Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs Lays the Foundation for Results Oriented Public Management and eGovernment with SAP®
The main task of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MEA) is to facilitate an efficient Dutch economy with a strong and dynamic private sector.
MEA set out to improve the effectiveness and integration of its business processes and management reporting enabled by information systems. They had already implemented SAP as the ERP platform, but the anticipated results were not fully realized.
In partnership with Capgemini the Ministry developed an SAP strategy and program, and performed a number of projects. The largest of them, the SAP re-implementation, has resulted in an integrated and flexible SAP backbone to accommodate future strategic developments.
Client Profile
The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs - Ministerie van Economische Zaken (EZ for short) - employs approximately 1,400 civil servants in the “core department” in The Hague, the Netherlands and another 3,600 in affiliated agencies.
The main task of EZ is to facilitate an efficient Dutch economy with a strong and dynamic private sector. The main areas of policy are dedication to the free market, and working with industry, to promote innovation, foreign commerce, and energy and environmental regulations.
Business Issues
The main goal of the Dutch Government for the coming years is to significantly increase the effectiveness and efficiency of all government processes. In order to fulfil these, government organisations need to:
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redesign the preparation and execution process in order to relate budget consumption to political objectives and plans
- implement business processes that flow seamlessly through functional departments and produce management information that integrates data from different functional areas.
To deal with both requirements, government organisations need integrated intelligence and control systems. Many of these organizations are assessing, implementing and extending their ERP systems.
EZ was one of the first government organizations to implement SAP. In fact, SAP was implemented at EZ in three separate instances to support:
- budget formulation, execution and financial accounting process
- procurement
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human resource management.
After these implementations, EZ recognised the end result was a system that was insufficiently integrated, and customised in a way that blocked future organizational changes. Of special note was a high degree of ABAP programming that made upgrades to future SAP releases very difficult.
EZ had worked with other SAP implementation partners before, and had not been satisfied with the results. They turned to Capgemini as their main partner for all SAP developments. The decision was based on the latter’s structured methods and approach, as well as its partnership with Huris, a Dutch consulting firm specialising in SAP-HR. Huris is acknowledged as very knowledgeable in HR legislation as well as procedures in the Dutch central government.
Solution
Capgemini started its partnership with EZ by helping to develop the Ministry’s SAP Strategy Paper. This outlined the guiding principles for all SAP projects at EZ in the future as well as providing a framework to facilitate management of such programmes.
The strategy paper identified a solid SAP core implementation as a prerequisite for future strategic SAP developments. The first, and largest, project in the program was a re-implementation of SAP with three main goals:
- design a robust , integrated SAP organisational structure
- integrate the three existing SAP systems into one, thus creating a solid ERP foundation for future developments
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migrate to IS-PS (SAP Industry Solution for the Public Sector) and facilitate EZ’s vision to replace many custom ABAP programs by standard SAP or IS-PS functionality.
The re-implementation project was performed with full collaboration between Capgemini and EZ on all levels; steering committee, project management, team leadership and functional and IT consulting. All in all, approximately 25 consultants and 80 EZ employees worked in partnership to ensure success.
The project scope involved SAP IS-Public Sector and SAP R/3® modules FI, CO, FM, HR, MM, PS and CATS, with the last two modules as pilots. The project scope was for the core ministry - around 300 users in 10 locations in the Netherlands. Capgemini’s methodology, DELIVER, deployed as the implementation method, was adapted to EZ’s environment.
Benefits
The three main goals of the project have been successfully achieved:
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the new SAP organisational structure is adaptable to all foreseeable future organisational developments
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the HR, financial, budgeting and procurement processes are fully integrated into one SAP system
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custom ABAP programming was reduced by 85%, making future upgrades considerably easier.
EZ now has a solid base to further implement their SAP strategy, and has already begun working on the next steps. These include:
- bringing more HR-functionality to employees via the EZ employee portal, “EmPlaza”.
- piloting the SAP Project System combined with web-based timesheets to keep better track of project costs
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implementing eProcurement.
Management at EZ is very pleased with the results of this project:
“We are now the first Dutch Ministry with a truly integrated ERP system up and running.”
Jan de Reus, Director Personnel, Organisation and Information Management
“Whatever the future rules for ‘Result-oriented Public Management’ will be, we are ready for it.”
Léon Smits, Manager SAP Development and Support
“This project could be seen as an example to manage and execute all EZ projects.”
Steering Committee
Written in co-operation with Ministerie van Economische Zaken
