Conservation International (CI) has selected an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution from UNIT4. Agresso Business World will consolidate CI’s existing ERP applications, replacing Oracle e-Business as well as several proprietary software applications that CI currently uses.
CI selected Agresso Business World over other popular solutions due to its agile architectural design and secondly for its grant tracking and donor reporting, superior workflow capability, ease of use and maintenance, and functionality for remote countries, including its multi-language, multi-currency capabilities.
CI lacked an integrated system for tracking grants, instead using a combination of their previous system for sub awards, multiple spreadsheets, and a document management system to manage incoming grants. “The lack of central and integrated data created inefficiencies that impacted the time staff could spend on conservation and research and that could result in decisions based on incomplete or inaccurate information,” states Gregory Kinard, financial applications director at Conservation International. “Likewise, fulfilling evolving donor reporting requirements was very difficult. Our end users spent too much time trying to pull data from different systems to get it into the format the donors wanted.” he adds. Agresso will allow CI to track the grant information it needs, track any new information in the future, and easily fulfill new or changing reporting requirements.
With the addition of CI to its customer roster, UNIT4 Business Software continues to gain recognition in the non-profit sector. “Non-profits are attracted by Agresso’s ability to handle the unexpected,” says Shelley Zapp president of UNIT4 Business Software. “NGOs grapple with new operational jurisdictions, changing funding structures, and increasingly heterogeneous donor reporting expectations; Agresso helps them respond to these changes easily, quickly and without the business disruption that seems ‘normal’ with other ERP systems. This agility can open up additional funding opportunities by bringing more transparency and accountability to how donations are spent, as well as maximizing the effectiveness of that money,” she adds.
