The Government Selected Application Systems 2007 (GSAS 2007) strategy will change the way that agencies purchase Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, which include Finance, Payroll, and Human Resources systems.

This new strategy directly supports the NSW Government’s reform agenda through, The NSW State Plan and People First.  

As part of People First, the NSW Department of Commerce undertook a comprehensive review of the government’s GSAS application software procurement practices.  

GSAS 2007 will ensure that the Government maximises the benefits that it obtains from its corporate applications and reduces the costs associated with purchasing, implementing and maintaining them. 

The strategy will deliver consolidated and standardised corporate services software solutions across NSW Government that will leverage the government’s volume purchasing capability and reduce costs to agencies. 

GSAS 2007 will achieve significant benefits from a whole-of-government perspective including:

• Decrease the cost of future ICT investment in back-office system implementation, upgrades and enhancements
• Lower the recurrent cost of ownership to government
• Remove technical and process barriers
• Divert back-office spending to front-line services
• Enhance and share government expertise
• Reduce costs of business processing, facilities and staff whilst improving quality of service. 

This will be achieved by:

• A whole-of-government approach to procurement to ensure best prices for corporate applications
• Reducing costs through consolidation
• More efficient management of the entire lifecycle of applications including their acquisition, implementation, service support, upgrades and product extensions
• Reducing running costs through standard government ERP systems.

 As part of GSAS 2007 strategy, The Government Chief Information Office and NSW Procurement (Contracting Services) commissioned an independent review of ERP systems that are available, and supported in Australia.  

The review identified the suppliers whose systems and capabilities are best aligned with the specific government business requirements of GSAS 2007 strategy.  

These requirements were developed through a series of workshops with a cross representation of government agencies of varying sizes. 

As a result of the review, the Government will hold discussions with Mincom, Oracle and SAP to develop the most suitable corporate applications solutions relevant to all government agencies. 

These supplier organisations already have a strong track record in the provision of corporate applications to the public sector. 

In addition to procuring the software, the Government will issue panel contracts for associated services covering implementation, upgrades and support services for a period of up to 5 years, and a pre-qualification process for contractor services. 

Government agencies currently using existing GSAS legacy corporate applications will continue to receive support and maintenance for those applications for up to five years. 

Existing GSAS contracts have been extended for a period of up to 6 months until December 2007 or until the new contracts have been signed.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: NSW Procurement-Contracting Services Information Centre on (02) 9372 7791 or contractservices@commerce.nsw.gov.au