Johannesburg, 02 Feb 2011
The implementation of its enterprise resource planning system at the City of Johannesburg was a success, says global software giant SAP, and the billing crisis plaguing the city has nothing to do with its software.
SAP has come under fire as complaints mount from residents who are being grossly over-billed and unjustly cut off, due to challenges with the city's SAP implementation - a project codenamed Phakama.
However, last week, mayor Amos Masondo said the issue was not a crisis and, while there had been “a few problems”, these had been exaggerated.
Phakama's aim was to move the city's disparate and legacy systems onto one platform. Implementation was finished in June last year, six months after the project started. However, the city is battling with post-implementation challenges that have affected about 8% of its account-holders.
Today, SAP broke its silence on the issue, with SAP SA corporate affairs executive Sunil Geness saying, in an exclusive interview with ITWeb, that SAP is not currently on site, and is not working on the post-implementation phase of the project. “This is now a project of the City of Johannesburg.”
The current billing issue is not related to the SAP implementation, Geness points out. He says it would have been easy for the city to blame SAP, but officials have not done so and are happy with the software. “SAP, I don't think, has ever walked away from anything.”
However, the company sympathises with people who have received inexplicable bills and Geness says it would step in to assist the city if asked. He adds SAP was successfully implemented and passed the quality assurance phase. “We know that the system works, we've had quality reviews.”
Geness says SAP implements systems in municipalities around the world, and all installations at public entities are complex in nature, because of the multiplicity of systems. He explains that most post-implementation challenges come from data, integration or people, which is currently the case at the City of Johannesburg.
Last week, Masondo said the problems were the result of issues with data integration from the city's assorted platforms onto the SAP system, integration of the new system and some departments, and negligent staff. He declared the implementation a success.
SAP is prepared, at any point, to step in and offer the city its assistance if asked, says Geness. He explains that the city is dealing with data migration and this is highly sensitive information.
Brand risk?
SAP has, so far, avoided commenting on the issue, despite the raft of bad publicity generated by unhappy residents. It previously referred enquiries back to the city.
Last year, despite early evidence of problems with the post-implementation phase of SAP, the company did not adequately explain why the city was awarded a quality award for the implementation.
At the time, the company would only say Joburg was nominated because of its clear governance policy and for implementing the project on time. The city competed against 19 other companies in Africa and won after a panel of six judges, made up of senior SAP Africa staff members, scored the written submission from the competitors.
Although SAP has been mum on the billing issue until now, its brand does not seem to have suffered. Geness says SAP SA's business cycle is regular, and it continues to outperform the market, locally and globally. “Our brand is important to us, we are a global brand.”
SAP implementation partner T-Systems SA has not seen “any trend in terms of a decline in SAP software sales or implementation plans”, says Len de Goede, VP of systems integration. “If anything, the SAP market is still very vibrant and we are confident that we'll achieve our growth objectives.”
De Goede explains that, generally, the implementation of SAP and its success or failure has little to do with the software or hardware platform, but in planning and execution.
Independent marketing analyst Chris Moerdyk says companies need to communicate what is going on with their clients, if not one-on-one, then through the media. “One can't just sit back.”
Moerdyk explains that, while SAP needs to be careful as the city is a large client, the software firm also needs to protect its integrity. “When you enter the realms of politics, you get into the realms of Alice in Wonderland meets Disneyland.”
He says the city might have told SAP to not say anything, but at the very least the software group should have sat down with city officials and worked something out. “If you don't communicate, expect people to speculate.”
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