The ERP solution - comprised of PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management (HCM), PeopleSoft Enterprise Supply Chain Management (SCM), PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management, and PeopleSoft Portal - allows UNDP to more effectively deliver on its mission. As the United Nations' global development network, UNDP connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. The organization advocates for change - helping nations develop their own solutions to urgent challenges including democratic governance; poverty; crisis prevention and recovery; energy and environment; and HIV/AIDS.

"The UNDP is an extremely complex organization - comprised of many offices around the world that use different business processes, languages and resources," said Jens Wandel, project director of the Center for Business Solutions at UNDP. "Prior to implementing Oracle, the UNDP relied heavily on paper-based processes. We needed an integrated system to automate our business processes and speed our response time. Implementing the Oracle(r) solution has enabled us to standardize processes across our global network, evolve into a results-based organization and more effectively deliver on our mission to help member countries overcome their various challenges."

Examining Business Processes to Enact Change
Prior to implementing Oracle, the UNDP's widely dispersed technical infrastructure not only fell short of the needed support to the network, but also formed a barrier to further development. To manage its future growth, UNDP began an initiative to re-engineer and simplify business processes. The organization selected Oracle to develop a global, integrated ERP system to streamline operations and improve resource management worldwide. Working with Oracle, UNDP replaced dozens of separate financial, HR and supply chain applications, as well as hundreds of spreadsheets used to manage personnel, projects, donors and suppliers, with one integrated Oracle solution.

"This project enabled UNDP to underpin its global network of offices with a means to standardize business processes and adopt best practices internationally across main business areas, including HR, finance, procurement and project management," said Jackie Cheng, senior consulting practice director at Oracle. "It is one of the fastest, most complex deployments of ERP software in the world."

"The Oracle solution also appealed to us because of its superior Internet architecture," added Wandel. "It would have taken a very long time to deploy a solution if we needed to touch each user machine worldwide. Instead, we were able to deploy the entire solution in just 14 days and allow our employees to access the system from anywhere in the world via the Internet. This is especially important for our offices in countries that do not have a robust IT infrastructure."

Integrated Oracle Solution Enables Results-based Management
UNDP and Oracle rolled the solution out to 8,000 key personnel, and UNDP plans to deploy the solution to an additional 20,000 users. The new system provides several benefits, including:

* Effective collaboration - Integrated, transparent system allows offices to work together, using the same set of business data. For example, employees in UNDP's headquarters based in the United States can now share information and collaborate with local offices to deliver aid in Afghanistan and Iraq more efficiently.

* Improved accountability - Real-time visibility into important business information allows UNDP management to intervene in projects much more quickly when necessary.

* Streamlined human resource management - The project replaced 145 separate repositories for employee data with one core system, streamlining operations and maintaining personnel data, such as language certifications, citizenship status and visa information. With a single view of all projects and involved personnel, UNDP can track staff movements and make more informed decisions about resource allocation. In addition, UNDP now uses a single, automated system to pay all of its full-time staff and contingent workers - vastly simplifying the payroll process.

* Enhanced financial management - The new system enables UNDP to more easily comply with multiple international accounting standards and complex multicurrency systems. It provides a single point of entry for financial information, allowing UNDP management to make more informed business decisions. In addition, the procurement modules have automated UNDP's purchasing processes, allowing the organization to get supplies and funds to the countries and people that need them much more quickly.

"This solution has helped UNDP employees around the world share knowledge and business intelligence on critical issues, including democratic governance, poverty and disease," said Wandel. "It allows our organization to operate much more efficiently and effectively."

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