In May 2022, we have delivered Odoo system to the Ministry of National Guard Development Program (MNGDP) in Saudi Arabia. The team successfully delivered the system in a record time. In this article, we will review this success story and focus on the success factors so that our followers can identify and benefit from them.
The team started the implementation in the first week of March 2022, where the team analyzed the client’s requirements and submitted the analysis and design documents in three weeks. The client’s requirements were as follows:
1. The program's procurement cycle, which it undertakes for the benefit of all development projects of the Ministry of National Guard in Saudi Arabia
2. The program's accounting system, which is largely based on budgets and their analysis, as well as governmental financial statements in the Kingdom
3. The program’s human resources system and the rules for dealing with different types of employees in terms of organization structure and financial entitlements
4. Supplier Portal, which starts from registering a new supplier until making all transactions related to purchase, delivery, collection and evaluation
5. Employees self-service (ESS) portal to submit all requests and view reports for each employee
The project was implemented under the supervision of the PMO in both institutions through the following steps and outputs:
1. Contracting: This resulted in the form of statement of work, the final contract and the assignment order
2. Requirements analysis: It was done at the client’s premises and resulted in the business requirements document (BRD), business process models (BPM) and the mockups for portal screens
3. System design: It resulted in the system design document (SDD), the customization requirements document, the portal pages design in accordance with the colors theme of the customer, the data requirements and the high-level test scenarios
4. System installation: It was done on Oracle cloud servers in Jeddah, where two environments were installed, the test/training environment and the production environment
5. Implementation: It was done by the implementation and development teams at Archer Solutions, and resulted in configuring the system and programming the requirements that are not available in Odoo, as well as issuing and validating test cards for different applications and the training plan for different teams
6. Testing: It was conducted by the two institutions twice for each application, so that the second time was to ensure that any notes from the first time were fixed. At the end, the test report was submitted and approved, which stipulated the complete implementation of the system and its readiness to go live
7. Training: It was carried out by the implementation team from Archer Solutions, which also included training the trainer (TOT) for the various portals
8. Data entry: It was done for all the master data, for all the accounting entries of the client since the start of the institution’s work, the purchase requisitions and orders for the institution since the start of its work, the current data for the employees and the rules for calculating their salaries
9. Project closure: This was done with the approval of the PMO from client side, and the CEO of MNGDP agreed to start operating the system
The fifth step (implementation) took a period of 6 weeks, which is a record time in relation to the size of the project, the degree of quality required and the number of procedures and documents needed to manage the project. This period was sufficient to deliver the system with all the requirements in a high degree of quality.
As a learned lesson for teams delivering ERP systems and customers needing to implement these systems, they following must be availed:
1. A disciplined contract that achieves a balance between the required quality and the financial return so that it is feasible for both parties
2. A project manager from the client side who facilitates the process of the provider company, and is in a constant state of challenge from the client's PMO to implement the project on time and with the required quality
3. A project manager from the provider company who has a high degree of efficiency and discipline to achieve the necessary governance to deliver the project on time and with the required quality
4. A delivery schedule that is balanced and reasonable in relation to the requirements and provides the time needed to do all the procedures that ensure the delivery of a high-quality system
5. An integrated team with a good degree of efficiency, experience and seriousness
6. Organizing the work team in terms of the utilization and tasks clarity to deliver the requirements on time and with the required quality
7. A tight project management processes that adheres to a scientific and tried-and-tested method that is recommended by institutions with experience in the field
It remains to inform you that Archer Solutions follows MS Sure Steps methodology to manage ERP projects, which has been used in many previous projects successfully, some modifications have been made to it to comply with Archer's delivery style and to comply with the implementation of Odoo.
The next step is to provide technical support to MNGDP, which we are also doing through a methodology and processes that we have developed through our experience in providing support to many of our clients. We will soon share it with you in a future article.
Now dear client, do you aim to achieve the same success in your organization? Do you want to implement an ERP system in a reasonable time, with high quality and with a guaranteed success? Get in touch with us to find out how you can achieve this success using our unique methods of providing Odoo implementation services, whatever the size of your organization and no matter how difficult your operations may be.