Business Management Programme - Frequently asked questions

The HR lifecycle processes will be fully in scope as this is covered by standard SAP functionality. The self service elements of SAP will include leave requests and sickness reporting.

Q. I currently use a system called ‘Time Master’ for time recording in ESD. Will this be replaced?

The organisation is currently reluctant to ‘play shops’ internally and is therefore trying to reduce internal charging. The adoption of SAP time recording will therefore be subject to a policy decision

The relevance of the SAP time recording facility will be explored during the blueprinting process when we explore where time recording has financial implications e.g. for internal charging.

Q. How robust will the system be?

We have purchased an extremely robust solution. The SAP system itself will be located at a secure data centre in South Wales. The data centre is split between two sites which are 2.5 miles apart. If the main site fails for any reason the secondary site will automatically take over and if both sites fail, a disaster recovery plan will see a lorry turn up with a spare SAP system.

Logica is contractually responsible for ensuring the SAP system is available and performing adequately. The support arrangements also include SAP themselves, should we discover a major bug in the software.

Q. Will there be capacity issues with the SAP system?

The system and data links have been specified to support the anticipated number and geographical spread of the users. Logica are responsible for providing the SAP service to our door, whilst the council must ensure that our network is able to provide a sustainable service to all of our area offices. It is anticipated that the district councils will be added to the existing WCC network by Christmas 2008 so that connectivity can be tested well before go-live.

Q. If there are any problems with SAP who do we call?

Initially calls will go to Steria who will check the basic problems that are common to all applications. If the problem is SAP related the call will be passed on to a team of specialists in the Shared Service Team who will have expertise in all aspects of the SAP system. If they are unable to deal with the query it will be passed on to Logica who have a back-to-back arrangement with SAP if there is a serious bug.

Q. Will there be an impact for schools?

There will be an interface to the SIMS business system used by the majority of Wiltshire schools. This will allow transfer of relevant financial information into the SAP system.

Although it is not possible for go-live in April 2009, it is proposed to make HR/Payroll functionality available to all schools in order to reduce the amount of paper forms that are currently in use. It is not cost effective to provide self service for all staff in schools; it is anticipated that each school will have one or two SAP manager self service licences so that they are able to do a significant amount of processing through the system.

The exact details of this will be worked up during the blueprint phase.

Q. We use an accommodation database and we are sure that other teams have similar systems. Will we be able to have this on the SAP system so that colleagues can share the information?

Yes potentially this could happen but it is unlikely to be there at the beginning. SAP has a sophisticated asset management facility and additional modules which will be considered as a future development, based on a robust business case.

Q. Why can’t I see screen shots of SAP?

Following Blue Printing, the Business Management Programme will begin shaping the SAP solution and then we will be able to provide a sample SAP system for staff to see and experience. Currently there is no such system available.

We are confident that SAP supports the full functionality required by Wiltshire Council. Some programme staff attended basic training on a generic SAP system and from their feedback we know that it is intuitive and straight forward to use. This is why SAP is used extensively throughout the world.

At the moment we do not have a configured system that meets our specific requirements and so snapshots of an off the shelf SAP system would be misleading and would not meet staff requirements. It would not demonstrate clearly what Wiltshire Council staff will experience.

Most importantly, it is critical that our limited resources are currently directed towards the consideration of processes and organisational issues. This is in part achieved via the Blue Printing exercise and the baseline data gathering. The delivery of a successful programme will be reached by putting 80% of our effort into these areas. The system itself is only 20% of the total.

Staff may wish to visit other SAP users as reference sites to see SAP in action. Please contact the BMP team if you would like to visit a site.

Once the SAP solution has been shaped there will be a period of testing of the new system and staff will be invited to put their names forward to take part in this exercise.

Shared Service Team

Q. What is the Shared Service Team (SST)?

The Shared Service Team will combine and co-locate staff mainly from the finance, HR, payroll and procurement teams in order to deliver greatly improved transactional and business support services to the business. The benefits of one shared service team are:

centralise and co-locate services like finance, HR, payroll management, invoicing, ordering common goods and services and a range of other transactional services
an integrated centre of expertise for business support, ultimately increasing our performance with improved quality for customers
freeing up operational staff in departments to focus on providing advice, performance and planning support to service managers, based on information provided by the Shared Service Team
significant financial savings for the authority, at a time of considerable financial pressure.

See more information about the Shared Service Team on the Extranet.

When will staff know how their jobs will be affected by the shared services team? This has an impact on the staff who deal with administration and finance. The main concern is that they would like to know when and if they will go into the shared services team and what other options are available to them.

Q. District staff – How will their roles / jobs be affected through BMP and Shared services – will staff from county and districts compete for jobs?

We are not yet able to provide specific information on the effects of the creation of the SST on individual staff but the following information may be helpful in the meantime:

The SST in the new Wiltshire Council will be populated by staff from the existing county council and district councils. The way in which district staff move into the new council, including those who move into the SST, must comply with the final statutory regulations on the transfer of staff in this local government reorganisation (currently only in draft form but due to be enacted by the end of June).

The appointments process will be the subject of consultation with unions in June.

The aim is to have an agreed appointments process by the end of July.

Q.·District staff – will they go through the pay reform and how will their salaries fall in line with ours (county's)?

District Council staff will transfer to the new council on their existing terms and conditions of employment. However, because of the importance of the new Wiltshire Council paying jobs of equal value equally, there will need to be an exercise undertaken after vesting day to harmonise terms and conditions across ex county staff and ex district staff.

