City of Kitchener Utilities and Property Tax : A City's Transformation Story
1. #SAP4UTL
A collaboration between:
Alex Ahkoon – City of Kitchener
Prashant Gupta - Capgemini
Joyce Evans – City of Kitchener
City of Kitchener Utilities and Property Tax :
A City’s Transformation Story
2. #SAP4UTL
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3. #SAP4UTL
Introductions
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Joyce Evans
Director - Revenue City
of Kitchener
Joyce’s career in both Britain and Canada
encompasses the public and private sectors,
including manufacturing, retail, service, teaching,
and municipal government. She is currently the
deputy city treasurer/director of revenue for the
City of Kitchener, Canada. She has been
involved with several systems implementations
over her career, the most recent being the
implementation of SAP CR&B for utility and
tax billing.
Joyce holds a master’s degree in public
administration from the University of Western
Ontario, a chartered directors (C.Dir) designation
from the Directors College. She is a Fellow
Certified General Accountant (Canada)/Fellow
Chartered Professional Accountant
Prashant Gupta
Capgemini
Capability Lead – NA SAP IS-U
Prashant is an experienced IT manager in the
Utilities space, focused entirely on SAP CR&B
implementations and AMI technology and
have worked with Utilities across NA and
Europe.
Around 15 years of experience comprising of 9
years of working with SAP for Utilities product
suite (SAP CR&B, IS-U) and 4 years of AMI,
Meter Data Management System (MDM/R,
MDUS) and Electric Vehicles Process
integration with SAP applications.
Alex Ahkoon
Manager, SAP Business
Solutions City of Kitchener
Joined the City of Kitchener in 2011 as
Manager, ERP Business Transformation to lead
the assessment of SAP CR&B as a potential
solution to replace the legacy CIS and to
develop a Business Case for City Council.
30 years of experience in the IT industry serving
both the public and private sector. Ten years as
a consultant with extensive interactions with
middle and senior client
management. Extensive involvement in IT
Strategy development, project and project
portfolio management, risk management, and
ERP implementations.
4. #SAP4UTL
• Background and Business Issue
• The Transformation Journey
• Results and Lessons Learned
• Questions?
What we’ll Cover
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City of Kitchener Revenue Division - $525 million in annual revenue
Municipal
Property Tax –
72,000
accounts
Utilities –
80,500
accounts
The single largest revenue source for the City, representing approximately 67%
of total revenues
Property Tax billing requires multiple billing and adjustment of the billing period,
which typically is a Tax Year, based on the preliminary assessments,
supplementary assessments and adjustments to the assessments
Gas utilities billing based on consumption and unique requirements for Gas Distribution
Access Rules (GDAR) regulations
Water utility billing based on consumption
Wastewater billed based on water consumption
Stormwater charges calculated based on category codes and number of dwelling units
Rental water heaters are billed monthly fixed charges based on the type
City of Kitchener : A Place to Call Home
7. #SAP4UTL
Business Case : Why SAP?
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Robust system for the next 15-20 years
Flexible and configurable solution
Solid foundation for e-services, mobile computing and core Utility and PTAX functions
Continued functional and technical enhancements through regular upgrades
Alignment with the City’s corporate technology direction and industry trends
Ability to leverage industry best practices
Opportunity to capitalize on investment already made in SAP
Selecting the right partner – key differentiator for success
Capgemini’s ‘A’ Team - track record of successful
SAP CR&B / Business Objects implementations
Accelerated Time to Value and Program Risk
Mitigation
Industry Leadership and Track Record
Good degree of fit between the City’s
requirements and SAP CR&B’s functionality
Development work to support Property Tax
requirements
GDAR requirements for a gas distributor
Reports and customer letters development
Higher than average historical data conversion
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The Project Success Reflects Our Team’s Efforts
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M1 M2 M3 M4 M5 M6 M7 M8 M9 M10 M11 M12 M13 M14 M15 M16 M17 M18 M19
M20-30
Oct ‘14 Nov Dec Jan ‘15 Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan ‘16 Feb Mar Apr
Blueprinting
60 full day workshops
over 1300 functional
requirements
40 Functional Design
Documents
Realization Build
350 development object
118 BI reports
600 configuration elements
Basis and security
Data migration
Realization Test
8000 test cases executed during
ITC1, ITC2 and UAT
Over 4000 defects resolved
Cutover
5000 individual tasks
Hypercare AMS
Go Live
Capgemini iSAP Methodology Accelerator / UtilityPath
The City team involved 25 full time resources and approximately 40 part-time resources
Capgemini onsite team at its peak was 50 resources supported by 70 right-shore resources spread
across 4 cities in India.
