Comprehensive Management Dashboard

SAS Covers All Technological Requirements

The Belgian Federal Public Service (FPS) Finance has just completed the first phase in the implementation of a Management Dashboard, a comprehensive overview of management indicators to support decision-making. SAS technology was adopted to implement this dashboard. SAS consolidates the essential information from tens of IT systems used by the various fiscal administrations and presents it in a clear and user-friendly manner. SAS is easily scalable, which means new users can be easily added and new functions are quickly available.

Manage a Complex Organization
The Belgian Federal Public Service (FPS) Finance has about 30,000 employees in different departments and spread all over the country. President of the Board of Directors of the FPS Finance, Jean-Claude Laes, knows that managing this organization is a challenge: "Performance measuring is necessary to steer this huge and complex organization." That is why in July 1998, the Secretary General decided to start streamlining performance management within this FPS. To that end, the FPS Finance established a dedicated cell entitled Performance Measurement, that turned later into the Department Performance Management lead by Claude Schoenaers. It should be noted that this evaluation was made well ahead of the launch of the Copernicus Plan, an immense reorganization of all FPSs designed to improve their service level.

Measurement Inventory
The Performance Measurement Cell made a thorough inventory of current measurement initiatives in the fiscal departments' field organizations. "The findings showed that several initiatives had already been taken, a lot of information had been gathered and statistics had been made available", says Claude Schoenaers. "Despite this stockpile of information, the question of how these statistics could be used in decision-making processes remained. Another obstacle to practical interpretation was the hodge-podge of formats in which the information was presented." The Performance Measurement Cell realized that a uniform approach was the only road to follow, towards a countrywide performance measurement system, along with some selected correspondents from the field they analyzed the work processes and identified the information they deemed to be useful to measure the performance of the services. Based on this analysis, they defined and validated a number of performance indicators. All this work ultimately resulted in strategic and management objectives per department.

Expansible Technology
The groundwork had been completed and the actual implementation of the dashboard could get started. The Department Performance Management within the FPS Finance took the lead in this project. They turned to an experienced IT service provider for the technical implementation and selected Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). "When CSC saw what our requirements were, they instantly knew that the success of the project was highly dependent on the technology chosen", recalls Claude Schoenaers, Director at the Directorate Performance Management. "To give an example, our project runs in four different phases. The first phase only involves a limited number of users. But once we come to phase four, the number of users will have multiplied. That means that the technology chosen has to be scalable, not only in size, but also in functionality. SAS technology perfectly conforms to these requirements, which was clear from the proposed CSC solution."

One Technology Fits All
"With SAS, we can use one technology for the entire project", says Michel Martin, ICT project leader at the FPS Finance, who was in charge of the project's ICT aspects. "It precludes the need to insert other software packages. If we need new functions, we simply add another SAS module. That also contributes to cost efficiency, since we only have to master one technology. SAS' total solution includes gathering the information, quality control, consolidation, presentation, and reporting. The single package approach enabled us to develop the Management Dashboard and make it operational in a very short time. Furthermore, SAS is constructed for easy consolidation of data coming from the existing information systems located at the different administrative departments. Last but not least, the technology is very user friendly. With SAS we can develop straightforward user interfaces that present the information clearly and well organized."

Extract Data from Countless Systems
The project team used SAS/Warehouse Administrator to consolidate the essential data from a variety of formats from the existing operational systems in the field. The SAS software performs a quality control on the data before consolidating it. SAS/Graph was used to present the information in useful and well thought-out graphs. Thanks to the SAS html features, and the WebEIS possibilities, the Management Dashboard is accessible through intranet. This means no loss of time for the IT team. By installing the solution once, all concerned have access through their standard browser. All SAS modules fit seamlessly, resulting in a comfortable and easily adaptable system. CSC did the lion's share of the implementation. "But whenever they were confronted with a more complex problem, they could count on SAS. The SAS and CSC experts really joined forces to do whatever was necessary," says Schoenaers.

First Phase Was Very Successful
The first phase of the Management Dashboard project consisted of a pilot. One model was to be implemented in each fiscal administrative department. Six models were created, e.g., one for the customs administration, one for the treasury administration and one for land registry administration. "The results we get now obviously only give us a very scattered view of the processes. But it was our goal to test its feasibility," explains Schoenaers. "CSC completed this phase within six months and the first results were very positive. One example of what we can now measure is the running time between the deposition of a legal act and its completion. This will be important in a later phase to monitor customer satisfaction for instance. In the mean time our people in the field don't have any extra work. The SAS based tool just uses the information they already input in their information system during their daily work and processes it. We are now proceeding with the second phase, together with CSC. This will take another nine months. The goal is to have a global view then on a few selected processes. In the mean time, CSC will also transmit the necessary know-how to our people, so we can take care of additional phases. Thanks to the easy-to-use SAS technology, we do not anticipate any problems."

"In other words," concludes Jean- Claude Laes enthusiastically, "we are confident that with SAS technology, a foundation for user-friendly performance measurement has been created and will result in improved service levels at the Federal Public Service Finance in the near future."

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