City of London Corporation selects SAP to transform services in the capital

SAP SE has formed a new partnership with the City of London Corporation to bring its digital vision to life under a four-stage IT transformation deployment. SAP will support the City of London Corporation in migrating its legacy on-premise ERP software to the cloud through its RISE with SAP programme, so it can deliver reliable, effective public services.

Providing local government support to 8,600 residents and 614,500 workers in London’s Square Mile, the City of London Corporation required a unified ERP platform in the cloud that would drive down costs, consolidate legacy technology, alleviate time and resources from manual tasks, and deliver more stable, productive ways of working.

Its transformation will be underpinned by S/4 HANA Cloud, Public Edition the corporation will benefit from unrivalled visibility into core business processes, across finance, forecasting and human resources (HR). Implemented with flexibility across four waves, beginning with HR, the City of London Corporation has a modular transformation plan that will see it onboard SAP Business Technology Platform, Analytics Cloud, SuccessFactors and Concur to boost automation, real-time insights and data-sharing, internal collaboration and decision-making. The multi-phase approach also has easy integration with an existing Microsoft product portfolio.

Under the partnership, the corporation will experience improved visibility into budgeting, payroll and forecasting, lower total cost of ownership thanks to platform consolidation, and will accelerate its journey towards becoming a digital-first city. Staff at the City of London Corporation will also benefit from new self service capabilities, reducing the number of service tickets while creating a seamless end user experience.

Leila Romane, Managing Director, SAP UK & Ireland, said: “Public sector organisations face well-documented resourcing challenges as demand on their services and support continues to heighten when budgets are locked or reduced. From our first conversation with the City of London Corporation, we knew we shared similar values and ambitions in how digital transformation can drive real change with measurable cost reductions and operational efficiencies.

“SAP is deeply committed to fostering social value and generating positive impacts for the communities and small businesses within the City of London through this partnership, whilst also supporting its Climate Action Strategy to achieve Net Zero. Our commitment will be realised in several key initiatives: enhancing digital skills and literacy, offering work placements for 14-18 year olds, conducting workshops with City of London schools to provide guidance on digital skills and career pathways, and extending support to local businesses and community enterprises in the areas of cybersecurity and digital literacy.”

Chair of the City of London Corporation’s Digital Services Committee, Dawn Wright, said: “Our new finance and HR system will be truly transformational, significantly enhancing our efficiency, capacity, and ability to share information.

“This new IT system will help us ensure we are a world-class organisation that fully embraces the needs and diversity of the communities we serve, in line with our new Digital, Data and Technology Strategy as well as our Corporate Plan.”