Gippsland Region Water Alliance

About This Project

A group of five water utilities wanted to assess opportunities in realising the innovation and digitisation benefits to their businesses and their customers by taking a shared approach to their technology service delivery.

The Situation

Integrated shared services models allow organisations to reduce duplication and repetition so they can provide more innovative and accessible services to their customers. The Gippsland Region Water Alliance comprised of Westernport Water, Gippsland Water, Southern Rural Water, East Gippsland Water, and South Gippsland Water, wanted to assess the feasibility of such a model, through considering the options for integrating their technology services functions.

The Approach

Our goal was to provide recommendations about shared models, ensuring that the proposed model(s) were able to deliver on the key objectives of the Alliance.

Information Professionals Group completed this work in six steps. These were agreeing the project plan and governance for the engagement, workshopping the drivers for change, assessing the strategy baseline and mapping the services, analysing the gaps, working in close partnership with the five organisations to develop a shared benefits model and supporting ongoing initiatives with a roadmap to guide the realisation of shared benefits opportunities.

We provided recommendations about a shared services model(s), ensuring that the proposed model(s) delivers the key objectives of the Alliance.

Three strategic initiatives and four short-term wins were identified, with 19 medium and low priority projects placed into a project pipeline for further review and ongoing management.

The Impact

By providing a defined and practical shared services models as well as a clear pathway for transition, the Alliance will be able to take full advantage of the benefits this model can deliver.

Backed by an articulate and relevant report that forms the foundations for a business case, our work will also inform other decisions such as ICT investment and contract renewals.

The three strategic initiatives along with four, quick-win projects will build confidence in the model by delivering immediate benefits during the first year, with an additional 19 projects to form the future project portfolio. All projects were mapped to a clearly defined project roadmap and linked to the strategic benefits in order to ensure a positive outcome for the Alliance as they progress along the shared services pathway.