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The integration of disparate systems proved invaluable to an international children's agency.

Disparate business systems are a challenge facing several businesses. Addressing this problem helps to reduce inefficiencies and position an organization for a successful future, which was the outcome for one of our international clients.

The challenge
Since our client is an organization committed to helping improve the lives of children in more than 150 countries, it was of utmost concern to ensure its efforts were not slowed due to its inadequate core business systems.

The solution
RSM McGladrey was retained to take an enterprise-wide approach to improving their information systems and business processes. As a result of joint application design (JAD) sessions, we were able to prepare a strategic information technology plan addressing areas such as technological architecture, software and applications, staffing, training, and implementation methodology. We also developed a business process improvement (BPI) plan, which included management issues, detailed BPI recommendations, process maps and organization charts.

We then compiled the business requirements into our electronic request for proposal (RFP) system. This resulted in two RFPs, which were distributed to a set of pre-screened vendors.

The first RFP addressed the organization’s need for fund raising and constituent relationship management. The second RFP dealt with the need for finance, budgeting, purchasing,inventory management, order processing and greeting card consignment processing.

We helped with the selection of the final candidates and were also retained as project consultants for the implementation phase.

We built a custom interface from the fund raising system to the financial system and redesigned business processes to take advantage of the new technologies, including the design of processes to link the agency’s Web site to the backend systems. 

The results:

• Unifying the agency’s multiple disparate systems on a single technology platform resulted in:
• Better integration among systems, reducing duplicate data entry and improving data consistency
• Improved technical staff performance and responsiveness through standardization on a single set of tools
• Improved system reliability and performance
• Lower total cost of ownership.
• Improved self-service capabilities

In addition, accessibility of data was always an issue for the organization, especially for remote users. Most users were relying on the finance department to produce their analytical reports.

Today, users have the ability to access their reports in a self-service mode with real-time information. This was invaluable during the Tsunami and Katrina disasters. Transaction volumes increased tremendously and funds from multiple sources had to be tracked carefully. Each step in the process — from dollar-raised, to request for disbursement, to board approval,to actual disbursement — had to be controlled.

The new solutions provide the visibility to properlyunderstand and control these processes. In addition, the self-service tools haveincreased, resulting in an 80 percent improvement in report and informationaccess.