United Nations Case Study

Organization: The United Nations

Industry: Intergovernmental Organization

Personnel: 133,126

Geography: 6 International Regions

Overview
The UN has 193 member states, with nearly every country in the world participating. Founded in 1945, The UN is an intergovernmental organization with the primary goal of maintaining international peace and security, promoting cooperation, and fostering respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Sage Solutions Consulting worked with the U.N. for 7 years on Project Umoja.  

The Challenges
The diversity of the United Nations’ mission geographically and operationally requires reliable and extensive coordination. Their IT infrastructure supports large and small initiatives all over the world with a variety of activities including: delivery of services; financing; data collection and analysis, logistics and reporting. As with many large and far flung organizations, standardization of IT assets and processes was loose and at times technology solutions were stood up on the fly. It’s understandable that sometimes that’s how things get done. But, over time the U.N.’s IT juggernaut began displaying signs of dysfunction.

Solutions
In 2009 the U.N. began an initiative to integrate their systems and future processes using SAP software. This was called “Project Umoja” - Umoja is a Kiswahili word meaning unity. Sage Solutions Consulting was brought in during the blueprint stage in 2010 and worked to plan and then initialize implementation.

The core of this transformation has employed SAP’s ERP software to provide a standardized and streamlined approach to operational intelligence, finance and budget management, HR, workforce management, organizational management, travel management, payroll, project and program management, supply chain procurement, logistics management and support services.

In addition to managing the SAP security components, SSC provided strategic oversight to handling multiple stakeholder requirements, planning timelines and implementation planning. Once core structures and systems were established during implementation Sage handed off last mile completion of high volume rote tasks to Andersen.