Local Governments Improve Public Services, Reduce Costs with ECM Software

Wayne County, London Borough of Hackney Increase Efficiency, Productivity for a More Responsive Government with the Help of OpenText's ECM Solutions

WATERLOO, ON, Jan. 10 /PRNewswire/ - Local governments around the world are facing increasing pressures to drive down costs, reduce paper, and improve services to constituents. Some, however, are finding innovative ways to use enterprise content management (ECM) software to meet these goals.  OpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC) today unveiled details about two local government customers using ECM to transform their operations. 

Many local governments face the challenge of having disparate physical and electronic information silos across numerous locations, making it difficult for officials and workers to find the right information when needed. By centrally managing information, institutions have an opportunity to improve responsiveness, productivity and efficiency, while boosting information security and becoming more equipped to meet current and future legislation and regulations. Understanding that these goals required a sophisticated solution, Wayne County, Michigan, and the London Borough of Hackney, UK, have both accomplished remarkable operational improvements through innovative use of OpenText ECM technology.

Wayne County Achieves Paperless eGovernment Goal

Wayne County, ranked 13^th nationally and the largest in Michigan, set goals to improve services and become a paperless "e-government" to better serve its nearly two million citizens. Achieving this goal would require an integrated technology foundation to transform, integrate and streamline systems, data and processes across the organization.

After an extensive search, the OpenText ECM Suite platform was selected to help Wayne County achieve its goals. The ECM Suite provides Wayne County with a robust electronic workflow engine, automating Wayne County's internal and external business processes, while allowing replacement of paper-based processes. It also integrates with existing ERP systems.

By connecting systems and departments, Wayne County employees are now able to access information and complete processes in a fast, more efficient manner. With the implementation of the program, the county has reported a 72 percent reduction in the service request processing cycle, while reducing taxpayer expense, enhancing service levels, and increasing customer satisfaction to 99.9 percent.

"With OpenText's help, Wayne County is becoming a technology showcase and enabling us to demonstrate how an efficient government works in the best interest of its citizens," said Tahir Kazmi, CIO, Wayne County. "By giving constituents, government employees, and officials better access to information, the OpenText eGovernment solution improves accountability, provides greater efficiency, responsiveness, transparency, and compliance while lowering expenses."

Hackney Halves Office Space

Hackney, the local authority for the London Borough of Hackney in Greater London, England, sought a technology solution that would decrease the reliance on paper documentation, improve records management, and streamline information access, while ensuring compliance and security. Hackney needed to consolidate numerous information silos and to develop an overarching content and document management strategy. Additionally, Hackney wanted to reduce its real estate expense, so the need to reduce paper was imperative.

By implementing OpenText's eDOCS document management solution, Hackney has halved its office space, reduced operational costs, and improved organizational collaboration and customer service while gaining much faster access to information. The Hackney Council's reputation has been enhanced, with other councils now looking to Hackney as the model to follow.

"Maintaining paper files is an expensive proposition while getting access to those records is time consuming at best," said Ian Williams, Hackney Council's Corporate Director of Finance and Resources. "By converting all that paper to searchable, electronic formats, we have been able to dramatically reduce our office space needs and still meet our legal requirements for document retention."

Customers Win GlobalStar Enterprise Awards

The implementations at Wayne County and Hackney stand out as exceptional examples of ECM technology at work - so much so that both won prestigious GlobalStar Enterprise Awards at the recent Content World event. The GlobalStar awards are highly contested and winners are selected by a panel of judges based on a detailed analysis of the implementation and the demonstrated benefit to the organization.

"The GlobalStar Enterprise Awards give organizations a way to be recognized for their outstanding efforts in realizing business value from ECM technology," said James Latham, Chief Marketing Officer of OpenText. "Wayne County and Hackney are showcase examples of local governments that are not only cutting costs, but improving the quality of service they deliver by implementing modern ECM solutions."

To learn more about how OpenText is helping more than 9,500 Public Sector customers and hear OpenText Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer Tom Jenkins explain why the role of ECM in the Public Sector is vital, please visit http://www.opentext.com/2/global/solutions/sol-gov-home.htm

Follow Open Text on Twitter: @opentext

About OpenText
OpenText, a global ECM leader, helps organizations manage and gain the true value of their business content.  OpenText brings two decades of expertise supporting 100 million users in 114 countries. Working with our customers and partners, we bring together leading Content Experts™ to help organizations capture and preserve corporate memory, increase brand equity, automate processes, mitigate risk, manage compliance and improve competitiveness.  For more information, visit www.opentext.com.

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