2006 ASX Announcements

Date: 10 October 2006

Objective helps Invercargill City Council, New Zealand to enhance services to the community

Invercargill City Council has selected Objective Corporation (ASX: OCL) to provide an enterprise content management (ECM) solution to improve information management and enhance the provision of services to the community.

Invercargill City Council is responsible for managing New Zealand’s southern most city, covering an area of 49,142 hectares. With an annual budget of over $56 million, the Council provides a wide-range of quality services and facilities to approximately 50,300 people.

Les Pullar, Director of Finance and Corporate Services, said: “Objective will make it easier to share information across our many divisions, directorates and remote locations, minimising the hours spent retrieving information from individual silos of information that existed in each division and directorate.”

Objective will be the single information repository that underpins all of the Council’s information and business processes. It will be used throughout the enterprise by all staff; from the mayor and directors to engineers and planners, from animal control officers to museum technicians, from library staff to cemetery attendants. Objective will manage a range of electronic and physical information, such as plans, contracts, applications, compliance certificates, rates notices, correspondence, building warrants, photos, videos, human resources and personal files.

The function of a modern council requires delivering a diverse range of services while meeting increasing demands from customers.

“Enterprise Content Management provides a platform for people to share information and participate in approval processes that results in fully informed decision-making in all of our business processes.

“Specifically, Objective Workflow will facilitate improvements, to many process-intensive council functions that address ratepayer correspondence and land information, driving improved responsiveness and customer service,” said Mr Pullar.

Objective will be integrated with the council’s Geographical Information System and property administration system delivering people a holistic view of business critical information.

“This will save hundreds of hours of staff time each year on search and retrieval. For example, a person will be able to locate a property file and view all information available relating to that particular property, including rates details, development applications, billing and customer correspondence,” said Mr Pullar.

Objective will play a key role in planning and building consents and contracts management where liaison with external contractors, builders and architects is an iterative process. Strict version control means both the Council and contractors are assured they have access to the most recent versions of contracts.

Objective will also manage cemetery and crematorium records, ensuring security of sensitive information, while identifying and allowing information that is publicly available to be shared with family and for genealogy purposes.

“Objective will deliver transparency and accountability to the ratepayers of the city and will also ensure our compliance with the legislative changes under the Public Records Act 2005,” said Mr Pullar.

“We selected Objective, in part due to the isolated nature of our location. Objective demonstrated its ability to support us in our part of the world and continue to grow with us and provide for our information management needs into the future.

“Objective is a long-term solution that will provide permanent structure in our day-to-day management of information, whilst also realising greater effectiveness and potential efficiencies that will ultimately deliver enhanced services back into the community,” said Mr Pullar.

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About Invercargill City Council

Invercargill City Council is responsible for managing New Zealand’s southern most city, covering an area of 49,142 hectares. With an annual budget of over $56 million, the Council provides a wide-range of quality services and facilities to approximately 49,830 people.

The council operates across three directorates: Works; Environmental and Planning services; Finance and Corporate services. To facilitate council functions, each directorate encompasses a number of divisions and remote locations across the region which includes libraries, pools, museums, waste water treatment plant, cemetery and crematorium and the Bluff service centre.

For further information on Invercargill City Council, visit http://www.icc.govt.nz/