CGI successfully delivers on major SAP implementation project for Government of Canada (GC)

“PWGSC’s successful go live on April 1, 2008 of the FST SIGMA project, a complex integrated financial and asset management solution based on SAP, was dependent on a number of key factors, like selecting the right partner. CGI’s commitment, SAP domain expertise and government knowledge confirmed we had made the right decision.”

Mike Hawkes, former Chief Financial Officer, Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC)

In February 2007, CGI was contracted to provide system integration support services for Public Works and Government Services Canada’s (PWGSC) Financial Systems Transformation (FST) project. The FST initiative, responded to the stated direction of the Department’s Deputy Minister to create the new system called SIGMA to increase financial oversight and sound management of public resources through improved financial service delivery across the Department.

The Challenge
Under the project, the Department would replace its multiple legacy non-integrated financial, material management and project management systems with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution: the Government of Canada’s SAP R/3 Version 4.7 Integrated Finance and Material System. With a go live date of April 1, 2008, CGI faced considerable challenges:

• Implement an industry best practice Project Management Framework within a short time frame;
• Maintain integrity in project performance and status reporting on complex, multi-dimensional project with a large organizational scope;
• Decommission the legacy Common Departmental Financial System (CDFS), taking into account the complexities inherent to the more than 30 legacy applications and custom interfaces.

CGI’s responsibilities under the project included installation, configuration, data migration, reporting, training and integration with the department’s Real Property Branch legacy systems.

The Strategy
With a team of 80 highly skilled consultants devoted to the project, CGI was able to provide the appropriate executive support, guidance, oversight and functional expertise to ensure project success. Critical to performance was the establishment of a formal methodology for the SAP implementation, a rigorous management approach, a solid governance structure and effective communications strategy. These were key success factors in meeting the project’s strict and challenging deadlines.

CGI’s Client Partnership Management Framework, an integrated management approach rooted in quality practices and processes, helped CGI to work with PWGSC’s FST management team to implement sound governance. A coordinated bottom-up (through feedback from CGI professionals working on FST) and top-down approach (regular communication at senior levels with project’s executive sponsors) to deal with escalating issues demonstrated real value.  Moreover, disciplined processes ensured that the implementation conformed to PWGSC’s requirements.

CGI also developed a strategy and provided the necessary support services to ensure a stable transition from the former financial applications to the new, improved system.

The Technology

• COTS SAP R/3 Version 4.7 C Integrated Finance and Material System.

The Results
CGI met the April 1, 2008 go live date, successfully delivering PWGSC’s SAP implementation on time and under budget. 

As a result, the Department is well positioned to support the Deputy Minister’s direction of increased financial oversight and enhanced management of public resources through improved financial service delivery. Since going live, the SIGMA system has produced enhanced automated financial controls and facilitates the gathering of detailed transactional data to support business decisions. Financial, material management and project management have been streamlined and simplified with enhanced capabilities such as the ability to analyze data entry along with improved monitoring, reporting and analysis. The new system has reduced and rationalized the application landscape by replacing more than 30 overlapping and competing financial and material legacy applications that communicated directly or indirectly with the former CDFS. SIGMA has also led to better integration of processes and data and added functionality to meet user requirements.

Thanks to this success, PWGSC and CGI are continuing their productive partnership for in-service support and will collaborate on an upgrade to the next release of SAP.

For more information:
Margaret Tomassini
(613) 740-5731

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