As part of this initiative, EDB is entering into an extensive partnership agreement with SAP. The agreement provides for major parts of EDB's new solutions for customers in the local government sector to be based on solutions from SAP. At the same time, EDB has brought together all its activities for the public sector into a single management structure. Jan Ivar Borgersen is EDB's new Executive Vice President for the public sector, and will head up this area. EDB has more than 600 employees involved in delivering new solutions and application services for the public sector.

 

"EDB intends to play a central role in facilitating the digitisation of the public administration in Norway, and the agreement with SAP is strategically very important to achieving this objective. By announcing this initiative, we are firing the starting gun for the IT solutions of the future in the Norwegian public sector", comments CEO Endre Rangnes of EDB.

 

EDB has chosen SAP after detailed evaluation of the leading international players in this area. EDB wants to offer international in combination with local competence in order to ensure a long-term solutions path for its customers and ensure that the solutions offered will benefit from international standardisation in terms of both IT technology and sector-specific developments.

 

"The agreement with EDB is important for SAP and gives us a stronger position for the public sector market in Norway. Through this closer partnership with EDB, we now have a comprehensive offer for the public sector in Norway, with efficient solutions for payroll and human resources, accounting and local authority billing, as well as new opportunities in case processing and dialogue with citizens", explains Henrik Rasmussen, Nordic Managing Director at SAP.

 

Municipalities are planning major investment over the next few years in Internet-based self-service solutions. This was the conclusion of a survey carried out by Synnovate MMI for EDB. A sizeable 67% of the respondents identified this as a high-priority task over the next three years. In addition to offering information pages over the Internet as at present, municipalities want to expand their offer to include interactive self-service solutions. Examples include applications for nursery places, planning applications and job applications.

 

Large as well as small Norwegian municipalities face a number of challenges in connection with the selection of IT solutions for functions such as financial accounting, payroll and human resources, invoicing, administration, case processing and 24/7 dialogue with their citizens.

The Synnovate MMI survey found that municipalities are looking for comprehensive solutions so that they do not have to deal with separate technical issues for each function. The most important criteria for selecting solutions are seen as user-friendliness, integration between solutions and efficient operations. As many as 76% of respondents said that user-friendly solutions were very important to allow municipality employees to carry out their tasks efficiently.

 

EDB's new offer for Norwegian municipalities and health authorities is based on a unified and comprehensive solutions strategy that is not platform-dependent and offers users extensive flexibility and functionality. SAP's services-oriented architecture will be the motor for the solutions, while EDB's specialised public sector solutions will be renewed and upgraded with new functionality. The new solutions are role-based, delivered through a web-based interface and built on open standards and open-source software. The overall objective for EDB's new solutions is to facilitate interactive dialogue both within the municipality and between the municipality and the citizens using its services. The solutions will allow municipalities and health authorities to reduce the number of applications they use, cut operating costs and make savings on IT investment costs.

 

In order to create the most efficient systems possible for users, EDB will make extensive use of standard formats and systems integration, and this will ensure that roll-out and implementation of the systems will be as simple as possible. EDB is one of Norway's leading suppliers of IT services for the public sector, with revenue from this area of nearly NOK 1 billion in 2006 and more than 300 municipalities and a number of other public sector bodies as customers. Both existing and new customers will now have the opportunity to use the new solutions. However, EDB will continue to provide its current solutions to customers if they prefer.

 

EDB is certificated by SAP as a Nordic hosting partner, and currently hosts 90 different SAP systems for 35 private sector customers.  Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Spring Consulting, EDB offers a SAP environment that is the largest in Norway and one of the largest in the Nordic region, with nearly 200 employees. SAP is a global supplier, and is already a major supplier to the public sector. The new partnership with SAP will give EDB the opportunity to benefit from SAP's experience of public sector markets outside Norway.

 

"The combination of our knowledge of the Norwegian public sector and SAP's experience from other countries will form an excellent basis for creating the solutions that our public sector will need in the future", comments Endre Rangnes.

 

 

Henrik Rasmussen, Nordic Managing Director, SAP. Tel: +45 3913 3000