Transport for the North (TfN) is the new sub-national transport body for the North of England. TfN is a partnership of civic and business leaders from across the whole of the North of England, working alongside Highways England, Network Rail, HS2 Ltd. and the Department for Transport (DfT) to drive economic growth by connecting the region with robust and reliable transport links. Its Board is made up of elected representatives from nineteen northern local and combined authorities, alongside business leaders from the eleven northern Local Enterprise Partnerships.
Following a competitive tender process, AP Benson was appointed as ERP System Advisor in late 2016 to assist TfN in planning its IT systems needs in the period leading up to it becoming a statutory body. There was a need to implement an ERP system to manage key business processes.
AP Benson led the process of needs definition, documentation of requirements, specification of the required ERP solution, development of procurement documentation, initial engagement and management of a tender process with potential suppliers of ERP services from within TfN’s set of partners, management of a second tender process using the Crown Commercial Services RM 1042 Lot 1 Corporate Software Solutions (ERP) framework and completion of a process of demonstrations and clarifications with shortlisted vendors.
In Autumn 2017 the project selected an ERP provider, eBecs/DXC from a final field that included Microsoft Dynamics and SAP Hana solutions. The project completed release 1 of its implementation phase in time to support the launch of TfN as a statutory body on 1st April 2018 and recently reached release 2 to support HR and finance functions needed to support the transfer of employees into a 100-employee organisation. The system will be further enhanced with a release 3 deployment scheduled for autumn 2018 and subsequent development timetabled thereafter to support service delivery over the contract period.
Dr. Craig Livingstone said "We were very proud to be able to assist TfN and its selected delivery partners DXC and eBecs in delivering the required functionality needed to support its launch as a statutory body in April and to deliver the HR functions needed to support staff transfers into the organisation in July. We now look forward to helping TfN and the delivery partners to set out a roadmap for Release 3 and future developments of the system."
For more information on AP Benson's work on ERP and PSA systems see our longer article [here]. Information on AP Benson's IT Transformation practice can be found [here].
Developing Business Plans and Financial Models 
