Fujitsu Services
SHARED SERVICES ENHANCE LOCAL GOVERNMENT’S ABILITY TO DELIVER
By Motlatsi Mokoena, Business Development Manager at Fujitsu Services
Johannesburg, October 29, 2008 — Local government across South Africa is currently under tremendous pressure to deliver increased service to the citizens. Their customers, the citizens under their jurisdiction, expect government to live up to its promises at all times, no matter what the circumstances.
The concept of eGovernment is often seen as a catchall solution to the problems local authorities face in delivering the appropriate services to citizens. Unfortunately, exactly what this broad technology solution comprises is not always clearly defined. While technology has a crucial role to play in service delivery, it is purely an enabler, not the answer.
Municipalities need to focus on citizens and their requirements, not only on technology. The business processes within these organisations need to be tuned, in order to provide service in the most efficient yet secure way possible, tailored to the needs and capabilities of citizens. In short, the citizen should drive every aspect of the municipalities business. Implementing shared services is the optimal method of responding to the challenges facing local government in South Africa today. Shared services has a clear role to play in driving efficiencies by enabling collaborative operations between different municipalities, thereby improving efficiencies and reducing costs.
Defining shared services
Shared Services consists of identifying non-core functions that are fundamentally the same across different municipalities. Services are delivered to each of the municipalities from one location. The theory of shared services is to centralise and consolidate functions, resulting in less duplication, greater effectiveness and a lower cost to the citizen.
Billing as a shared service
The demands placed on municipal accounting officers are becoming more complex on a daily basis. They need to ensure that services provided to citizens are constantly of the highest quality. Municipal managers and chief financial officers need to be agile and innovative in order to address the demands of aligning strategic municipal services to the needs of the community, remaining compliant with all relevant legislation and maintaining the financial sustainability of the authority.
ERP as a shared service
Since the majority of business applications that municipalities use will be the same, it makes both cost and productivity sense to implement enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems as a shared resource.
Large metropolitan areas may be able to afford their own ERP system, but smaller municipalities should consider sharing these complex systems with other small authorities, to ensure they obtain all the benefits ERP delivers without overspending or overstretching themselves.
By employing the shared services model, multiple municipalities benefit from sharing costs and best practice business processes.
This methodology will empower authorities to employ the best solutions and people to assist them in delivering the optimal service to citizens.
Shared services is a globally proven methodology that will assist local government in transforming itself to meet citizens’ expectations. Once again, it is important to remember that, while technology is a crucial part of the process, it is just a tool to support the citizen, who is ultimately the focus of government’s services.
