State of Illinois - ACTS (Accountability, Credibility, Transparency, and Sustainability) ERP Project

Highlights:

Industry / Customer Profile

Government / Large state

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Services:

IT Consulting – Enterprise Solutions, Digital Transformation

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Solution:

SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud

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Partners:

System Integrator: Deloitte

Software Provider: SAP

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Challenges:

• Implementing the first state-wide ERP system utilizing an in-memory database in a secure, cloud environment.

• Establishing standard business processes in a complex and changing political environment.

• Justifying a $350M system when the state has over $100 billion in unfunded liabilities.

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Benefits/Results:

• For the first time, detailed, up-to-date, financial data is available online for timely reporting and decision making in a secure FedRAMP, cloud-based environment.

• Standard financial business processes with appropriate separation of duties are in place across the state, greatly improving the quality of the financial data.

• Significant time and resources are saved by the elimination of much of the manual reconciliation processes previously required.

Overview:

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The State of Illinois is implementing SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud as its ERP system, with the first phase providing an integrated financial system for all of the governor’s agencies. As is common for large state governments with multiple elected officials and competing priorities, there wasn’t always alignment on the need and change management required for a $350M ERP project. Prior initiatives for a new ERP system had stalled. But the state auditor general issued a report in 2011 that stated “The lack of a centralized financial reporting system . . . limits effective oversight of State finances, adversely affects the State’s bond rating, and jeopardizes federal funding.” In response to the report, the governor’s office initiated the ERP project.

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The financial system project started in 2015. As part of a phased approach, four pilot agencies went live in October 2016. As of the beginning of 2020, 90% of the state’s budget is tracked by SAP with the remaining 10% scheduled to be implemented in 2021. With the success of the financial system project, the SuccessFactors project for human capital management began in 2020.

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DTI’s Roles

Deloitte is the state’s system integrator for the SAP financial system implementation. DTI not only provided approximately 40 SAP consultants to the project, but assisted Deloitte in the proposal preparation and oral presentations during the procurement process. DTI provided key named resources with extensive state financial system experience, including the former New York State Deputy Comptroller for Payroll, Accounting and Revenue Services and a manager with 12 years of Big-4 experience implementing SAP for the public sector. DTI continues to assist Deloitte with the final portions of the financial system rollout and the SuccessFactors phase.