GovERP Technical Assessment

1. Executive Summary

The Digital Transformation Agency (DTA) engaged Reason Group to prepare this report which provides an in-depth technical assessment of the Australian Government's Enterprise Resource Planning (GovERP) technology platform, with a particular focus on its potential for reuse by other government entities. The report is intended to support and inform a Panel of Eminent People appointed by the DTA to evaluate the suitability of GovERP (see Reference 1) use by Services Australia, and potential reuse by other Commonwealth entities to support their implementation of future costeffective ERP uplifts. 

The assessment considers (see Reference 2) various aspects, including the current state of GovERP by value stream, which encompass critical business functions such as Human Resources, Finance, Procurement, and Travel and Expense Management. Its readiness for reuse, identification of reusable components, and considerations for implementation by other entities have been assessed within this report. The assessment highlights the progress made in GovERP’s development, comparing the original intended full solution (or capabilities) with what was built by Services Australia (see Reference 3) at the point of the project’s pause. Reason Group are also aware of a number of project decisions and change requests, however, this assessment is not litigating these but rather considering the current state for reusability.

The build status for core capabilities as per the intended full solution and Minimum Viable Product (MVP) scope is summarised in the below table. For the Service, Governance and Enabling layers, many capabilities were paused when decisions were made to move away from the original GovERP operating model. 

In respect of the Governance and Enabling layers, these were specific to the Shared Services operating model, so are not considered relevant for reuse. Further, all components of the Services layer were deemed out of scope of this assessment (see Reference 5). 

A breakdown on the value streams of GovERP is summarised below.

Based on the current build status, environmental considerations around data, integration and hosting, reuse has been conceptualised at three distinct levels:

• Tier 1: Use of what is already built by fully adopting all components within a specific product.
• Tier 2: Building on something that exists by adapting a copy of the product as an accelerator for individual entities to use.
• Tier 3: Repository, such as learnings, business processes. 

The table below summarises the core components which are reusable from GovERP.

As part of this assessment, SAP provided advice there is nothing visible in the core solution which limit supportability or reuse, and that the standard code included no changes (see Reference 9).

In addition, there are 17 other technology (see Reference 10) components that are used in the end-to-end GovERP solution, that may provide accelerators for entities who adopt (or adapt) to the above SAP technologies. 

While GovERP shows promise as a solution for large entities like Services Australia, with potential benefits for accelerating their ERP journey, it may present capacity and budgetary challenges for smaller entities. Alternative service models or technology solutions should be considered by smaller entities. 

Moreover, the completeness of the GovERP build suggests it may not yet be ready for adoption by other entities. Further testing, refinement and completion of missing components are necessary to ensure any component could be suitable for reuse. Services Australia emerges as the logical entity to complete the component build, given the complexity of their ERP requirements, and the current hosting solution for the product, compared to smaller entities in the Commonwealth.

Looking ahead, if the components of GovERP achieve maturity and completeness, it could serve as an effective accelerator pattern for other larger entities seeking to modernise their respective ERP systems. However, careful consideration of agency-specific factors and requirements will be essential to maximise the potential benefits of GovERP’s reuse across the government sector.

References

1. Now known as Services Australia ERP.
2. This report excludes assessment of: 
   1. GovERP’s original business case validity
   2. the appropriateness of the agreed scope of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
   3. analysis of factors leading to the GovERP Program’s pause in November 2023
   4. comparisons of process and architecture to any existing Government entities 
   5. detailed costings related to implementation
   6. future customisation / configuration and data migration requirements due to agency-specific factors.
3. The report refers to Minimum Viable Product 1.1 (MVP1.1) when referring to what Services Australia has built. This includes any capabilities which were expected to be built as part of the initially defined MVP, however, were later deprioritised during delivery of GovERP. 
4. Built means development has occurred, and functional testing has been conducted. Full system integration testing (SIT) and user acceptance testing (UAT) have not been undertaken.
5. Refer to section 2.2 for further information on the scope.
6. “Supplier Management” was not in scope of MVP1.1. However, Services Australia built and functionally tested this capability.
7. The vendor, 8common, advised all build elements were completed and tested, however, these were not integrated by Services Australia as part of the GovERP solution.
8. While the development and testing of TEMS is not completed, this relates to the integration of Expense8 to S/4HANA. In isolation, Expense8 is reusable and has been integrated into several other technologies, including SAP ECC6 and TechnologyOne within other entities in the Australian Government.
9. SAP Australia, Supportability and GovERP reuse for Services Australia, 11 April 2024.
10. Further details provided in section 5.7 and Appendix A.