Merseyside fire service goes for Advanced SaaS
Transfer of office functions and procurement to hosting could save £10m in two years
ACS's SaaS subsidiary Advanced 365 has inked a five-year managed services deal with Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service (MF&RS).
According to a statement from Advanced 365, the deal is a major one for the company, involving hosted delivery and management of the fire service's finance and procurement applications, HR and payroll.
"MF&RS, one of the UK's largest and most respected fire services, serves a population of 1.5m and employs 850 firefighters and 350 back-office staff across 35 sites. The service has already made significant savings using Advanced Business Solutions (a sister subsidiary with Advanced 365) finance and procurement software over the past five years," the company said.
Advanced 365 added that the new hosted provisioning model will enable the fire service to save another £10m. Finance and procurement in hosted form will go live in August, with HR and payroll, supported by NorthgateArinso ResourceLink Aurora apps, to follow in the coming months, it said.
"All applications will be hosted at Advanced's London datacentres," it said. "The managed service contract will cover 24/7 infrastructure support, a dedicated service desk manned from 8:30am to 6pm, and full disaster recovery. In addition, Advanced Business Solutions is providing consulting and change management services."
Mike Davies, project manager at MF&RS, said: "We were looking for a one-stop solution across accounting software, HR and payroll, including the hosted service. The fire authority must make £10m worth of savings over the next two years and there is a lot of pressure on back-office functions.
"Based on the government metric that each electronic transaction saves a business £41 per transaction, MF&RS has made a saving of £4m over the past five and a half years. Previously it took days for an individual to raise a purchase order due to the paperwork involved, now it literally takes minutes."
Advanced Business Solutions and Advanced 365 are subsidiaries of software provider Advanced Computer Software (ACS).