Case Study · Service Design · Digital Transformation

Service Design
& System
Migration

Waipa Networks Ltd · Waikato, New Zealand

Waipa Networks was locked into a heavily customised ERP module for service delivery. A mandatory ERP upgrade — with a configuration-only rule, no customisations — forced a complete redesign of where critical functions lived and how they connected.

1ERP Replaced
4Systems Redesigned
2Staged Phases
0Customisations
System State — Before & After
⚠ Before — Finance ERP doing everything
Finance ERP (Heavily Customised)
Finance ✓ Fault Recording ✗ Dispatch ✗ Service Delivery ✗ Asset Management ✗ ICP/Billing ✗ Cost Tracking ✗
↓ ERP upgrade forces redesign
✓ After — Right functions in right systems
Finance
Magiq Cloud ERP
Asset Management
GIS Platform
Billing & ICP
Dedicated Billing System
Service Delivery
Purpose-Built Platform
The Problem

The right work in
the wrong system

Waipa Networks had solved a practical problem years earlier by customising their finance ERP to handle service delivery. At the time, it worked. Fault recording, dispatch, cost tracking, and invoicing all lived in the one system that staff already used.

But customisation has a cost that compounds over time. The ERP vendor roadmap moved on, and the business was now running functions critical to daily operations on a layer of customisation that the vendor could no longer support.

A configuration-only deployment of the new ERP meant every function that had been customised in needed to be re-examined, re-housed, and reconnected — without halting daily operations.

The challenge was not just technical. It required understanding what the business actually needed from each function, not just what it had been doing, and finding the right long-term home for each one.

ERP Customisation Was Unsustainable
The existing customised module couldn't survive an ERP upgrade. Retaining it would have locked the business into an outdated platform indefinitely — or required a rebuild at far greater cost later.
Critical Functions in the Wrong System
Service delivery, asset management, billing, and regulatory functions were all housed in the finance system. Finance systems are optimised for finance — not for dispatch, fault tracking, or GIS-linked asset records.
Compliance Reporting Complexity
Regulatory reporting to the Electricity Authority and Commerce Commission required data that crossed system boundaries — making accurate reporting slow, manual, and fragile.
No Disruption to Daily Operations
Waipa Networks had to keep delivering electricity services throughout the migration. A phased approach was non-negotiable — each stage had to leave the business fully operational.
The Process

Four steps from discovery
to phased delivery

The work moved through four structured stages — from understanding the full landscape of what needed to move, through updating journey maps to reflect new workflows, to designing and sequencing the migration itself.

1
Understand the Landscape

Reviewed the existing customised ERP module in detail — function by function — to identify exactly what needed to move and where it should go. Three clear destination categories emerged:

Moving from ERP
Asset Management
Moving to
GIS Platform
Moving from ERP
Billing & ICP Management
Moving to
Dedicated Billing / Regulatory System
Moving from ERP
Service Delivery & Works Management
Moving to
To be designed — no pre-decided answer
2
Update Journey Maps

Built on prior process mapping work by updating customer and service journey maps to reflect new workflows across the replacement systems. Journey maps were updated for both current (as-is) and future (to-be) states — making the interim period legible and manageable for operational teams.

Journey Maps: Before
Single-system view — all steps within ERP regardless of logical ownership
Integration points between costing, dispatch and charging not explicitly mapped
No visibility of where system boundaries created handoff risk
Interim state (during migration) undefined
Journey Maps: After
Cross-system journeys showing where workflows crossed platform boundaries
Integration points highlighted — costing, charging, and dispatch handoffs made explicit
Interim-state maps gave teams clarity on how to operate during migration
Future-state maps defined the target — reducing ambiguity about the destination
3
Phased Solution Design

A two-stage migration was designed to ensure operational continuity while progressively moving to the target architecture.

Stage 1 moved core functions out of the ERP into purpose-built platforms — the most critical step, with the highest disruption risk, managed first to de-risk Stage 2.

Stage 2 established the integrations between systems that would automate the costing and charging steps that Stage 1 still required manual handling for.

4
Service Design Integration

Positioned service delivery workflows so they could operate continuously during the transition — no service interruption, no gap in regulatory compliance, no unplanned downtime for operational teams.

Defined the full set of integration requirements between Magiq Cloud, the GIS platform, and the billing system — specifying what data needed to flow where, when, and in what format, so the technical implementation had a clear service design specification to work from.

The Solution

Two stages.
No disruption.

The migration was sequenced so that the business remained fully operational at every point — with each stage delivering a stable, working state before the next began.

Stage 1
Move Functions to Purpose-Built Systems

The primary objective of Stage 1 was to get critical functions out of the ERP and into platforms designed for them — before the ERP upgrade removed the customised module.

This stage accepted that some manual handling between systems was a necessary interim cost — the priority was stability and continuity.

Asset management moved to the GIS platform with spatial data integrity preserved
Billing and ICP management moved to the dedicated billing / regulatory platform
Finance ERP deployed with no customisations — Magiq Cloud configuration only
Service delivery workflows redesigned for the new system landscape
Stage 2
Establish Automated System Integrations

Stage 2 replaced the manual handoffs that Stage 1 had accepted with automated integrations between the now-stable platforms — eliminating re-keying, reducing error, and improving reporting accuracy.

The costing and charging steps that crossed system boundaries were the primary integration targets — the highest-effort manual steps in the Stage 1 workflows.

Costing integration between service delivery system and Magiq Cloud — automatic allocation
Charging integration between service delivery and billing — fault invoicing automated
Asset data flowing from GIS to ERP for capitalisation and depreciation
Regulatory reporting drawing directly from correct source systems — no manual extraction
Target Integration Architecture — Stage 2
Service Delivery & Works Mgmt
Faults · Dispatch · Jobs
💼
Magiq Cloud ERP
Finance · Costing · Payroll
📋
Billing & ICP System
Invoicing · EA Registry
🗺️
GIS Platform
Network Assets · Spatial Data
Outcomes

The right functions
in the right systems

A complex, risk-laden ERP migration completed without service disruption — and a system architecture that gave Waipa Networks a foundation built to last, not a new layer of technical debt.

ERP Deployed — No Customisations
Magiq Cloud went live as a configuration-only deployment, eliminating the long-term support cost and version-lock risk that had made the previous approach unsustainable. Finance now runs on a platform the vendor supports fully.
🏠
Right Functions in Right Systems
Service delivery, billing, and asset management all moved to purpose-built platforms — systems designed for the work they now do. GIS manages spatial network assets. The billing system handles ICP registration. Service delivery runs on its own platform.
🗺️
Updated Journey Maps — Interim & Future State
Updated journey maps gave operational teams clarity on both the interim and future states — removing ambiguity about how to work during the transition and what the target looked like, reducing resistance and ad-hoc workarounds.
🔌
Phased Integration — Operations Uninterrupted
The two-stage approach allowed Waipa Networks to modernise without stopping. No customer service gaps, no compliance failures, no unplanned operational downtime — a migration completed while the business ran normally throughout.