Delivered over 50,000 pages of documentation
Trained the City attendees across 65 training sessions
Identified and addressed over 150 business impacts
One Team
One Success
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The solution enables a house for the City’s operations
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An end to end solution that bills Utilities and Property Tax customers using SAP CR&B
products like:
SAP IS-U – Device Management (DM), Financial Information and Contract
Accounting (FICA), Billing/Invoicing and Print workbench
SAP CRM for Utilities – customer service and operations
SAP MultiChannel Foundation – MCF – self-service portal for customers
SAP HANA for Business Objects – Reporting
OpenText Integration – archive management
Redwood – batch scheduler for SAP batches
Property Tax Solution
OpenText and Redwood
Integrated,
consistent and robust
business platform
Capgemini UtilityPath
SAP IS-U & CRM & MCF
SAP HANA for Business Objects
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SAP MCF Enables Self-Service for Utilities and Property Tax
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MCF enables customers to view and self-manage
their accounts
• Billing and invoicing information
• Utility and Property Tax bills online delivery
• Availability of property tax information such as
assessments, billed amounts, adjustments
• Feature to enter meter reads for gas and water
• Feature to apply for Stormwater credits
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Property Tax Solution – Robust and Scalable Design - 1
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Wherever feasible, use standard SAP IS-U objects, processes, and tools
Although fully customized solutions are easiest to “design”, they are the least
maintainable and have the largest TCO from an IT perspective
Where customizations are required, look to the Public Sector SAP solution for design
approach/guidance
Develop a solution that addresses the 225 Property Tax business requirements as provided by
the City.
Develop a solution who’s ease-of-use meets or exceeds the City’s expectations
Complex Business
Requirements
Use of Standard SAP ISU
Develop a design that is flexible enough to be marketed and deployed at other multi-service
municipalities
Commercialization of CO-IP generated from this area of the project and sharing of revenue.
Develop a re-usable
solution
Align the City’s business processes across Utilities with Property Tax
Use the same general SAP modules and functions across Utilities and Property TaxAlignment across COK
Services
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Stormwater Utility Billing
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Solution Highlights
Stormwater has historically been funded through property tax
• Based on assessed value of property, not amount of runoff going to
stormwater system
• Inconsistent funding source – compete for municipal budget $
Municipalities across North America are moving towards a fee-based
funding model to achieve greater fairness and equity
Largely customized solution; integrates with most aspects of CR&B
solution
• Based on amount of run-off generated… impervious area measurement or
estimation from GIS
• Allocate costs to property owners in a fair and equitable manner
• Stormwater rate credits available to reward environmental stewardship
• Dedicated funding source for stormwater infrastructure maintenance
Aligned with the City’s business processes across Utilities
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Capgemini’s UtilityPath – Certified/Pre-configured SAP Solution
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What is Utility Path?
UtilityPath is Capgemini’s SAP-certified ERP
solution to enable Utility companies to
streamline operations, providing greater
visibility and control of core business
processes.
How was UtilityPath developed?
The UtilityPath solution was built over the
last six years, based on leading practices
and processes we’ve refined during multiple
implementations with Utilities. During each
implementation, we’ve improved the solution
by adding additional functionality (Capgemini
IP)
SAP Generic Products
(Suite on HANA, BI, CRM, IS-U)
Industry Specific Layer (Capgemini IP)
Ad-hoc reports and analytics
Mobility features
Industry-specific transactions
Improved user interface (Fiori)
Technology Management
Integration, data conversion, AM, IM, Security, Reports
+
+
Pre-integrated
Pre-configured
Speed to value
Client Specific
Core SAP
Functionality
UtilityPath
Client Specific
Core SAP Functionality
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UtilityPath – Accelerated Approach to SAP Implementation
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Numbers in the bracket represent the
number of artifacts within UtilityPath.
The deliverables represent a portion
of key project deliverables.
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Key Lessons learnt
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• Blueprinting
• Identify all stakeholders – balance this with keeping the approval process lean
• Challenging for Business to visualize to-be SAP process without a live system - balance the need to
see a live prototype against the project constraints
• Business Readiness - Impact of new processes on Business not entirely clear until after Go-Live
• Engage the right stakeholders; Have the right resources at the right time
• Identify impacts early and refine them continually
• Development of Test Cases – how do you remove the timeline constraints when the same team is expected
to do multiple things at the same time
• Development of Test Cases must be a joint activity
• BI Reports - BI Reports Team engaged too early before solution design finalized
• Engage the right stakeholders; Have the right resources at the right time
• Rationalize the reporting requirement ; rethink a big bang go-live
• Project Team SAP Training
• Time spent by the SI explaining standard SAP business process
• Train your project team (Business and IT) ahead of implementation project
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Results and Success Factors
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Key differentiator for success is the right
partner that ensures maximum
collaboration.
Innovation is the core of large endeavors
constrained by budget and timeline.
SAP certified solutions such as UtilityPath
are scalable, integrated, and
comprehensive.
Success FactorsResults
Alignment to Strategic Corporate directions
for Financial Management, Information
Technology, and Customer Service.
Long term solution providing a robust
platform for the next 15 to 20 years that will
enable the City to accurately and reliably bill
and manage over $520 million in annual
revenue, and offers a solid foundation for
key enhancements such as on-line customer
access, mobile computing, and smart
meters.
Best-practices approach and capitalize on
investment already made in SAP.
21. #SAP4UTL
Joyce Evans, City of Kitchener
Email: Joyce.Evans@Kitchener.ca
Prashant Gupta, Capgemini
Email: P.gupta@Capgemini.com
Twitter: @guptaprashant1
How to Contact Us
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Alex Ahkoon, City of Kitchener
Email: Alex.Ahkoon@Kitchener.ca