Agresso Closes $800K ERP Win With City of Sparks.

City Cites Post-Implementation Agility, Leading-Edge Technology as Factors

Agresso Gaining Favor with City Governments

VICTORIA, British Columbia -- Agresso, (www.agresso.com/USA), the ERP market's definition of agility, has announced that the City of Sparks, Nev., is replacing its legacy system with Agresso's full financial suite, including core financials, procurement, budget planning, project costing and billing, as well as human resources and payroll. The agreement, valued at approximately $800,000 continues Agresso's success in the public-sector.

"Both the software and hardware of our existing system were orphaned," recounts Tom Minton, finance director for the City of Sparks. "We needed a new systemO one that offered us some longevity," he added. "Our plans to streamline city operations, become more efficient, and offer e-government initiatives required a platform that would allow us to adapt to change over time."

The city had ambitious goals; reduce financial auditing fees by 20%, gain a 20% efficiency overall by changing financial business processes, eliminate 95% of paper-based management, reduce finance staff time spent on the budget process by five hundred hours annually and reduce the number of staff hours required to maintain the tracking of Capital Improvement Projects by 90%. "With Agresso, we have the tools to achieve these goals," Minton explained.

Sparks considered other vendors for the replacement, but they didn't seem to accommodate the city's future ambitions from a technical perspective. "Agresso, we saw as leading-edge software, offering a sophisticated modern platform, and most importantly, it provided us with the post-implementation agility necessary to adapt to the unknowns in the future," comments Sherri Flynn, project manager from the information technology division.

This deal extends Agresso's win streak in the local government vertical segment over the last six months which includes ERP replacements for the City of Ventura, Calif., and the City of West Linn, Ore.

"The Agresso software platform has proven itself to be a fantastic fit for local governments as they need to provide services to their citizens and also maintain their IT agility," said Shelley Zapp, president of Agresso North America.

Agresso provides a cost-effective solution for achieving post-implementation agility via the company's "VITA" architecture. The architecture allows municipal governments like the City of Sparks to continuously change underlying data, operational processes and/or reporting requirements at a minimum level of cost and business disruption. Agresso targets its solutions to change-oriented organizations, such as local governments and professional services providers, which it calls Businesses Living IN Change (BLINC)[TM].

About the City of Sparks, Nevada 

The City of Sparks (http://www.ci.sparks.nv.us/) was incorporated in 1905 and today has over 90,000 residents and was reported as the fastest growing city in Nevada between 1999 - 2008. The city has equipped itself to be a driving force in the thriving Northern Nevada economy by aggressively establishing a pro-business attitude. Sparks has a growing economy, strong workforce, coupled with an excellent environment and quality of life which are just some of the reasons why people and businesses are locating to Sparks.

About Agresso

Agresso (www.agresso.com/usa) is a $480 million enterprise resource planning (ERP) company and one of the top five providers of ERP solutions for professional services and public sector organizations. Agresso offers a uniquely integrated architecture designed specifically for Businesses Living IN Change (BLINC)[TM]. Agresso allows an unlimited amount of ongoing, post-implementation changes without the typical external IT costs and intervention that nets billions of dollars in revenue to the market leaders. Over 2,750 companies and organizations in 100 countries deploy Agresso Business World for both operational support and strategic management. The company's role-based, Web Services and Services-Oriented Architecture (SOA) enabled solutions include: Financial Management, Human Resources and Payroll, Procurement Management, Project Costing and Billing, Reporting and Analytics, Business Process Automation, Field Services and Asset Maintenance, and CRM.