a dedicated project team.
“The expectation from our senior people was to keep everything as vanilla as possible, with little customisation. This is why the whole end-to-end implementation worked so well,” Mr Cox says.
– Robust Integration Capabilities
Authority Altitude’s advanced integration layer allowed The City of Marion to seamlessly connect with existing software, including Salesforce, ensuring a successful best-of-breed approach to IT infrastructure.
“With any integration, testing is important. And with Civica investing significantly in its integration layer and APIs, it works,” said Mr Cox.
– Exceptional Project Management
The project’s success was greatly influenced by the leadership of Civica’s senior project manager, Sagar Nurani (pictured, right).
“An absolute superstar on this project was Sagar Arani. He’s a fantastic person to work with very flexible, so organised, and a great communicator – an absolute champion.”
“Having worked with various vendors, I truly appreciate the difference it makes to have someone like Sagar, who was always open, collaborative, and had our back every step of the way.
“His support made a positive impact,” said Mr Cox.
– Ongoing Improvement and Strategic Partnership
Beyond implementation, the City of Marion has established a continuous improvement group to further optimise workflows. This includes leveraging Civica’s SharePoint integration to enhance building and planning services.
“We’ve set up this continuous improvement group to drive forward the opportunities identified in the Business Process Alignment workshops, such as Civica’s SharePoint integration, which will streamline some of our services. Now that we’re live, we can focus on driving efficiencies,” Mr Cox said.
The relationship between Civica and City of Marion has now evolved beyond implementation into a strategic partnership.
“The relationship that we’ve built between the City of Marion and Civica is strong and highly valued – all the way from the account manager to senior Civica people attending meetings.”
“With such a great base to work from, who knows – we may drive more functions onto the Authority Altitude platform.”
“Post-go-live, one of the most notable benefits has been the speed at which we can
implement new releases. Our IT team can now focus on driving value and improvements in
Authority Altitude rather than spending time on the technical complexities of upgrades.” –
Grant Cox
Key Benefits
– Enhanced Security & Accessibility: The shift to a cloud-based platform eliminated on-premise infrastructure needs while improving security.
– Regular Updates & Reduced IT Workload: Unlike the previous system, regular software releases ensure Marion’s IT team no longer needs to focus on major upgrades.
– Improved Efficiency: Business alignment workshops helped optimise workflows, leading to more streamlined processes.
– Stronger Stakeholder Buy-In: Early engagement led to smoother adoption and ongoing support for future enhancements.
The City of Marion Council’s successful upgrade to Civica Authority Altitude demonstrates the platform’s flexibility, strong integration capabilities, and Civica’s commitment to outstanding service.
By leveraging a robust cloud-based system and fostering a culture of continuous improvement, the Council is now well-positioned to drive future efficiencies and innovation in local government operations.
