Province of North Brabant: Enhancing Efficiency by Integrating Geographic Information into SAP ERP

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2 Organization Province of North Brabant Location Brabantlaan 1, s-hertogenbosch, The Netherlands Industry and services Public sector government services for constituents Web site SAP solutions Implementation service for geographical enablement offered by SAP Consulting, SAP ERP application, and SAP Real Estate Management application Building regional success on a foundation of innovation In modern societies, roads, bridges, pipelines, and utility towers connect citizens and businesses. By effectively managing these valuable infrastructure elements, the Province of North Brabant in The Netherlands is becoming one of the most innovative, economically vibrant regions in Europe. To optimize its land and asset management processes, Brabant engaged a new service from SAP that geographically enables the SAP ERP application. Economic pressures made worse by rocketing energy costs and an increasingly volatile climate continue to challenge European public sector organizations, which must maximize outcomes with limited public revenues. To meet these challenges, the government of Brabant seeks innovative approaches that support economic and social development to sustain a high quality of life for its nearly 2.5 million residents. Located in the southern portion of The Netherlands, between the port cities of Rotterdam and Antwerp and the western border of Germany, Brabant includes 67 municipalities within nearly 5,000 kilometers of land. Key focus areas for government leaders include spatial development, accessibility and mobility, economic policy, and regional culture and identity. Building on traditional roots and focused clearly on a strong, prosperous future, Brabant views technology as the key to the innovation that will enable the region s continued success. Read more 2 / SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

3 Delivering geographic information to business users Brabant relies on sophisticated IT systems to help meet its organizational goals. For example, the province uses SAP ERP to support financial management and the SAP Real Estate Management application to manage and control physical assets. However, Brabant wanted to integrate its information sources in order to allow users to access land management data from a single business software system. Our objective was to merge our four main business processes real estate management, geographic information system management, financial management, and contract management into one business administration system, says Eric van Os, who heads project planning and control in the real estate development group at Brabant. To meet this goal, the organization needed to integrate a number of software systems that operated independently, particularly its geographic information system (GIS). We wanted to integrate SAP ERP with our geographic solution, ArcGIS for Server from ESRI, says Herman Voet, geographic department specialist at Brabant. By integrating our SAP software with our geographical landscape, we hoped to discover specific relationships that will allow us to improve our business processes. However, Brabant s leaders were conscious of constraints on both budgetary and personnel resources. It was important to integrate these solutions without implementing costly interfaces or requiring additional manual effort, says Voet. The challenge was to support our land management processes so both our SAP software users and our GIS system users would gain maximum benefit. Herman Voet, Geographic Department Specialist, Province of North Brabant 3 / SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

4 Moving forward with the help of a trusted partner When considering how to provide business users with geographic data and images, Brabant was determined to retain the existing SAP and ESRI software that its workers were trained to use. After a long and successful working relationship with SAP, the province didn t need to look far for a solution. We learned that SAP Consulting recently introduced a new service that allows geographic enablement of SAP ERP, says van Os. Since the SAP account team already understands our business and our IT landscape, this service seemed like the quickest way to provide geographic data to users of our SAP software. The Brabant team worked with experts from SAP Consulting to add spatial data, maps, and other location-specific data from the ESRI GIS software to its SAP ERP and SAP Real Estate Management applications. The geographic data was also integrated with a third-party document management software package. The service helped us get geographic enablement up and running quickly, says Voet. The team from SAP Consulting was highly professional, and the engagement was completed on time and within our budget. The implementation service for geographical enablement from SAP Consulting helped us quickly and cost-effectively deliver geographic data to our users. Eric van Os, Project Planning and Control, Real Estate Development Group, Province of North Brabant 4 / SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

5 Picturing infrastructure assets quickly and accurately The implementation service for geographical enablement allows users to access GIS data from within Brabant s SAP applications. From the SAP software, our business users can see business data and transactions spatially, says van Os. They can view information from the enterprise ArcGIS server software as well as external map information, all within their familiar SAP software interface. The GIS data helps Brabant improve land management. As the province acquires land for infrastructure improvements, government workers must register road development details within the business software systems. With the new geographic features of the software, users can view land management processes and assets from within SAP ERP. Our business users have all the information they need to run this process in one place, says van Os. They can see spatial information from our enterprise GIS system and contract information in SAP ERP. Users can access anything from processrelated documents to external map services from the Dutch government. Brabant also uses the geographic data to enhance monitoring of the province s antenna register. The Netherlands maintains a central register where antennae, towers, and other utility assets are recorded. Before the implementation service for geographical enablement, province workers manually checked the official register in the GIS solution or on the Internet before verifying information in the land management application. Now we can mash up antenna information from the external register with data from our SAP and ESRI software, says Voet. This helps us ensure high data quality, and it results in enormous time savings for our GIS and land administration departments. 5 / SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved.

6 Increasing process efficiency and business value By geographically enabling its SAP software, Brabant has realized significant business value. The effort and time required to execute land and asset management processes has been reduced while data quality has increased noticeably. By optimizing our business processes and integrating geographic data with our business solutions, SAP Consulting helped us increase our process efficiency and create new value for our constituents, says van Os. In the past, users spent many hours collecting basic geographic data to add to the business software systems. Now that all information about assets and land is available from SAP ERP, business users can quickly access all of the data even spatial information that they need to do their jobs efficiently. The implementation service for geographical enablement has been a real game changer for us, says Voet. Now the GIS department can focus on analyzing data and enabling business users to employ geographic information in their own trusted application environments. This is an enormous achievement in terms of improving productivity and efficiency while lowering our costs. Although it is too early to quantify benefits, we can see that enabling our business users to access geographic information quickly is delivering real value to Brabant. Herman Voet, Geographic Department Specialist, Province of North Brabant Studio SAP 32680enUS (14/10) 2014 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. 6 / 6

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