The City of Grand Rapids picks Highstreet to implement their Oracle Cloud full-suite applications. The next 12 months will see the entire complement of financials, budgeting, HCM, and Payroll modules come to life. By partnering with Highstreet, Grand Rapids is applying the most modern, innovative applications available. This will empower them to better service their community by eliminating obsolete technology and the disadvantages that come with it.
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids, the county seat of Kent County in Western Michigan, is Michigan’s second most populous city. The city employs approximately 2,300 full-time equivalents and has an operating budget of nearly $415 Million. Grand Rapids provides their community with services like trash, recycling, and yard waste services, police volunteer and neighborhood services programs, report a complaint service, job help services, and much more. Uniquely, Grand Rapids has a GRow1000 Youth Employment program. This program began as a response to two issues: the COVID-19 pandemic and continuing racial and economic disparities. Through the help of Mark Washington, Grand Rapid’s City Manager, and other community leaders, GRow1000 helped support the public by employing 1,000 young individuals for the summer. This program has helped land over 800 youth in unique job sites around the city.
The City of Grand Rapids strives to elevate the quality of life through excellent City services and envisions being an “Innovative and collaborative city with a robust economy.” With Highstreet’s Oracle cloud application implementation, we will help the city with their vision of becoming more innovative and collaborative using modern systems and technologies.
Choosing Transformation
By replacing older technology, Grand Rapids will quickly adapt and grow with the implementation of Oracle SaaS. Grand Rapids picked Highstreet as a partner due to our Cloud Transformation Methodology, our focus on user readiness, and the flexibility around implementation timelines. With Grand Rapids being a larger City on an older application, seeking true digital transformation and a process change was something the city found vital. Issues like duplicative and manual processes, lack of system integration, reliance on spreadsheets and paper, and additional issues will quickly be fixed.
Additionally, since these are true SaaS applications, Grand Rapids will benefit from auto-delivered quarterly updates and from a guaranteed five-year cost structure. The city has opted for 48 months of post-go-live support to include both Highstreet’s ECS Support Services and ECS Application Update Service. The combination of these two services is a powerhouse, ensuring Grand Rapids fully benefits from the impact of each quarterly Oracle update.
Looking Forward
Excited to work with the City of Grand Rapids, Highstreet has launched the project and is looking forward to a projected go-live of April of 2024. In this modern digital age, staying on the cutting edge of technological innovation is vital to provide the best and most efficient services. Grand Rapids, knowing this, has trusted Highstreet to be their partner and guide them to digital empowerment and transformation.
