Bank invests in full software suite

Irish organisations using SAP in-house are Bank of Ireland and the health boards. The latter would be typical of migrating customers - ones that start with one module of the big MySap software package, and then bring in additional elements. Bank of Ireland, on the other hand, is doing a major transition to the full suite of the latest version of the software.

According to Mr Diarmuid Collins, director of finance, Midlands Health Board, the switchover to SAP began when the board needed to make its computer systems Y2K compliant.

Because a module of SAP software to manage human resources had already been approved, it was decided to go with SAP for finances as well. Because of Y2K, the finance software was installed first, he says.

They are happy with the result, especially as their earlier software systems were far less sophisticated. "It has improved our ability to manage our finances," says Mr Collins. "We now have online, real-time information on all aspects of finance."

His colleague, Mr Willie Murphy, director of human resources for the North Western Health Board, concurs. "Management of information is key. The software has improved our efficiency in doing things like applying an increase to a pension plan, which now takes minutes rather than days."

Mr Hugo Flynn, general manager of finance and business services for Bank of Ireland, said the company's main reason for moving to SAP was to reduce costs overall. Bank of Ireland will bring in the full suite of back-office applications: human resource management, finance and procurement.

"We're going from fragmentation, multiplicity and diversity of systems to a single integrated system," he says. The project will be the first major MySAP implementation in the financial services sector in both Britain and the Republic.

"What's critical to us is that these business processes get done, not how they get done," says Mr Flynn. "The real value of SAP to us is integration. Data only gets put in once."

However, the bank was wary of having the software customised, concerned about potential problems and the costs that could introduce. The final system will be entirely out of the box, with the bank shaping its data to fit the program, rather than having the program customised.