While the platform itself was stable, it was not delivering optimisation, innovation, or measurable business value. Brent needed a partner that could move them beyond stabilisation and help unlock outcomes from their existing SaaS estate.
Brent Council
Who are Brent Council?
Brent Council serves one of London’s largest and most diverse boroughs, delivering critical services across housing, education, public health and regeneration. Despite adopting Oracle SaaS to modernise HR and enterprise platforms, the council was initially not realising the full value of its investment.
Support had transitioned from implementation into business‑as‑usual with the incumbent provider, but remained limited to a reactive, break‑fix model.
Client Profile
- Customer name London Borough of Brent
- Sector Public Sector (Local Government)
Overcoming the limits of break-fix support
Stuck in ticket firefighting
New features not adopted
Manual HR and finance processes
Long-standing unresolved tickets
Dependence on costly contractors
Unused Oracle licence features
Building a proactive, outcome-driven partnership
Following a competitive tender process, Brent Council partnered with Version 1 to deliver ASPIRE Managed Services for its Oracle SaaS platform.
From the outset, Version 1 stood out through the quality and depth of engagement during the tender process, demonstrating a genuine commitment to understanding Brent’s requirements. Early access to subject‑matter experts, strong communication, and a blended onshore and offshore delivery model gave Brent confidence that the partnership could deliver both responsiveness and continuity. Version 1 supports a broad HCM and ERP footprint, including payroll, recruitment, learning and procurement, delivered through a proactive, collaborative and outcome‑driven service model.
Vik continued: “What truly sets Version 1 apart is their proactive approach. They are committed to understanding our business requirements in depth, ensuring that our needs are met swiftly and effectively. Their dedication to providing top-tier support means that any concerns or lingering issues are resolved rapidly, meeting our expectations time and again. We are excited to continue developing our partnership with Version 1, confident that their ongoing innovation, leveraging of Oracle AI capabilities, and drive for meaningful improvements will further enhance our Oracle Cloud journey and deliver outstanding results for all our users.”
Version 1’s ASPIRE service
Version 1’s first priority was to establish a strong operational baseline. We reviewed and resolved inherited tickets from the previous provider, including several long‑standing issues that had been open for over six months and, in some cases, more than a year.
This early focus addressed the impact of a reactive support model and rebuilt confidence from the outset.
Version 1 supported Brent in adopting a more outcome‑led approach, with stronger upfront design, clearer communication and broader impact assessment, reducing rework and unintended consequences.
With stability in place, Version 1 worked closely with Brent’s internal Oracle systems team to shift focus towards optimisation.
This included:
Early adoption of Oracle Redwood through Version 1’s Centre of Excellence
Proactive roadmap creation for new features and SaaS releases
Quick wins identified clear operational and financial benefits
Specialist support consolidated, cutting reliance on external contractors
Knowledge transfer and self-service empowered Brent’s teams to focus on optimisation
Oracle SaaS
Delivering measurable value and operational resilience
One of the most immediate wins came from deploying Oracle Learn, enabling Brent to retire its separate learning platform, improve user experience within Oracle SaaS, and remove incumbent licence and support costs.
We also helped Brent reduce its reliance on external contractors, particularly in payroll support. By rolling this capability into the managed service, Brent has been able to remove the need for multiple specialist contractors, delivering significant cost savings over the term of the contract while maintaining confidence in a highly business‑critical area.
Resolved longstanding support issues rapidly
Boosted responsiveness and proactive engagement, particularly in payroll
Automated integration with new recruitment supplier, cutting manual HR workload
Implemented cloud archive for historic data, retiring end-of-life hardware
Delivered an optimisation roadmap tailored to Brent’s priorities
Laid robust groundwork for AI adoption in Oracle SaaS, with strong governance
Enabling an AI‑ready future within Oracle SaaS
With a strong operational foundation established, we are now supporting Brent in their next phase: deploying AI safely and ensuring that it is effectively adopted within Oracle SaaS.
Brent is taking a cautious but progressive approach to AI adoption within Oracle, starting with small, well‑defined use cases to build confidence and gather feedback. Strong governance ensures AI outputs are drawn from trusted Oracle data, enabling innovation grounded in real outcomes without introducing unnecessary risk.
A trusted partnership for continuous optimisation
By transforming how Brent Council supports and optimises its Oracle SaaS platform, we have helped unlock value from an existing investment while reducing cost, complexity and operational risk.
The collaborative approach has strengthened Brent’s internal Oracle systems team, improved service resilience, and laid the foundations for continuous improvement across the life of the contract, ensuring the platform continues to evolve in line with organisational priorities and, ultimately, the needs of local residents.
