Scottish government eyes sweeping ERP cloud migration.

The Scottish Government is considering swapping its collection of Oracle eBusiness software licenses for a single, integrated cloud ERP provider that will support some 13,000 employees, plus other agencies.

Scotland's current Oracle setup handles HR/Payroll, and finance seperately. Services are delivered via the software to core government directorates and a range of non-departmental public bodies.

But as the Scottish government sets out to transform corporate services into a shared service organisation -- in ambitious plans first announced in 2019 -- it is increasingly favouring an integrated cloud ERP alternative, although no hard choices have been made. It launched a public information notice (PIN) February 17.

As it noted in the PIN: "The Scottish Government is... potentially looking for a single, integrated cloud ERP solution to enable this transformation. The Scottish Government is, however, open to other solutions that may assist with the delivering a modern, digitally enabled Shared Services provision that is safe, secure, accessible and scalable. This will initially provide services for approximately 13,000 employees but will require the ability to rapidly onboard Scottish Public Sector bodies. The solution will need to be able to meet requirements of both central government directorates and front line delivery agencies as a single whole of government solution" it said, emphasising that this is not a contract notice. A bidder session will be held March 9."

As government departments around the country continue to work with an eclectic mish-mash of ERP systems -- many of them aging and heavily customised over the years -- Scotland's is not the only large planned migration.

As The Stack recently reported, Westminster's Shared Business Services (SBS) this month agreed a £9 million Oracle ERP contract extension for a wide range of government departments including the UK Space Agency, Department for International Trade (DIT), and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS). The extension is designed to buy the SBS time as it prepares for a £64 million (estimated upper bound)  integration and cloud migration of several disparate Oracle and Workday government ERP systems.

So you're a large public sector organisation with a range of legacy ERP systems. What is going to be your most cost-effective option? We'd be interested in hearing the thoughts of ERP consultants -- ideally those with no hard vendor alignment. Get in touch.