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Home My WebLink AboutFCS-16-129 - SAP Customer Relationship & Billing Implementation REPORT TO: Council DATE OF MEETING: August 29, 2016 SUBMITTED BY: Dan Chapman, Deputy CAO and City Treasurer (519-741-2200 x 7347) PREPARED BY: Alex Ahkoon, Courtney Zinn and Helena Foulds WARD(S) INVOLVED: All DATE OF REPORT: August 23, 2016 REPORT NO.: FCS-16-129 SUBJECT: SAP Customer Relationship & Billing Implementation - Update and Next Steps ___________________________________________________________________________ RECOMMENDATION: For information BACKGROUND: Over the past four years, Council has received several reports about the replacement of the outdated Customer Information System which is used to bill approximately 75,000 property tax accounts and 83,000 utilities accounts, amounting to approximately half a billion dollars of revenue per year. On April 4, 2016 the City of Kitchener launched the SAP Customer Relationship and Billing (CR&B) solution, which integrates with the city’s existing SAP financial system. The $19.9 million project, approved by council in 2013, is the largest and most complex software implementation in the city’s history. The purpose of this report and accompanying presentation is to inform Council about the results and next steps associated with the SAP CR&B software project and to enable councillors to champion the new e-billing platform scheduled to launch in fall 2016. Staff will also provide a brief demonstration of the e-billing platform during the Strategic Session. *** This information is available in accessible formats upon request. *** Please call 519-741-2345 or TTY 1-866-969-9994 for assistance. 1.b. - 1 REPORT: Item 1 – Project closure The SAP CR&B project officially closed on May 6, 2016. The project team successfully achieved time, quality and cost objectives. The success of this project is unique considering the high failure rate for similar projects elsewhere, including other utility billing projects in the province which recently received bad press. An extended support model will remain in place until February 2017 as staff gain the knowledge and skills required to support the new application. The following metrics demonstrate the scale and impact of the project: 150 Number of project team members, including city staff and Capgemini resources Total number of hours committed to the project from Capgemini and the city’s core 200,000+ project team Total number of pages of documentation delivered over 18 months for 1,300 project 50,000+ requirements 8,000+ Total number of test cases completed before go-live on April 4, 2016 65 Number of training sessions with over 500 attendees completed before April 4, 2016 1.1 - Key Accomplishments Since April 4, 2016, the city successfully completed five utility billing cycles and one cycle of residential and non-residential final tax bills, plus one cycle of supplementary tax bills. Immediately following go-live, customers received their bills and were able to make payments. Customers did not report any major frustrations during the system transition and customers who did report isolated issues received appropriate service and a timely resolution. The following metrics show the city’s ability to maintain operations during the go-live and post go-live phases. Since April 4, 2016 the city completed the following transactions: 366, 210 Total number of utility invoices 76,230 Total number of property tax invoices 9,140 Total number of move-ins 8,477 Total number of move-outs 1.2 - Challenges and Lessons Learned Resource constraints and aggressive timelines were the key challenges during the project. Staffing the project team and maintaining the city’s property tax and utility business operations without key staff was difficult. In addition, the project team worked at a fast pace and maintained focus for an extended period. These challenges required close monitoring of project progress and reprioritization of system requirements and project tasks to reach the target go-live date. 1.b. - 2 It will take 10 to 12 months to fully stabilize the new solution – fixing system issues, implementing minor enhancements and adjusting business processes. Now, the focus is to ensure knowledge transfer and continued training for staff in order to support and enhance the SAP system. A cross-functional SAP Governance structure has been put in place under the leadership of the Deputy CAO, Finance and Corporate Services to oversee the support model, prioritize requests for new or revised system functionality, establish SAP best practices, and further integrate business processes across all SAP user groups. Further, through a reorganization of existing roles, an SAP Business Solutions team has been consolidated to provide business analysis and functional support to the system and system users. 1.3 - Budget The project was completed within the allocated budget of $19.9 million. As originally planned from a cash flow perspective, the anticipated SAP program budget will be in a deficit of $910,775 at the end of 2016. However, the budget will recover to a positive balance by 2019. Item 2 – Revenue-generating public-private partnership 1 The City of Kitchener is the first city in Ontario, and second in Canada, to implement SAP CR&B for property tax and utility billing. The city collaborated with implementation partner, Capgemini, to build a unique and customized Municipal Property Tax (MPT) module. As a result, the City of Kitchener and Capgemini entered into a Municipal Property Tax Agreement (MPT Agreement) which provides ongoing compensation to the City of Kitchener for the intellectual property rights related to the MPT Solution as it is rolled out by Capgemini. In addition to the revenue generating agreement with Capgemini, the city expects to collaborate with other municipalities as they seek advice on similar software solutions. Item 3 – New Tax and Utility e-Billing service SAP CR&B includes an e-billing solution and new online tools for customers. In fall 2016, the city will launch Tax and Utility e-Billing, an online service that allows customers to view bills online, manage account settings, track utility usage and contact customer service. This is a win-win solution because it will dramatically enhance customer service and reduce the city’s postage costs and environmental footprint. A pilot program to test the new service is currently underway and a registration session will be offered to City Councillors before the public launch in October 2016. Councillors are encouraged to register for the new service and to champion this initiative within the community by referencing the city’s social media campaigns, using councillor columns and through other similar channels. A comprehensive marketing campaign will kick-off in October to promote e-billing. A secondary campaign is planned for 2017 to encourage epost customers to register for the Tax and Utility e-Billing service before epost services are terminated in December 1 Cape Breton is the only other Canadian city to implement an SAP property tax solution. 1.b. - 3 2017. The city hopes to convert one per cent of property tax accounts and three per cent of utilities accounts to e-billing by October 2017. These numbers are expected to grow to year-over-year as customers learn about the service and new accounts are created. The Tax and Utility e-Billing service is one of several digital services the city plans to integrate into a future single sign-on platform. Expanding and integrating e-services is part of the city’s plan to offer effective and efficient services that are accessible and sustainable as the city grows. ACKNOWLEDGED BY: Dan Chapman, Deputy CAO 1.b. - 4