Having won its first revenues and benefits BPS deal at Gloucester Council last October (see here), public sector software and services provider Civica has now launched a ‘flexible pay-as-you-go revenues and benefits processing service’ called Civica OnDemand. The service is in direct competition to Liberata’s CapacityGRID on-demand R&B service (see Could CapacityGRID change Liberata’s fortunes?).
Civica’s service will be delivered out of its Gloucester shared service centre, and based on its OPENRevenues R&B software platform. This gives Civica access to a clearly defined target customer base, since they will be Civica’s existing R&B software clients. By contrast, Liberata doesn’t own the R&B software IP so it is forced to go after the entire market. In theory any software consultancy and configuration work will have already been done, so making it easier for clients to plug and play. Eight local authorities are apparently already using the service including Durham County Council.
Local authorities access the service via a secure network, and contract with Civica either via an annual subscription or on a pay-as-you-go basis. Yearly subscribers pay a set agreed fee for the year (so long as they haven’t exceeded their agreed transaction levels), and apparently can buy further resource without signing a contract. Pay-as-you-go customers meanwhile sign a contract with Civica and pay ‘the standard fees for this payment plan’.
Services so far offered include fairly low level data input and update work, such as occupation changes, discounts and disregards, and attachment of earning (AOE) and attachment of benefits (AOB). Civica clearly has ambitions to expand this however to provide other back office and corporate services to local government and its partners, as well as offer specialist tasks such as fraud management.
Access to R&B admin resource on-demand seems a sensible way to go for cash strapped local authorities, since it will help cut down on the use of contractors during periods of high demand, and mean that they only pay for what services they use. But how Civica manages the ups and downs of client demand cycles will be one of the many tests of the model, and whether it is sustainable for the long term. Certainly Liberata’s most recent financials show that BPaaS hasn’t yet delivered the silver bullet (see here). Subscribers to BusinessProcessViews can read our analysis of the supplier opportunities and threats of BPaaS in BPaaS in the UK: managing the opportunities and risks.