Bristol, UK, October 06 2011, UNIT4, the world’s leading provider of business software for Businesses Living IN Change (BLINC™), today announced that six municipalities in North Troms, a region of northern Norway, have entered into an agreement with UNIT4 partner EDB ErgoGroup, for the delivery of a new Agresso Business World ERP solution.
The municipalities, Kvænangen, Nordreisa, Skjervøy, Kåfjord, Storfjord and Karlsøy aim to derive quick and significant efficiencies through the sharing of back office systems and processes to manage finance, billing, payroll and personnel. Shared Journey from UNIT4 enables them to benefit from single-instance, cloud-deployed Agresso Business World, while maintaining the highest level of independence and identity, without sacrificing the benefits for the group.
The local authorities will focus on improving financial management processes, particularly the effective exchange of financial information, improving the quality of data and analysis and subsequently the services they offer.
"The flexible architecture inherent in the Agresso solution was our main reason for the selection," said Ellen Beate Jensen Lundberg, City Manager of Storfjord Municipality. “A shared services model based on this technology will enable us to tailor our own processes while benefiting from group efficiencies and process improvements over time.”
“Many local government organisations in Norway are still working with systems developed in the 1980’s,” said Terje Kaasa, Sales and Marketing Manager at UNIT4 Agresso AS. “Shared Journey enables the group to work together to quickly set up a shared services operation on Agresso. This solution will deliver to group members all the benefits of cloud computing, while accommodating individual differences and delivering standardised systems and processes.”
Shared Journey is UNIT4’s cloud platform for shared services. The unique technology underpinning it allows groups of organisations to grow their shared services implementation without being restricted by individual requirements, and to improve design and set-up along the way. It supports different Chart of Accounts and business entity structures within a single instance and Agresso Business World’s unique Vita™ architecture includes a highly flexible information model, allowing for the capture of non-financial data if needed by specific parts of the group, for example. This means that the organisations are unrestricted to respond to change quickly and simply.
EDB ErgoGroup ASA and UNIT4 Agresso AS entered into a six year strategic collaboration agreement in May covering sales and delivery of the Agresso ERP system to public sector customers in Norway. EDB ErgoGroup has significant experience successfully implementing Agresso Business World, the market leader in Norway, used by more than 180 Norwegian municipalities.
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About UNIT4
UNIT4 is a global business software and services company aimed at helping dynamic public sector, and commercial services organisations to embrace change simply, quickly and cost effectively in a market sector it calls 'Businesses Living IN Change' (BLINC)™. The Group incorporates a number of the world’s leading change embracing software brands including Agresso Business World, our flagship ERP suite for mid-sized services intensive organisations and Coda, our best-of-class financial management software.
In the UK we focus strongly on the public sector, where we are the leading provider of ERP systems to local government and post 16 education organisations, as well as having a considerable presence in the emergency services and health sectors. We also focus strongly on professional services organisations and a range of commercial sectors including Financial Services, Retail and Media and Publishing. Overall we aim to be the UK’s foremost business software company, providing solutions that transform the delivery of public services and comprehensively support commercial organisations in their ability to adapt and prosper in rapidly changing environments.
With operations in 17 European countries, as well as 7 countries across North America, Asia Pacific and Africa and sales activities in several other countries, its revenue was €421.7 million in 2010. UNIT4 is headquartered in Sliedrecht, the Netherlands and has over 4,000 employees. It is listed on Euronext Amsterdam and is included in the Amsterdam Midcap Index (AMX). For more information on UNIT4 or any of its operating companies, please visit the website at www.unit4.com, follow us on Twitter @UNIT4_UK
