SAP’s state-of-the-art cloud-based corporate governance system, SAP S / 4HANA, has been introduced by the National Penitentiary Command and its Bv. A subsidiary organization called Holding, which is responsible for the employment of detainees. The detainees produce, among other things, food, textiles and furniture. As a result of the innovation, the group of companies moving on the border of the state administration and the profit-oriented sphere has developed processes based on transparent, real-time queryable data. The unique Hungarian public administration development has won the SAP Quality Awards, the Central and Eastern European regional award for the most complex business transformation projects.
In Hungary, as in other developed countries, penitentiary enforcement is not limited to institutional custody of detainees. The National Penitentiary Command (BvOP) organizes the daily lives of about 18,000 prisoners in 30 penitentiary institutions with the participation of 9,000 staff members. However, it also provides for the compulsory employment of prisoners, providing them with useful time, internships, earning opportunities and helping them to reintegrate into society.
From footwear to border fencing
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The most efficient employment of prisoners is a growing expectation, and the role of penitentiary companies has further increased in recent years. The previously separate companies were merged into a group of companies in 2015, thus the Bv.
“Prisoners are often told that it is difficult to motivate them and persuade them to do the quality work that the market expects, but this is not entirely true,” says Tamás Farsang bv. Colonel, Deputy Commander for Economic and IT. Prisoners can now find suitable employment in agriculture and acquire occupations in the construction industry that will continue to benefit them after their release. “Prisoners can also be motivated to create their own living conditions. They built the prison for themselves in Kiskunhalas; providing mechanical, electrical, painting and paving work,” says Tamás Farsang as an example. The companies also include companies with an agricultural and industrial profile, operating in a number of different areas, from the printing industry to the paper industry to the textile industry. For example, they make furniture, detergent, shoes, food, or a fence for a temporary security barrier. In addition, law enforcement companies provide uniforms to all law enforcement.
Bv. The holding company faces a number of challenges in the field of governance
The group of companies actually moves between the state and the profit-oriented market sphere. Open companies produce for the state administration and law enforcement, as well as for the free market.
“The companies of Bv. Holding have been operating in their previous form for 25 years, enriched with many traditions and experience over the years. Here, however, compared to a purely market operation, the constraints arising from the state administration and the mandatory tasks, which often contradict the owner ‘s expectation of profitability, pose a challenge, “emphasized Zoltán Cséri bv. Brigadier General, Bv. Managing director of Holding Kft. Therefore, it is necessary to appear on the market, new and new ways must be found to make the work more efficient and effective.
However, the holding companies used to have different levels of digitization, the individual companies did not follow uniform processes. they operated, recording production, capacities and costs in different ways. The standardization was complicated by the fact that, apart from the atypical employment model, there was little overlap between the activities of the companies, and also by the fact that special needs often arose due to the individual mission, for example in reporting. In order to rationalize, unify and make the model more cost-effective, it was therefore necessary to introduce a special corporate governance system. The idea for this was born in 2019.
Why SAP?
“SAP is the world’s leading software manufacturer, it has been on the market for 50 years, and has a variety of scalable industry solutions, capable of providing enterprise management systems and other business intelligent software to its customers, regardless of company size, “emphasizes Szabolcs Pintér, Managing Director of SAP Hungary.
SAP’s robust systems can to lay the foundations for unified operation and management, and based on its industry experience and customer examples, the company can effectively launch other Hungarian public administration organizations in addition to penitentiary services by becoming an agile, modern organization. This is one of the key goals of SAP Hungary in Hungary.
The new SAP S4 / HANA system was introduced at record speed in one year
With unique challenges Overcoming this, the company has installed the most modern SAP S4 / HANA ERP system for BvOP, which has intelligent functions and an in-memory database, thus enabling real-time data analysis and forecasting. SAP also integrated cloud-based analytics and reporting modules into this system, as well as unified processes, article body and customer body at BvOP.
“We were dealing with a very complex project, as ten companies had to to introduce the new system, ensuring that the production of these companies is uninterrupted during the changeover, “notes Péter Vass, Head of Public Administration for SAP Hungary. According to him, the outstanding performance is also due to the amazing teamwork – 40 people participated in the project from SAP and about 90 key users from the penitentiary.
An important element of the system is a reporting and management information system that can handle the often short-term reporting requests from the Ministry of the Interior and provides managers with reliable and real-time data on the basis of which they can make informed decisions.
The Bv. According to the managing director of Holding Kft., Their operation has since become simpler and more logical – not only on the screens, but also in reality. Zoltán Cséri sees that the interfaces are easy to use and customer-centric, the processes are clear to everyone, and this operation is realized within the entire group of companies.
“The expected goal is efficiency and cost-effectiveness – in exactly the same way, as a company operating in a market sphere. We will be able to achieve these goals more easily with SAP’s corporate governance system, “added Tamás Farsang bv.
The project completed on time also won an award
The work started in the summer of 2020 and was successfully completed by June 2021. It is a great achievement that the project was completed on time despite the coronavirus epidemic. SAP also provided training for system staff during the project. Although the pandemic made it difficult to work, the rapid digitalisation has already kept most of the education online and has not reduced efficiency.
The success is also reflected in the fact that the project won SAP Quality Awards 2021 called a regional award. This recognition, which is presented by the company for the twelfth time this year and receives about 250 applications per year, is given to projects whose performance and technical content are declared unique and outstanding by an independent professional staff within SAP. Projects from 16 countries in the region competed for the award this year, and the BvOP was the winner in the “Business Transformation” category.
According to Szabolcs Pintér, Managing Director, such a project could be useful in public administration, public administration, also in urban governance: it can be exciting, for example, for large cities where many companies operate under one umbrella in a holding structure or for other reasons, but over time corporate processes have developed on an ad hoc basis and a unified solution is needed to bring them together
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