Oracle's repeated public sector failures prove a different approach is needed
The evidence is clear: the less you resemble the model enterprise an ERP solution is designed for, the less likely it is to work. Local governments are never that model enterprise. In fact, they rarely resemble each other. They have to provide a huge range of services without much control over revenue, their metrics of success are as varied as the communities they serve, and they have the huge pudding of legal responsibilities that comes from spending public money.
We have to stop pretending state entities are businesses that fit business software. They are more complex, less well funded, more prone to change as democratic needs evolve, and much more transparent. ERP architectures are not suited for this: there are other, better models for a viable framework. You're looking at one right now.
Away from the ERP lens, state systems can look very different. There are shared resources to safeguard and manage, a wide variety of disparate functions that need to talk to each other in dynamic ways, a unique mix of openness and privacy needs, and tons of data management. That describes Birmingham City Council; it also describes a standard PC.
It doesn't matter what mix of hardware, OS, and software any particular PC – or laptop or mobile device – uses, the end result is a commonality of design capable of supporting an infinite mix of functions reliably, cheaply, and flexibly. Resources of memory, storage, CPU, communications, and management all have analogs in public organizations, while commonality of APIs, shared components, and standard development practices ensure a superb ecosystem.
Getting there will be hard. It's a philosophical change of viewpoint that will be in direct conflict with billion-dollar global powerhouses. But freed of commercial secrecy and competitive distrust, state agencies are free to talk to each other and build ideas together – in fact, that's essential.
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