$20m SAP ECC replacement project delayed because UK university unsure what it wants
- Reference: 1672748114
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/01/03/city_london_delays_sap_rollout/
- Source link:
As the support deadline looms for its current ERP system, based on SAP ECC6, the 20,000-student institution [1]published a legal notice which said it had decided not to award the contract.
"During the procurement, it was realized our requirements were more complex than had originally been anticipated. We do not have confidence that a contract awarded under this procurement would best serve our objectives," it said.
[2]
The problem, the notice said, was down to new circumstances as much as a failure to understand the requirements.
[3]
[4]
"The scope of our requirements changed and we now envisage combining the exercise to replace the ERP system with a wider programme of IT modernisation rather than conducting separate exercises, which may to lead to duplicated expense and challenges relating to interoperability. We intend to plan for a new procurement in the very near future on that basis," it said.
The organization, which pulls in £246.4 million ($294 million) in income each year, might hope that that very near future comes soon as the support deadline for its current SAP solution runs out in 2027, although there is the option of purchasing limited extended maintenance until 2030.
[5]
In February 2022, [6]City University began sizing up the market for a new SaaS ERP system to replace its SAP ECC software in a deal that looked set to be worth up to £17 million ($20 million).
It was looking for a supplier to provide, implement, and support the software and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to replace the existing ERP and associated systems used by human resources (HR), payroll, finance, and procurement.
"City is seeking a SaaS solution that will enable improved visibility of strategic information across the university for HR, payroll, finance, and procurement whilst improved usability and control will support our staff, students and partners," the document said at the time.
[7]
The plan was to support 100 users for HR, finance, payroll, and procurement, and around 2,200 staff more broadly in a contract expected to last 10 years.
[8]Analysts question pace of SAP users moving to S/4HANA
[9]Hundreds of millions up for grabs as UK taxman set to stick with SAP ECC6.0
[10]Those low-code tools devs love so much? They'll grow 20% in 2023, says Gartner
[11]SAP picks Airbus finance chief Dominik Asam for next CFO
According to a Freedom of Information response posted in December 2021, the university currently relies on SAP version is ECC6 EHP5, with no plans to upgrade along the SAP path. At the time it said it would tender for a replacement "shortly".
The university has been contacted by The Register and given the opportunity to say why it struggled to scope the project and what it might do to mitigate risks of running out of road on SAP support.
On the one hand, it is concerning that the university failed to properly scope the requirements for such a vital piece of software before it began talking to suppliers.
On the other hand, at least it has realized the problem and is trying to go back and fix it, which is better than changing the scope after the project is well underway. Surrey County Council, for example, is experiencing an 18-month delay to its project to replace SAP with Unit4, at an additional cost of £3.9 million ($4.6 million), in part because "the implementation requirements have evolved," [12]it told The Register .
The lesson for anyone looking to replace an ageing ERP system is that SaaS software might sound good – but beware of the complex customizations built up in the current solution over the years. Persuading users to work in a different way takes time and tenacity, and it's not really IT's job. ®
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[1] https://www.find-tender.service.gov.uk/Notice/036440-2022
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Y7RfMleFiq6RTwSi2P@DTwAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y7RfMleFiq6RTwSi2P@DTwAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y7RfMleFiq6RTwSi2P@DTwAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Y7RfMleFiq6RTwSi2P@DTwAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/18/city_london_saas_contract/
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/databases&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Y7RfMleFiq6RTwSi2P@DTwAAAEM&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/22/analyst_sap_erp/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/19/400m_sap_hmrc/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/13/lowcode_tools_2023_rise/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/08/31/sap_cfo_dominik_asam/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/12/19/surrey_county_council_30_million/
[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Square peg
round hole behind which is the SAP financial vacuum of such minuscule Hg that the physics dept is really jelaous!
It does seem to be a lot of money for things that me and a few others managed to achieve in house when the IT staff were embedded enough to actually know what the various depts wanted.
As Einstein said
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction.”
Good call
At least they recognised this was a bad idea before even starting, rather than ploughing time and money into a project doomed from the start.
Before You Computerize Business Processes
... it makes sense to re-design those business processes to clear out the pointless and the stupid, and to simplify them. Then think about (re-)computerization. But business processes acrete from from office politics, solidify, and are rarely cleaned up.
Re: Before You Computerize Business Processes
"Before You Computerize Business Processes
... it makes sense to re-design those business processes to clear out the pointless and the stupid, and to simplify them. Then think about (re-)computerization. But business processes acrete from from office politics, solidify, and are rarely cleaned up."
Amen to this !
Years ago, a so-called business process (consolidation of company numbers) was taking a lot of IT time restoring this and that. Every quarter.
Some years later, one of the business people confessed to us: "ah, yeah Mrs. X and her dear tool Y, well, you know, it's almost a decade tool Y no longer contributes to the numbers since they're all in SAP now ! We just never told her because she's unemployable outside of Y".
There was a long silence after that confession in the IT dept.
Re: Before You Computerize Business Processes
to clear out the pointless and the stupid, and to simplify them.
That may be faced with a lot of resistance. Many bureaucrats love pointless and stupid, they just don't want to use too much of their energy on it. So the process of simplification may be tricky as without extensive domain knowledge, the research may tell you how to make pointless and stupid slightly less pointless and stupid, but would never tell you that it could be dropped in its entirety. They may view the process of actual simplification as a way to get themselves out of jobs, so they will advocate to retain as many pointless things as possible and find justifications for them that may sound plausible to someone without the domain knowledge.
Another reason is that simplification may cause the workers to no longer feel that they do something important. The "oh I am knackered, done a ton of paperwork today hun, I need to get myself a tipple when I get home" becomes "I pressed a few buttons and then spent the rest of the day on Vinted. I am worried they'll make me redundant, there is absolutely nothing else to do!".
Re: Before You Computerize Business Processes
"business processes to clear out the pointless and the stupid, and to simplify them. Then think about (re-)computerization"
it's very similar to paying a management consultancy to simplify business processes, so that, at a later date, you can pay a management consultancy to add lots of process to "fix things"... at no point will you actually fix the root cause of any issues.
i'm sure this system will be quoted for with an unattainable ROI which is dependent upon people doing things differently, or not at all... as someone above has mentioned, people will carry on clinging to the "way we've always done it", even if that way is wrong...
"UK university"
So the house style now being left-pondian means the UK is a foreign land where some university has procurement problems.
Persuading users to work in a different way takes time and tenacity, and it's not really IT's job
Ah yes, the staff saying "I've always done it this way!", even though their 15 year old coffee stained bit of paper wasn't correct in the first place.