The City of San Buenaventura (Ventura), California will replace its back-office software systems with a city-wide implementation of Agresso Business World applications. The upgrade and installation of software will help the city in its efforts to upgrade and modernize internal and customer-centric government processes and transform the pace and quality of services to the citizens of Ventura. Agresso will release Ventura from the limitations of a 25-year-old legacy system that was functionally obsolete and could not adapt to new processes and procedures.

"Government constantly changes and it was time for us to change. Our systems weren't up to date and therefore our systems and processes were limited," said John Emerson, IT Director, City of Ventura. "The Agresso suite will help us considerably improve response time to customers. Agresso provides a platform that enables the City to quickly adapt to change."

Ventura will implement a wide-range of applications including financials, procurement, contracts, human resources/payroll, project costing & billing, cashiering, and reporting and analysis. The implementations will support 650 full-time city employees and 1,400 users overall.

The City of Ventura is a coastal community located 60 miles north of Los Angeles. With a population of over 100,000, Ventura prides itself as a full-service city, operating its own Police and Fire departments, a Community Services Department, a Public Works Department and a Community Development Department. The city also has a Human Resources Department, Administrative Services Department as well as the City Manager's Department and City Attorney's Office. All these departments need agile technology to support them.

Adaptability and agility were major qualities that appealed to Ventura. "Today, city governments have to be proactive in offering new or better services to customers," said Emerson. Ventura plans to be proactive in several ways, including automating the purchasing process from requisitions. A process that now takes several weeks will be done in a day. Other benefits will include delivering employee performance and feedback in real time mode and improved internal controls of system users which can aid in compliance and auditing efforts Ventura may pursue.

"Today, much of the government sector is still stuck in the past, where private businesses were many years ago," said Emerson. "But with Agresso we expect faster turnaround with new automated business processes and better information delivery for both our customers and employees."