Your council has invested heavily in technology. You've seen incremental efficiencies. What you haven't seen is the bigger shift you were promised — your workforce moving from admin and paper-pushing to the projects, services and conversations that deliver for community.
Simply Now is how councils finally make that shift.
The answers exist somewhere. Scattered across systems, inboxes, spreadsheets and one-off lists. Clarity is technically available — but only after huge effort. Every report is hard work.
When someone changes position, seven teams need to know — IT, HR, customer service, the EAs, risk, finance, and whoever runs the system this person was a key user of. Each gets told separately. Each updates separately. Position descriptions drift out of date. New starters wait for access. People don't mind recording a decision once — they get frustrated copying the same information into five different forms because every team works in its own silo.
When the audit committee meets, executives, managers, EAs and admin spend days chasing updates, refining wording, and reformatting evidence into something presentable. The information exists — it's just scattered, stale, and held together by spreadsheets and goodwill. And when a councillor asks an executive about an action in passing, there's a quiet dread:
Your current systems are robust, reliable and secure. That moved you a step forward — but it stopped there. They record what happened; they don't guide what should happen next.
They don't coordinate the seven teams who need to know about a position change. They don't nudge a due date before it slips. They don't give a Director the answer to a councillor's question without three days of chasing.
The robustness you've already paid for is still valuable — it's the foundation. What's missing is the process-guiding intelligence layer that sits on top of it.
Not because the change isn't profound — it is. But because the day-to-day experience of working in a council that's running on process intelligence shouldn't feel dramatic.
A system that quietly does the admin work for you, behind the scenes — reliably, accurately, tirelessly. While your staff see only the information they need to make the next decision.
That's the user experience. The system handles everything that follows — the notifications, the records, the next steps, the audit trail, the closing-the-loop communication back to whoever raised it.
The dream-state is:
No more chasing. No more copying. No more reformatting.
And here's the part that actually matters: the team you have today, refocused. The same people, doing the projects, the service delivery, the conversations with community. Less paper-pushing. More outcomes.
And when scope grows — a new grant, an expanded program, more services to deliver — you don't need to grow the admin function alongside it, the way councils have done for the last twenty years. The process intelligence absorbs the additional coordination. The same team delivers more.
That's why Simply Now exists.
We deliver the three essential elements every successful council outcome needs: process, technology and people — designed to work as one, delivered by one partner.
Where the intelligence comes from.
Reaching shared understanding of the decisions, steps and roles that actually deliver the outcomes your community is counting on. While cutting out all the noise that exists currently. It works by combining how your organisation already operates with management, executive and systems-architect experience earned inside Victorian local government. This is what produces the process intelligence baked into every Performance Enabler module you deploy.
Whether it's a policy register, staff performance plans or a customer request system — Simply Now starts by getting the people, process and technology aligned around the outcomes that matter. Then maps the plan that turns that into modules everyone loves to use.
Why this is different »Where the intelligence lives.
Most systems record what happened. The Performance Enabler guides you with what's happening next.
The unified workspace, built on the Microsoft Power Platform your council already trusts. 20+ proven modules across governance, people, customer and operations — each one a complete process that reveals what's been decided and guides what should happen next, with the forms, dashboards and automations to make it operational. Seamlessly embedded in your Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Start where you want; add more when you're ready.
See the full module library »Where the intelligence lands.
The human part — conversations, decisions and ways of working — while the tech handles the rest. Alongside your team through design, build and embedment, then beyond. Coaching staff to shift from feeding systems to benefiting from them. Supporting managers and executives to lead discussions based on information they can finally trust.
Most platform investments don't fail on the tech. They fail when the human side wasn't designed in and supported in the changes. That's what Simply Now does differently.
Hear what Directors say »A digital workspace for councils to seamlessly deliver, improve and comply.
Most systems record what happened. The Performance Enabler guides you with what's happening next — across every team, every workflow, every decision. Built on the Microsoft Power Platform your council already trusts. Seamlessly embedded in your Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
Not generic templates. 20+ proven modules. Built and refined over ten years across Victorian councils.
Pick what you need. The rest is ready when you are.
Each one is a complete process that reveals what's been decided and guides what should happen next — for the staff member responding to a customer request, the supervisor reviewing what's outstanding, the manager weighing up a vacancy, the executive answering a councillor. The forms, dashboards and automations that make that intelligence operational are all there too — but they're the mechanics, not the point. The point is that the process is already designed in.
Fast-tracked discovery and alignment. Configure the proven pattern to your council's specifics, train the team, go live. Then add the next.
The modules don't sit in silos.
Council processes don't either.
Connected decisions are exponentially better than isolated ones. That's the real return on a system that's actually integrated.
Simply Now is led by Grant Schuster — a former Director of Corporate & Community Services. But here's what matters more than the title:
Who needed clarity on what his team had outstanding.
Who needed visibility on what was actually moving.
Who finally built something that gave both of them what they needed — on the same platform, from the same data.
Most consultants have done one of these jobs. Some have done two. Doing all three — at depth, in the same career — is what produces the process intelligence baked into every Simply Now module. The "what should happen next" isn't theoretical. It's been tested, refined, and proven in the chair, with real staff, real councillors, and real audit committees.
This isn't a hollow vendor pitch. It's a system designed from the inside, by someone who built it for his council first.
Workflow and forms vendors create more admin — they're not integrated with your core data. Big consultancies write strategies that sit on shelves. Power Platform implementers drop tools and walk away.
Simply Now is different because:
Grant has process improvement built into his DNA. The way he understands process and builds systems that guide users is second-to-none — I've never used a system that gave me better visibility or oversight in my role as Corporate Services Director.
He had the projects module up and running within three weeks of signing up. From customer service to governance to staff performance, his systems transformed how we worked — automating workflows, streamlining processes, tracking progress and generating reports with ease and accuracy.
If you're looking to genuinely transform how your council operates, I cannot recommend Grant highly enough.
"He empowered an organisation to truly adopt the power of digital processes — not paper processes disguised as digital."
"Grant taught me how to take a basic form and turn it into a fully fledged management system. There is never a process flow too difficult."
"He bet the odds and successfully created a system that made it easier to serve the customer and much less daunting for staff."
Former council Director of Corporate & Community Services. Twelve years inside Victorian local government before founding Simply Now full-time in 2024.
Sat in the chair. Felt the pressure. Built the systems he wished every council had.
Get in touch »Your team deserves to deliver, not just keep up. The people in your council didn't sign up to feed five systems and reformat the same information into another spreadsheet. They signed up to make a difference for their community. Let's talk about what it takes to give them that — and the visibility you need to lead it.
Tell me what your council is working on. I'll get back within one business day.
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Please email grant@simplynow.com.au or book a 30-minute conversation.