Case Study
City of Winchester, VA
How a small Virginia city overcame staffing constraints and IT limitations by moving Naviline to the cloud with CentralSquare.
Winchester, Virginia is a small but ambitious city. Covering roughly nine square miles and home to nearly 30,000 residents, it delivers the full range of municipal services across a workforce of about 850 employees.
Even small cities have a lot of moving parts, so the technology supporting them needs to be rock solid. For Winchester, that means having an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system capable of meeting the demands of every department. After all, a lean IT team can’t afford to get bogged down in system maintenance.
With staffing shortages, growing user demands, and a limited IT budget, Winchester needed a partner that could manage infrastructure on its behalf. That partner was CentralSquare, and after nearly 30 years, the relationship continues to grow.
"Working with CentralSquare has allowed us to focus on our user issues instead of the day-to-day operational constraints of security and system issues.”
Bob Elliott, Applications and Project Manager
City of Winchester, VA
The Problem
“The city made the determination that it was not fair to put it on one person to be responsible for security for the whole organization.”
— Bob Elliott, Applications and Project Manager, City of Winchester, VA
Winchester ran Naviline on-premises for years. It managed its own upgrades, security patches, and system maintenance internally. With a small IT team already stretched thin, that responsibility was manageable. Until it wasn’t.
When a key IT programmer announced their retirement, the city was left with one person responsible for supporting the entire ERP system. For an organization of 850 employees serving 30,000 residents, that wasn’t an enviable or sustainable position to be in.
The retirement was just one piece of a larger puzzle. Like many municipalities, Winchester was navigating staff shortages, knowledge gaps, and an IT budget that grew each year but never enough to meet demand.
Managed Infrastructure
A cloud-based solution that could take infrastructure management off the city’s plate
Doing More with Less
A way to do more with less amid staffing shortages and a constrained IT budget
Full-Service Partnership
A partner equipped to handle security, upgrades, and support at scale
The Solution
In 2021, Winchester made the move to the cloud, migrating Naviline from an on-premises environment to a CentralSquare-hosted platform. The decision was driven by necessity, but the results exceeded expectations.
With CentralSquare managing infrastructure, upgrades, and cybersecurity, the city’s IT team could focus on solving problems for city departments and the citizens they serve. The day-to-day operational burden of keeping an ERP system running (e.g. patches, security monitoring, version upgrades) became CentralSquare’s responsibility, not Winchester’s.
Naviline itself serves as the all-in-one ERP backbone for the city. Nearly every module is in use, touching everything from finance and payroll to purchasing and fixed assets. It’s the kind of comprehensive platform Winchester had been looking for since first partnering with CentralSquare in 1997. They wanted a true ERP, not a patchwork of disconnected applications.
Now, Winchester is expanding that footprint. The city is in the process of implementing ONESolution, which will integrate public safety operations into the same ecosystem.
The Results
“Working with support is probably the highlight of working with CentralSquare. The support team tends to respond and answer the case in less than a day.”
— Bob Elliott, Applications and Project Manager, City of Winchester, VA
The cloud migration has delivered on every front. Winchester’s IT team is no longer consumed by system maintenance, freeing staff to focus on process improvements and the needs of city departments. And with fewer people needed to support the ERP system, the city has been able to do more with less despite ongoing staffing pressures.
Performance has improved too. With less latency, work gets done faster across the organization—a tangible benefit felt by all 850 employees who touch CentralSquare in one way or another.
Most telling is Winchester’s relationship with the CentralSquare support team. Cases are typically resolved in less than a day, and for more complex issues, proactive communication keeps the city informed at every step.
After nearly 30 years, the partnership between Winchester and CentralSquare is as strong as ever. With ONESolution™ in implementation (and more on the horizon), Winchester continues to equip its staff to accomplish more with less and better serve its citizens.
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