Towards the end of 2019, Sydney Water engaged the market for the delivery of an online Shared Purchasing Directory as a platform to provide information on all third party sourced goods and services, their suppliers and related contracts. In identifying key requirements for the solution, Sydney Water had a mix of standard needs that could be met by off-the-shelf capabilities, but also some custom requirements that were needed for the integration of the solution into Sydney Water’s IT and Business environments.

Like many of our customers, off-the-shelf products meet ‘most of their requirements’, however these are the generic requirements that are consistent across all businesses, and across all industries. For the solution to deliver real value to our customers’ businesses, some customisation is needed to unlock full integration and adoption.

The other challenge most businesses have is time and the speed of delivering value. Between a need for customisation and the constraints against delivery, organisations are challenged in finding the balance.

Sydney Water has been using finao’s base platform (prime) for nearly 10 years, which has many of the standard requirement already built in. On day 1, core functionality was available and returned immediate value. Building on this platform, finao’s consultative and agile approach provided the environment for both organisations to iteratively develop and deliver new functionality against business priorities in the shortest possible time. Sydney Water went from a potential delivery of a standardised capability in months to a customised platform in weeks.

finao are proud of our relationship with Sydney Water, proud of being part of the overall P4S program, and proud to be a trusted partner for the delivery of key digital solutions.