London Borough of Bromley’s successful Oracle Cloud migration
Overview
The London Borough of Bromley, the largest borough in Greater London, provides critical public services to a substantial and diverse population. With annual financial management responsibilities encompassing thousands of suppliers and millions in expenditure, Bromley recognised the need to modernise its financial operations.
The Council set out to migrate from its locally hosted Oracle R12 financial system, where support was due to end, to Oracle Fusion Cloud within a tight, fixed 12-month timeframe.
The challenge
Bromley Council faced a significant undertaking: upgrading critical financial systems without interrupting essential day-to-day services.
With considerable pressure to ensure financial accountability and operational continuity, key challenges included maintaining uninterrupted service during migration, dealing with extensive data migration, and managing unexpected staffing turnover at the system integration partner.
Additionally, Bromley needed assurance that its financial processes would become more streamlined, intuitive, and future-proofed as part of the transition.
Our solution
Bromley Council and Liberata have a trusted partnership stretching over nearly two decades. In collaboration with the council and the systems integration partner, we delivered a stable day-to-day operational service as well as process transformation of the transactional Accounts Payable (AP) and Accounts Receivable (AR) services alongside the systems migration.
Key solution elements included:
- Comprehensive stakeholder engagement sessions relating to the AP & AR services, including regular “art of the possible” workshops led by our Oracle Business Analysts, designed to optimise existing processes, minimise bespoke solutions, and maximise the use of Oracle’s standard capabilities.
- A robust framework ensuring clear alignment across all stakeholders, with detailed documentation and formal sign-off of process changes, automations, and efficiencies for both AP & AR.
- Extensive training programmes focused on familiarising the AP & AR processing team users with Oracle Fusion Cloud’s intuitive user interface, promoting swift adoption and minimal operational disruption.
Key outcomes and real-world benefits
The migration was successfully delivered on schedule and within scope, achieving immediate and substantial benefits:
- Minimal disruption to financial operations during and post-implementation
- Improved from 97% to 99% the KPI of paying invoices within 30 days
- Initially halved the volume of cheques, with further ongoing reductions driving usage to less than 1% of payments compared to Bacs
- Absorbed a 17.5% increase in AP volumes through process improvements and automation
Critical role, immediate gains
“Liberata played a critical role in ensuring our move to Oracle Fusion Cloud was a success. Despite challenges, they kept services running smoothly and helped us realise immediate performance gains. Their support was invaluable.”
Steve McGinnes, Assistant Director Exchequer Services, London Borough of Bromley
Why Bromley Council chose Liberata
The London Borough of Bromley Council worked with us as a long-standing trusted partner with demonstrable expertise with Oracle solutions.
Our approach ensured robust project management for the AP & AR elements of the program, subject-matter excellence, and a deep understanding of Bromley’s operational and strategic requirements, providing them with confidence in a seamless, beneficial migration.
Whatever your ERP migration needs, Liberata delivers
Whether migrating to Workday, Oracle Fusion Cloud, or another ERP platform, Liberata brings unmatched expertise, proven reliability, and deep operational insight to ensure your ERP migration is seamless, effective, and successful.
Whatever your Accounts Payable and Accounts Receivable ERP needs, we’re there to support you
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