IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

In response to William Davy's article (Big bang installation of city's IT system is dangerous approach, September 10), the City of Cape Town is of the firm opinion that its ERP programme is a bold but well-considered approach.

Davy, who was last a contractor to the city over two years ago, examines the ERP project as an information technology project and misses the point that it is in fact a transformation project to integrate seven organisations with more than 28 000 staff, a budget of more than R10 billion, and which serves 3.2 million residents. He also fails to recognise that while other municipalities are still grappling with their integration, Cape Town is just about to complete its unicity integration process.

The ERP programme is bold because of the following factors:

• It is the largest, most extensive local government implementation of SAP worldwide. The project has been implemented in record time, given its scope: nine months for Release 1 "Expenditure" (December 30, 2002) and 19 months for Release 2 "Income" (September 8, 2003).
• It is a first in SA local government, including being a pilot site for implementing the new Generally Accepted Municipal Accounting Practice legislation.
• It involved change management and training for over 6 000 employees.
• It sought to merge the systems, procedures, policies and staff of the seven former councils into the one integrated unicity in under two years.

The ERP programme is well considered because:

• The business case was meticulously scrutinised and projected a return on the R360 million investment in under four years.
• Its strategy has its roots in the multi-party Unicity Commission's preparatory work in 2000.
• A full year of software selection for implementation was conducted in 2001, where the process was open to all software solutions, including those mentioned by Davy.

  Some 250 senior and middle managers representing all the functions in the city participated in this selection process, making it the most extensive and rigorous that the city has ever undertaken.

  This process also included the expert advice of the internationally respected IT research agency, the Gartner Group.

• The SAP software that was selected has some 50 local government and a further 50 utility (electricity, water, etc) reference sites worldwide to its credit, as well as more than 300 South African installations across various industries.

Any detractor or critic can easily produce a shopping list of concerns, but the key questions about a project of this nature and scope are: One, where has this solution been used successfully for a full local government application? Two, what did that cost? Three, how long did it take?

The answer, quite simply, is look at the City of Cape Town's very own SAP implementation. The city started its SAP project in February 2002 and has been using SAP successfully since January 2003 for all its expenditure systems.

It is in the process of completing the implementation this very month with the going live of its income systems (after a successful trial run in Blaauwberg since February 2003).

This disproves Davy's assertion of a risky "big bang" approach. Furthermore, the full project cost R360m and was implemented in 19 months.

And if the city's own assessment of its success in this field is not sufficient, one should be reminded that the city's Smart City Programme (of which the ERP Programme is the largest component) was acclaimed last year as the winner of the South Africa eGovernment award.

Davy argues for the retention and integration of separate administration systems (62 in total!) as a cheaper option than SAP. The city will be operating SAP at an annual cost of R60m, which is the same cost that the 62 legacy systems incurred in the former seven councils that now constitute the City of Cape Town.

However, there are two big differences: Firstly, the city now gets far more value and functionality out of the SAP system for the same R60m that was previously spent on the 62 legacy systems.

Secondly, after the year-long investigation during 2001, the council was convinced that trying to maintain and integrate the 62 legacy systems was simply not a viable option. Anyone who wishes to see the full technical justification for this project can visit our website at www.capetown.gov.za, and read first-hand the comprehensive report that council deliberated over on January 22 last year before it made the considered and strategic decision to embark upon this project.

In the end, SAP will provide the city with a consolidated view of all its income and expenditure. This will lead to better integrated financial and resource management across the city, which is to the ultimate benefit of all Capetonians.

Quelle: Cape Times