The London Borough of Harrow is responsible for all things local government, including managing waste and recycling, collecting council tax, administering planning policy including applications, managing licences and fees, offering financial and resource support to borough citizens.
The Council’s corporate plan 2023/6 sets out a vision to restore pride in Harrow by putting residents first, keeping the borough clean and safe and supporting those in need. Realizing this vision during a global cost of living crisis clearly requires highly effective resource management and planning through the Microsoft Dynamics 365 system.
The Challenge
Navigating deprecation and complexity
Following an announcement from Microsoft that the standalone Dynamics 365 HR solution was soon to be deprecated, Harrow Council needed to find a technology partner that could quickly and expertly move the solution onto a new supported platform.
Harrow Council was using two separate environments from a legacy architecture: Dynamics 365 HR for human resourcing processes and Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management for the rest of the business’ operational demands. This generated an unnecessarily complex IT architecture with a lack of operational efficiency resulting in a high total cost of ownership (TCO). These challenges were compounded by the impending Microsoft deprecation deadline. Key challenges:
- Harrow Council had siloed processes; they lacked a cohesive and unified finance and supply chain management with HR system
- Needed a technology partner with deep experience in HR along with the other business domains to secure the merge of the two separate environments without causing business disruption, especially to payroll processing
- Merging and migrating multiple years of data in sunsetting the legacy HR solutions
- The Council needed guidance on road mapping so that they are properly equipped to scale in the future
- Collaborate with Microsoft FastTrack architects and the Council teams to identify process optimizations, validate designs and ensure overall success and user adoption
The Objective
Simplify, migrate and future-proof
Decommission London Borough of Harrow Council’s standalone Dynamics 365 HR solution and leverage the HR module within Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management to unify the system and create one single source of truth.
- Migrate and merge the standalone Dynamics 365 HR to the supported, future-proofed Dynamics 365 F&SCM architecture, including all data and technical components
- Create a best-in-class environment landscape capable of supporting the Council’s future needs
- Integrate with all internal and external applications while continuing to operate without any negative impacts to ensure business continuity
- Identify design improvements and leverage Power Platform for cost effective and future secure solutions
The Solution
Streamlining transformation with HCLTech's upgrade supercharger
HCLTech’s Upgrade Supercharger — a reusable delivery methodology built by HCLTech — is a ready-to-deploy solution architecture, equipped with deliverable templates to streamline the HR upgrade and keep costs low.
In addition to the Upgrade Supercharger and using the direct data merge approach, Harrow Council needed to ensure proper governance and user adoption by onboarding multiple support offerings to feel confident as they undergo this complex digital transformation.
- Begin with Plan for Success alongside Microsoft Architects and the team at Harrow to fully comprehend the as-is state of technology
- Ensure the Plan for Success aligns with stakeholders from the Council
- HCLTech’s Upgrade Supercharger plus direct data merge approach to solve integrations and data flow redundancies
- Environments rationalized and standardized to enable structured ongoing system management and improve operational stability
- Onboard HCLTech’s organizational change management team to secure governance as the council goes through the extensive cultural shift that is inherent to large technology transformations
- Onboard HCLTech-Microsoft Business Applications Practice’s application support management team to provide ongoing support to the Council’s IT teams
The Impact
Simplified operations and enhanced growth potential
Successful consolidation of a standalone, mission-critical Human Resources environment to establish a single source of truth for all enterprise data and an efficient IT architecture.
- Unified source of business data secures future growth, leaving less complexity to manage
- Used the opportunity to migrate older systems into new supported technology future-proofed the client
- A well-structured environment policy helped to reflect ways of working and enhance ability to seize future initiatives
- Consolidation of supported systems created a reduction in costs
- Siloed systems streamlined into one single system simplified overall operations
- Enhanced adherence to governance guardrails through application support management
