Rethinking the Default Whole-of-Council RFT
Vendor Positioning and Market Structure Through 2026
Local government never wrote a strategy that said the ERP should define the entire technology environment. It happened quietly. Councils bought whole-of-council systems because they wanted a single suite to run finance, property, rating, regulatory and revenue. That decision made operational sense at the time. The problem is what came next. The idea drifted. A business consolidation decision turned into a whole-of-IT mindset. Over time the ERP stopped being one system among many. It became the architectural centre of gravity.
This shift was never really debated in public. We just talked about it amongst ourselves. Then it started to show up through procurement templates, and longer vendor relationships and a slow narrowing of the IT function’s ambition. Corporate Services took over decisions. The ERP suite became the defcto strategy. The vendor became the advisor. The integration partner became a rarely executed option. The IT department became a support unit for a product rather than a steward of enterprise technology.
The net result is that councils did not outsource IT. They just behaved as if they had. Without the contracts or governance that proper outsourcing requires.
That’s how today’s ERP vendors gained such strategic power in the sector. It was a power they were never designed to hold. Their products have since shaped decisions about infrastructure, integration, cybersecurity, data governance and customer service.
Many IT service providers faded into the background. Councils forgot why they needed them. Integration engineering, platform orchestration and data architecture are not functions ERP vendors ever performed well. They were not required to. And the councils simply stopped demanding those skills.
This legacy sits at the heart of the current digital transformation struggle.
Councils are trying to build modern platforms on top of an old worldview and years of underinvestment in some of the skills and services of core IT. Yes, they are adopting Microsoft cloud, Salesforce service layers, ServiceNow orchestration and API-driven ecosystems. But they are still thinking of IT as an ERP extension. The gap between the world where most organisations are headed, and the model councils have inherited is now too large to ignore.
In the changes we are seeing, it is not that a new group of vendors has appeared. They have been here the whole time. What has shifted is the way councils are (re)looking at them.
Once the old ERP worldview starts to fall away, the market becomes easier to understand. The same brands fall into different places when viewed through an architectural lens rather than a product lens.
In Forrester Wave or Gartner Magic Quadrant terms, the market itself is not new. The classification scheme is. This reclassification signals a deeper shift in thinking. Councils are beginning to see technology as an ecosystem that needs orchestration rather than a single system that needs administration.
The picture becomes clearer once the lens shifts. You can see which vendors operate across the full stack (Transformation Partners), which remain tied to the traditional ERP model (ERP), and which offer a modern cloud alternative (Challengers). And with this different perspective comes a different understanding of where each one fits in the future of local government technology.
The first group, Trasformation Partners, really sit in a different part of the market. They are not defined by an ERP suite, even where they may offer one. They are system integrators that bring software capability into the transformation process and can operate as long-term technology partners rather than suite providers. Datacom, Oracle and Fujitsu sit in this category, alongside others such as Deloitte and KPMG who work in similar roles. In some cases, including Datacom, this group may also carry a local government ERP product, but the software does not anchor their market position. Architecture does. And while longevity exists across all three categories in local government, it signals something different here. ERP vendors endure because they are embedded and often own the transactions. Challengers endure by remaining relevant within a defined scope. Transformation Partners endure by supporting thier clients to survive change. They do this by working across applications, platforms, cloud infrastructure, integration and managed services. Their performance is also revealed over time, rather than at the point of sale. They are exposed to shifting architectures, changing vendors and evolving operating models. Their continued presence depends on their ability to adapt rather than their ability to lock in. That distinction matters in a market that is now organising itself around ecosystems rather than suites.
The second group still represents the ERP worldview that shaped local government for the last generation. TechnologyOne. Civica. Infor. Their approach was built for a period when the safest answer was to consolidate everything into one suite and manage one primary relationship. That made sense when councils wanted stability rather than knowing they need more architectural flexibility. It solved the problems of its time. But it also set the boundaries of how councils understood technology and what they were prepared to tolerate. These products were never designed for an environment defined by integration, orchestration or data flow across many platforms and they have usually been sold to executive roles, not IT buyers. They remain strong incumbents because they are the foundational systems of record for so many councils. They simply hold a position that reflects an earlier period in the sector’s digital development. When councils continue to centre their strategy around these suites they often recreate the old world inside the new one. The technology changes but the operating model does not. The result is a modern interface wrapped around a legacy mindset. They are still very important, in context.
