Prior to Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality's decision to approach Software AG for a business process management (BPM) and services-oriented architecture (SOA) solution, the government entity for Gauteng faced various challenges. The municipality's 20 customer care areas and service departments' business processes and technologies were not standardised, integrated or automated. This caused duplication of work and cumbersome service-delivery processes.
At Software AG SA's Innovation Forum 2014 today, Rika Pieterse, Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality's Senior Business Analyst, will share how BPM-SOA technology was utilised to reduce costs, manage risks and decrease certain service delivery processes by up to 70 days.
Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM), one of Gauteng's local government authorities, provides public services to over three million South African citizens in one of the most densely populated areas in the country. Ekurhuleni covers the 1 975km^2 area from Germiston in the west, to Springs and Nigel in the east.
Previously, EMM's customer care areas were operating in silos and each department had its own policies, processes and procedures. No standardised toolset existed to model processes on, technology was not standardised, and duplication of processes led to duplication of systems. EMM was also at risk to lose important Intellectual Property due to inadequate documentation practices.
Software AG was faced with the task to transform EMM's public services into a performance-oriented, outcome-driven and people-focused offering. "Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality understands that South African citizens don't just need service delivery from government - that is a given. Citizens want government to provide easy access to services, notify them on the status of pending requests, and ultimately, take care of them," says Pieterse.
Pieterse continues that EMM's vision is to be a smart, creative and developmental city. "We approached Software AG with the challenge to find a technology solution that would steer us towards this." After an extensive analysis of EMM's inner-workings, Software AG implemented webMethods as an integrated platform and its ARIS solution as a standardised toolset.
ARIS, Software AG's business process analysis platform, is ideal for organisations that want to document, analyse, standardise and improve their processes. Strategic Solution Architects (SSA), one of Innovation Forum 2014's sponsors, believes Software AG provides the market with the industry's best solution. Alan Cowley, SSA's Chief Executive Officer, believes the integrated ARIS/Alfabet package solution that was introduced in 2014 "provides large IT organisations with an elegant and comprehensive offering along with a well-defined and secure roadmap". Cowley welcomed the opportunity to partner with Software AG and its customers, because SSA "wants to bring its experience to the offering in order to provide the market with solutions that guarantees customers success".
EMM is a customer that experienced the success Cowley refers to. Service delivery was optimised throughout six different departments: energy; water and sanitation; corporate and legal; city development; infrastructure services; and health and social services. Previously, EMM's Indigent Management process spanned over three months before qualifying applicants were approved. Today, this process has been reduced by over two months and is completed within 21 days. EMM's transformation was so successful that it won the Customer Innovation Award in the Digital Transformation category at Software AG's global Innovation World 2013 event.
At Software AG SA's Innovation Forum 2014 on 17 June, Pieterse will discuss EMM's journey to success in her presentation: "Is BPM-SOA a solution for local government to improve services?" and explain why her answer is an adamant "Yes".
Innovation Forum 2014 today is an opportunity for government entities and businesses to realise the same digital victories as Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality did. Please click here for more information on the event.
Share