Logica in the ECM world

With a strong ECM competency of 2,000 consultants worldwide and strategic relationships with key software vendors, understanding of the importance of business change management and a focus on customer business outcomes, Logica is uniquely positioned to help customers unlock real business advantage from their information assets.

The  offer is a proven approach to the analysis, selection and delivery of ECM solutions and business process improvements. With over 400 ECM projects completed, Logica is recognised as a leading systems integrator for ECM solutions, with a consistent track record in delivering successful ECM solutions worldwide, to both the public and the private sector.

Logica is listed on both the London Stock Exchange and Euronext (Amsterdam) and is  is a leading IT and business services company, employing 39,000 people across 36 countries.
It provides business consulting, systems integration, and IT and business process outsourcing services. Logica works closely with its customers to release their potential – enabling change that increases their efficiency, accelerates growth and manages risk. It applies its deep industry knowledge, technical excellence and global delivery expertise to help its customers build leadership positions in their markets.

Business Process Outsoucing
Finance departments are under more and more pressure to cut costs and provide value. Yet many struggle with poorly integrated systems and staff in different locations handling repetitive, error-prone tasks.

Automating and standardising these processes can turn an inefficient finance operation into one that adds value. Combining this with the cost benefits of locating staff in a blend of onshore and offshore locations creates a powerful business proposition.

Outsourcing your finance and accounting processes to Logica, will typically reduce the operating expenditure of your finance function by 35 per cent. It will improve your cashflow and standardise and automate your operation, all whilst enabling you to maintain full financial and internal control.

Logica work with organisations in all sectors to transform their finance functions and transform their operations. There are expertise in process, delivery and compliance: and with deep accountancy skills. This formidable combination will help organisations to develop a fully efficient and flexible finance operation.

A Blended Delivery Model is used that combines staff located in both onshore and low-cost offshore locations, working seamlessly together. Not only managing  commodity process such as accounts payable and receivable, but also complex accounting services such as core operational accounting, inter-company reconciliations, and management, statutory and tax reporting. The teams are underpinned by the BS7799 and Six Sigma quality approaches.
There are both Onshore and Offshore locations used within Logica.For example, a UK customer might have processing and reporting carried out in Bangalore, with document receipt, scanning, print and mail and the banking of cheques carried out in our UK document handling centre. Where needed, you can keep parts of your operation in-house. The service architecture is designed to ensure a seamless relationship between outsourced and retained finance managers and staff.

In terms of technology ‘applications neutral’ is the word, although there ia a preference for SAP, Oracle and Agresso. Leading automation technologies are used to ensure invoice data are delivered directly, without re-keying. And should finance be part of a wider outsourcing project, also extensive applications and IT infrastructure management can be offered as well as a wider back-office solution combining finance, HR and procurement.

The quality of a finance function rests on people. Logica’s Finance Service Centre team in Bangalore includes professionally qualified accountants in each process area, all of whom are graduates. The Bangalore team operates in a modern professional environment with a strong service-led culture. No other organisation can deliver a team with a better mix of financial, technical and implementation know-how or deliver a better service.

NATO Document Handling System
“We wanted a user-friendly application for our new document management solution, one which would give all our users fast access to the data they need for their particular jobs.
Logica has given us a solution which does exactly that.” Says Steven Janis, Core Portfolio
Co-ordinator at NATO C3 Agency.

For NATO, standardisation and data exchange are the keys to improved efficiency and cost effectiveness – and very often NATO acts as a forerunner for its member states. Together with Logica, NATO is now setting new standards in document management for the transfer of expertise. The new Logica system – used as a “core service” – is now putting part
of NATO‘s long-term knowledge management strategy into actual practice. Within the
context of a service-oriented architecture (SOA), the main information systems can now
utilise the system, for storing documents, for example.

Obviously a real challeng. Highly complex organisational structures, strict security requirements and a high turnover of personnel used to hinder the exchange of information and knowledge within the organisation. Member states usually delegate staff for a period of three years. Their data is generally stored on local file servers. In order to reliably evaluate documents NATO-wide with minimal effort – and in accordance with internal regulations – Logica has created a multi-site “Document Handling System” (DHS).

Logica designed, planned and developed the entire system. The global IT and consultancy services supplier also carried out the NATO-wide roll-out, including employee support and training. An international team of around 20 specialists was on hand to ensure the success of the project – and the security of NATO‘s IT investment.

Logica partners provided additional expertise, HP provided the hardware configuration and installation and Microsoft supported the architecture development. The Logica subsidiary, Integrata Training, designed and implemented all the training programs, including computer-based training. Thanks to their experience in large projects and document management, the experts in Logica know all the essential success factors for DHS. That is why the emphasis was on quality during project planning and execution – and on a high level of user acceptance.

DHS is one of the first NATO multi-site IT systems. This means that over 25,000 civilian and military personnel in Europe, Turkey and the USA can work – with the Logica solution – in the closed NATO “Secret Network” spanning 23 sites.

Some highlights in the project were:
Design and development: In tightly meshed communication and coordination processes, uniform workflows can now be defined for document management and for both functional and efficiency requirements – enterprise-wide. NATO document release and signature procedures, for instance, are fully supported. The granting of access rights in the system is extremely strict. Documents with a high security classification are simply not displayed – not even in a list of search results. Total integration with Microsoft Office facilitates further document processing.

Implementation: The roll-out at each site was carefully prepared by means of  comprehensive site surveys. An installation package was then created within the “Tailoring”
framework – customised for every site‘s individual organisational structure and access
rights requirements. Logica tested this package in a pre-implementation procedure before every roll-out.

Data migration: Within the framework of “Back Publishing”, documents to be migrated were classified and flagged with the necessay metadata. “Back Publishing” experts supported NATO personnel in document migration procedures – and uploaded thousands of documents on site.
Training: At the same time as the rollout, IT managers, power users (functional admins) and users received intensive training at every site. A computer-based training application was also made available later. During the entire roll-out phase, Logica provided support for NATO users and administrators through a Help Desk, created especially for the project.

Some Productive Phase highlights:
From the time the system is accessed, users can immediately find their documents in automatically created document libraries and can work productively and efficiently. All new metadata is inserted into documents  automatically where possible.

Technical background NATO‘s version of DHS is based on Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server MOSS 2007. The solution consists of two front-end web & search servers, an index server and an SQL server with two cluster nodes per site. All servers run on Windows Server 2003 R2 and are connected to the site‘s gigabit network and the storage area network (SAN). This sustains a high level  of availability and performance throughout theentire system – and offers a solid platform for future expansion.