Enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions
Our ERP Consulting Services
Perry Group offers five distinct ERP services for municipalities. Most clients engage us for more than one. Here is what each one involves.
ERP Readiness Assessment
Before you spend anything on procurement, find out where you actually stand.
Most ERP projects don't fail because of bad technology. They fail because the organization wasn't ready when procurement started. No defined project team. Unclear governance. Departments with different expectations. No shared sense of what the new system actually needs to do.
Our readiness assessment looks at 36 factors: executive sponsorship, governance, resource capacity, data readiness, change management, and more. You get an honest read on what's ready and what needs attention before you commit.
ERP Scope and Strategy
Figure out the right approach before any vendor conversations happen.
Not every municipality needs to replace everything at once. Some are better served by a phased approach, starting with Finance, then HR, or tackling modules on a timeline that fits operational and budget reality.
We review your current systems and pain points, confirm what's in scope, map integration and data migration requirements, and build a roadmap that fits your capacity. We also help you frame the business case for Council in terms they can evaluate: risk, operational continuity, and long-term cost.
ERP Procurement
A municipal ERP procurement is not something to improvise.
The requirements need to be right. The evaluation needs to be defensible. Vendor demonstrations need to be scripted so you're comparing the same thing across every proponent. And the contract needs to lock down implementation commitments before anything is signed.
We have done this for municipalities ranging from under 15,000 to over 340,000 in population. Our procurement support includes:
Requirements development, using proven municipal frameworks as a starting point so your team is reviewing and shaping, not building from scratch
RFP development and publication
Vendor evaluation framework and scoring criteria
Scripted vendor demonstration use cases
Evaluation facilitation and consensus process
Reference checks
Contract negotiation support, including terms covering security, privacy, data ownership, and implementation accountability
ERP Implementation Advisory
Procurement is the beginning, not the end.
Once the contract is signed, the real complexity starts: scope management, vendor accountability, staff change management, and a constant stream of decisions that can quietly derail a project if no one is watching.
We provide independent advisory support through delivery. This includes:
Weekly project reviews with your project manager
Issue and risk tracking and escalation
Change management guidance
On-demand coaching for your project team
Participation in project team meetings, vendor discussions, and steering committee as needed
Independent checkpoints at key project milestones
We stay independent throughout. Our job is to protect your organization's interests, not the vendor's.
ERP Support for Smaller Municipalities
Smaller municipalities have the same ERP needs as larger ones. The difference is capacity.
When a team of two or three people is already stretched across full operational workloads, building requirements, evaluation criteria, and procurement materials from scratch isn't realistic. We adapt the process to fit.
That means bringing pre-built requirements and proven templates so your team is reviewing, not creating. Narrowing the vendor market early so you're only evaluating realistic options for your size and budget. And connecting you with peer municipalities that have recently gone through the same process, because those conversations reduce uncertainty more than any document we could write.
We also help smaller municipalities make the case to Council. ERP doesn't have the same visibility as a capital project. When councils understand the risk of not modernizing, projects move. When they don't, they stall.
Why Perry Group
We are fully vendor neutral. No vendor affiliations, no referral arrangements, no commissions. We know the municipal ERP market well, Oracle, Workday, SAP, Microsoft, Unit4, Sylogist, TownSuite, CentralSquare, and others, but our job is to help you evaluate the options and choose what's right for your municipality.
Our consultants are former municipal IT and business leaders. We've been doing this exclusively with municipalities for over 25 years, and more than 80 percent of our clients return to us after their first engagement.
Most municipalities don't replace their enterprise resource planning (ERP) system by choice. They replace it because they have to. A platform is being retired, a system has become too fragile to rely on, or the workarounds have finally become untenable.
When that moment arrives, the stakes are high. Finance, Payroll, HR, and Procurement all run through these systems. A botched ERP project doesn't just go over budget. It disrupts payroll, strains staff relationships, and lands on the front page. The pressure on the people responsible for getting it right is real.
Perry Group has helped municipalities across Canada navigate enterprise resource planning replacements, from the first conversation about readiness, through procurement and vendor selection, and into implementation. We know the vendors, we know the pitfalls, and we have no financial relationship with any of them.
Municipalities We Have Supported
City of Windsor, ON (pop. 342,000) End-to-end procurement advisory. Procurement strategy, full evaluation, vendor demonstration facilitation, and contract negotiation through to award.
City of Saint John, NB Full procurement support from scope confirmation through to vendor selection.
Town of Innisfil, ON Business case development and procurement support for a growing municipality.
Township of the Archipelago, ON Independent implementation advisory over 12 months for a smaller municipality, strengthening governance and keeping a complex delivery on track.
Hastings County, ON HR systems strategy and business case, followed by Finance systems replacement, a practical example of a phased ERP approach.
City of Thunder Bay, ON HR digital strategy on an existing SAP platform, plus procurement of a time, attendance, and scheduling system.
FAQs
Do you recommend specific ERP vendors or platforms?
1
No. We have no vendor affiliations, referral arrangements, or financial relationships with any ERP provider. Our job is to help you evaluate the options objectively and choose what's right for your municipality.
How much will this require from our staff?
2
For a procurement, the main commitment is participating in requirements workshops, reviewing deliverables, and sitting on the evaluation committee. We drive the process and produce the documents. Your team provides organizational knowledge and makes the decisions.
What does vendor neutral actually mean?
3
It means we evaluate proposals on their merits, tell you when a vendor's demonstration doesn't match what they promised, push back on contract terms that don't protect your municipality, and give you advice that isn't shaped by anything other than your organization's best interests. That's only possible when there's genuinely nothing to gain from a particular outcome.
What goes wrong in municipal ERP projects?
4
Most problems start before procurement. Unclear scope, no defined project team, governance gaps, and departments with different expectations all create friction that shows up later at the worst possible time. During implementation, the common issues are scope creep, vendor overpromising, inadequate change management, and a lack of independent oversight to catch problems early. Most of these are preventable with the right preparation and the right people watching.
How do I make the case to Council for an ERP investment?
5
Council needs to understand the risk of not acting, not just the cost of acting. ERP doesn't have the same visibility as a capital project, so the business case needs to frame it in terms they can evaluate: operational risk, service continuity, long-term cost of keeping aging systems running, and what a failure during implementation would mean publicly. Getting that story right early prevents the governance gaps that stall projects mid-procurement.
Can a smaller municipality actually manage an ERP project?
6
Yes, but the approach needs to fit the organization. Smaller teams can't build everything from scratch while also doing their day jobs. The process needs to come pre-structured, with proven templates and requirements frameworks as a starting point rather than a blank page. Narrowing the vendor market early to realistic options also makes the decision much more manageable. Smaller municipalities go through ERP projects successfully all the time. The ones that struggle usually tried to run a large-municipality process with a small-municipality team.
How do I choose between ERP vendors?
6
The right vendor depends on your municipality's size, budget, existing systems, and what you're actually trying to fix. The municipal ERP market includes Oracle, Workday, SAP, Microsoft, Unit4, Sylogist, TownSuite, CentralSquare, and others. A structured evaluation process, built around your specific requirements and tested through scripted demonstrations, is how you get to a decision you can stand behind. Working with an advisor who has no financial relationship with any vendor is the only way to be sure the recommendation isn't shaped by anything other than fit.