The Department of Finance will establish a panel of suppliers to provide “complementary capabilities” for the federal government’s proposed enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.
The department opened tendering for the panel on Tuesday, starting with a government-wide contractor management system to integrate with the SAP/4 HANA-based GovERP platform.
Future approaches to the market will add other “appropriate cloud-based products and services” to the panel, all of which will also be expected to integrate with SAP/4 HANA.
“The panel will be refreshed through an approach to market for each GovERP complementary capability,” tender documents state.
The centrally managed GovERP system is being developed to standardise corporate and financial systems across the government’s six shared services hubs.
The hubs, which were introduced in 2016 as result of the shared service regime, currently serve the core transactions corporate services needs of 73 agencies using separate SAP-based ERP systems.
But with five of the six hubs needing to replace their existing systems before they reach end-of-life in 2025, the government has “agreed that hub will coordinate their investment” going forward.
Finance’s shared service ERP transformation group is currently working with the hubs to design and develop a prototype, which is expected to be trialled with agencies this year.
Ahead of that, the department has begun looking for a “scalable commercial off the shelf” contractor management system to complement the GovERP core system.
“The current contractor management processes across the Australian Public Services are manual and cumbersome,” tender documents state.
“Finance is seeking to resolve these operational inefficiencies by delivering responsive, reliable and efficient outcomes for all contract engagements.”
The system will be used by agencies to manage and procure their contingent labour workforce, though is expected to start life as a pilot.
The successful supplier will be responsible for providing and maintaining the product, integrating the product with S/4 HANA and providing training and support.
Finance is planning to award a contract for up to six years by July. An industry briefing will be held on March 23.