The third group contains the modern challengers like MAGIQ and CouncilFirst. They sit outside the old ERP tradition but they are not system integrators either. Their value comes from offering councils a more contemporary business system footprint without requiring a shift into the scale and complexity of global platform ecosystems. MAGIQ’s current suite reflects a long period of rebuilding and reinvestment after the acquisition of several legacy products. The portfolio today is more cloud aligned and more extensible than it once was, but that position has been achieved through patient redevelopment rather than a single clean build. CouncilFirst, by contrast, enters the market with a clearer cloud starting point and a tighter architectural story. Both give councils a way to modernise and reduce dependency on traditional ERP suites, though they arrive at that outcome through different paths. They fill the space between the legacy worldview and the broader transformation models now taking shape. These vendors don’t claim to be PaaS providers like Salesforce and Servicenow, and that clarity helps them at this point. They focus specifically on the functional needs of local government and build contemporary on-demand products, with on-demand user licensing for those needs. They offer councils a way to break long dependencies on legacy suites without forcing a shift to enterprise platforms before they are ready. They fill the space between the old ERP worldview and the broader transformation models now taking shape.
| Vendor Group | Examples | Role in Architecture
| Transformation | Datacom, Oracle, Fujitsu | Full-stack, integration, platform
| ERP Vendors | T1, Civica, Infor | Traditional system of record
| Cloud Challengers | MAGIQ, CouncilFirst | Modular capable SaaS
This is where I think one vendor currently sits awkwardly between the groups. ReadyTech has acquired its way into a position that defies simple classification. Today, it is not a traditional ERP provider in the mold of TechnologyOne or Civica. Today, it does not hold the systems integration capability or architectural breadth of Datacom, Fujitsu or Oracle. Today, it is not a clean cloud SaaS challenger like CouncilFirst or Magiq. Today, it carries legacy from earlier products and the portfolio is too new to yet form a clear architectural story.
The result is a stack that appeals to some smaller councils yet lacks the cohesion needed for a modern platform strategy. This is a question of identity. Councils are beginning to choose ecosystems rather than collections of applications, and vendors without a defined position in that ecosystem find themselves harder to place.
ReadyTech sits in that unresolved space at a time when the market is actually becoming more structured and more segmented. Councils are moving into models that expect clear roles inside a broader architecture. ERP vendors cannot stretch into platform orchestration. Platform operators cannot shrink into ERP logic. Challengers cannot carry inherited complexity. So ReadyTech’s challenge is not capability, nor investment potential. It is alignment with the shape the sector is now taking.
This new framing also exposes the myth at the centre of the whole-of-council idea. The 20th century ERP-centric worldview created the illusion that the software provider was the natural owner of the technology agenda. It was never true.
The rise of PaaS and low-code platforms has made that illusion impossible to sustain. Integration matters now. Data pipelines matter. Identity matters. Interoperability matters. Service design matters. None of these sit inside a single ERP. They sit across many systems and require coordination by skilled partners.
This is why the Transformation Partner companies sit more naturally in the architectural direction councils are beginning to pursue. Their work spans several layers of the technology stack, so they occupy positions that fit the broader patterns now taking shape.
Councils have to move toward operating models that depend on several partners working within one strategy rather than a single product holding everything together. Don’t agree? Then how does the expanding application footprint make this unavoidable?
SaaS has made it easier to adopt new tools and the result is a larger and more complex environment than the old whole-of-council model ever anticipated. The irony is that this was always the logical destination. The sector grew its way into an ecosystem. It is only now beginning to see that it needs an ecosystem approach to manage it.
And this is the key point that starts to shape the path forward.
Local government simply avoided formal outsourcing while also growing dependent on ERP vendors in a way that resembled it. The difference today is that councils are starting to see the actual structure of their environment. They can now see the roles different companies play across the ecosystem rather than through the narrow lens of a single suite.
I am obviously only calling out a subset of vendors here. The focus is on those that sit at the centre of the whole-of-council market because they have shaped the way councils think about technology for more than a generation.
The broader ecosystem is much larger of course. Finance tools, planning systems, asset management platforms, CMS and CRM products, spatial solutions, rating management, governance applications and specialised tools like parking enforcement all play important roles in the digital environment of local government. They matter. They influence architecture. They carry operational weight. They simply sit outside the specific question this article is trying to resolve which is how the core vendors have been understood and how that understanding will continue to shift in the years ahead.
It also underscores just how razor thin the whole-of-council narrative has been, yet how effectively it has shaped the core of thinking across the sector. The simplicity of that message carried extraordinary influence. It pushed councils toward a worldview where one system was expected to hold the centre of everything. It is baffling in hindsight yet also a reminder of the strength of the marketing that sustained it. TechnologyOne’s communication of that idea has been truly world class and the sector has willingly carried it forward for decades.
So where to? Well i think the real question is not which vendors win the next round of procurement but whether councils will update the mental models that guide their choices. Strategic architecture is no longer optional. The technology landscape has already moved beyond the old worldview. Councils can move with it or carry the same untested assumptions into a new era.
Of course it will be a mix of both. But no sector, including local government, can stand still while enterprise application technology is shifting under its feet. The only choice is whether the shift is conscious or accidental.
Either way, 2026 is going to be a big year! And I look forward to working with many of you again. For my paid subscribers focused on local government tech procurement, read on to unpack why whole-of-council ERP RFTs no longer fit the market, and get in touch if you need some help.