How California built one of the world's biggest public-sector IT systems

Since 2005, YouTube has gone from launching its first website to serving up more than 100,000 years' worth of video content every day. During the same period, the State of California has gone from the idea of adopting a single ERP, HCM, and procurement platform to getting nearly all of its departments on board – although there are still a few stragglers.

In 2021, 16 years after the implementation was first proposed, the final functionality was deployed to FI$Cal, the statewide finance system. The following year, the legislature judged that all the project's objectives had been met. Just why it took the same time as a startup like YouTube to achieve world domination tells us a lot about enterprise software, and especially its role in government: it's harder than it looks.

FI$Cal – short for Financial Information System for California – combines financial planning, accounting, budgeting, cash management ...