Genesee County, Michigan Shared Services in Government
What is Shared Services?
Shared services involves centralizing or clustering functions that were once performed in separate divisions or locations. In government, where services, functions, applications and processes often overlap, there is ample opportunity for sharing.
To reduce costs and improve efficiencies, many governmental entities – cities, townships, counties and departments – have started to share. They are sharing IT staff, software applications, hardware, hosting and more. With this consolidation of operations comes the need to consolidate processes and information. A central system for managing content, process workflows and documents – an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system – is key, and increasingly, even ECM is being shared.
Why Share?
There is an abundance of overlap in government. Common government functions are performed in multiple locations and departments. A good example is public safety where enforcement and investigation start at a police department or sheriff’s department then progress to prosecutors and on to the courts. Since these entities share documents, it makes sense for them to share a system that securely stores those documents. With a shared ECM system – whose cost can be shared – they’ll have immediate and simultaneous access to documents, and speedier and more efficient document processing.
Need further convincing? Massive budget cuts and deficits have made it challenging for government to deliver the level of services that citizens have come to rely on and expect. Sharing ECM technology helps alleviate the sacrifice that budget cuts bring and enables continued – and even enhanced – services to constituents at a lower cost.
And, for the host of a shared services arrangement, sharing provides a source of revenue that can, over time, enable them to recoup their technology investment by sharing not only the technology, but the costs.
Sharing eliminates duplicate functions and makes more efficient use of government resources while saving taxpayer dollars. Governments that share provide a higher quality of constituent services and economies of scale, as well as greater collaboration among stakeholders, more awareness of an organization’s mission and greater transparency in operations.
How to Share:
Budget constraints prevent many government agencies from taking advantage of imaging and workflow, but ImageSoft offers a solution. ImageSoft, which provides enterprise content management systems, offers a Shared Services model and smart pricing that helps government entities embrace document management and workflow without buying redundant systems and recreating the same workflow processes again and again.
If your agency already owns an OnBase ECM system and would like to share costs with others, ImageSoft can work with you to facilitate collaboration with other governmental entities. Conversely, if you’re interested in sharing with an existing OnBase host, we can help you achieve that goal.
Government share the same problems. Doesn’t it make sense for them to share the same solution? If you’d like more information about becoming a Shared Service host or a Shared Service consumer, contact ImageSoft at sales@Imagesoftinc.com.
For questions or to inquire about attending a complimentary Shared Services Luncheon near you, please email sales@imagesoftinc.com
What are the Benefits of Sharing?
- Reduced Costs
- Added Revenue
- Improved Performance
- Increased standardization in processes and services
- Greater transparency
- Improved collaboration
- Ability to maximize technology
- Enhanced citizen service
- Ability to maximize technology investment
- Reallocation of staff to constituent service delivery
- Streamlined government
- Elimination of redundant function
For questions or to inquire about attending a complimentary Shared Services Luncheon near you, please email sales@imagesoftinc.com