Q. When will staff know when and if they will go into the shared services team and what other options are available to them? Some staff are already anxious about their roles and have started to look else where for jobs. Staff need to know prior to April 09, this is not a very long time scale and they would like more information as soon as possible – is this likely to happen and how will they be advised ?

There is a great deal of “blue printing” work on the new work processes to be completed before the new staffing structures and job roles can be drawn up in detail. The blue printing workshops are running to schedule but are not due to be completed until August. Realistically, detailed design of the SST structure and jobs will not begin until September but is likely to be completed in the autumn.

Our best estimate is that it is unlikely that appointments to the SST will be made before 2009. By this time we will also be clearer on any options available to staff.

We realise this may well feel like a long lead time for staff but we will ensure that staff are kept informed at each stage and as we are able to firm up the timetable as progress is made. Information will be made available on The Intranet and managers will be briefed to assist with answering staff queries.

The new financial year

Q. I work in corporate accounts and we are currently closing accounts for 2007/8. If we are going live with SAP on 1 April 2009 will we still be able to use Aptos for closing down accounts for 2008/9?

We anticipate that all five councils will close down the 2008/9 accounts in their existing systems. SAP will be used for financial year 2009/10 onwards, with all previous data archived so that it can be accessed if necessary.

Q. We will need to keep our current system running for up to 6 months after the SAP go-live because it may take this long to recover payments from invoices raised during 2008/9.

These are the sort of details the BMP will look at during the Blueprint Design phase (May – Aug 08). Staff with the relevant expertise of such issues will be invited to the blueprinting workshops so that appropriate solutions are designed.

Q. With reference to the new financial year, how will the changeover affect invoices backdated after 1 April 2009? Do we do backdated invoices in the old way or via SAP?

All debtor/creditor provisions should be made in legacy systems in accordance with usual closedown procedures; accruals and prepayments will need to be set up in SAP. Then 'backdated' invoices will be processed in legacy systems. At a certain date, to be determined by Corporate Finance, any outstanding provisions will then be transferred to SAP GL, enabling us to close down legacy systems. Invoices then received relating to 2008/09 will be processed in SAP.

Receiving payments

Q. I deal with receiving payments and it is unclear whether this is included with BMP?

SAP does not include a payments facility and will therefore have to interface with existing receipting systems. This will be a challenge as the district councils have a number of income systems, including those that accept online payments. Detailed solutions will be considered during the blueprinting phase.

Q. You have said that the core team will be training during the last two weeks of April and the blueprinting workshops will be held from May 4th. I have concerns about the timing of this in terms of being able to attend, if needed?

The team leaders already have a fair idea of who to invite to the workshops and Logica will advise which areas will need to be covered. We will give staff as much notice as possible - but the timing is tight because the vesting date cannot move.

Lessons learnt

Q. What lessons have been learnt by other organisations that have gone through this?

As part of the procurement process we visited a number of councils to find out what lessons they learned, which included:

Some of the organisations implemented SAP simply as a technology refresh project, either neglecting change management or not resourcing it sufficiently to deliver any benefits. Most of these organisations had since addressed this through initiating a transformation project to take full advantage of the functionality provided in SAP.
Do not customise the SAP software because not only does it cost more to do this, it also causes major disruption when installing system upgrades in the future. It is better to adopt the standard processes that come with SAP (‘out of the box’), where necessary modifying your business processes.
Don’t re-invent the wheel. Use best practice from elsewhere.
Delegate decision making to the project team as this will empower the people involved in the process and also ensure that you are able to keep to the inevitably tight timescales.
Make sure you get the best people involved with the project as this will ensure the project is successfully delivered on time and that you adopt new business processes that meet the business needs.

Timetable for savings

Q. What is the timetable for saving £11 million?

The timetable for savings is as follows:

Years	Benefits (£m)
2008/09	£0.0
2009/10	£4.1
2010/11	£7.2
2011/12	£9.5
2012/13	£9.9
2013/14	£10.3
2014/15	£10.3
7 Years Total	£51.1
2015/16	£10.6
2016/17	£10.6
2017/18	£10.6
10 Years	£83.0

Property and estate management

Q. Can we have more information on the interaction of SAP with Property and Estate Management – maintenance and its procurement etc?

Asset accounting is within scope, but asset management is not. Where a bespoke asset management application generates orders, we would need to set up an interface to SAP procurement. Overall, the financial aspects of asset management will be captured in SAP, but in the initial implementation the operational aspects will remain with existing applications.

Learning and Development (L&D)

Q. What is the capacity within SAP for managing learning and development (L&D) processes e.g. bookings, waiting lists, joining instructions, and are we going to make full use of these? Are any L&D specialists going to be involved in blueprinting?

One of the HR modules to be implemented is Training and Events Management (TEM) which will handle all the course administration activities mentioned. Beyond that appraisal processes will be covered but not a full competency management system. L&D specialists will be required to attend the blueprint workshops covering training administration and personnel development.

The invoice process

Q. Please talk through the invoice process or provide clearer flow diagrams e.g do you email a purchase order?

Below is a flow diagram for order/invoice processing. This is a simple version; whilst the processes (requisitioning, ordering, good receipting, invoice processing) will be standard, the role responsibilities may vary according to the type of good/service procured. For example, central catalogues, specialist sourcing etc

SAP flow chart

Purchase orders could be e-mailed to suppliers; what method or methods we use to communicate with suppliers will be determined in the Blueprint workshops.