Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education Transforms Kingdom into a Digital Society, Boosts Efficiency for Over 50% of Civil Workforce
 
 

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education Transforms Kingdom into a Digital Society, Boosts Efficiency for Over 50% of Civil Workforce

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The Ministry of Education (MOE) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, created in 1953, administers a vast network of more than 33,000 publicly-funded schools for elementary and secondary school education, with more than 5 million students enrolled.

In 2010, the ministry embarked on a campaign to replace its legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems by implementing a state-of-the-art financial and administrative resources information system to more efficiently and cost-effectively manage its business processes across the Kingdom.

MOE deployed Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 as a single ERP system for Saudi Arabia’s educational system, having a direct impact on more than 50% of the Kingdom’s total civil government workforce. The Oracle solution, which replaced an infrastructure of isolated information systems that required manual coordination of nonsynchronized operations between MOE directorates, provided significant benefits across numerous functions and stakeholders—including employees, business operations, management and control, analytics, finance, governance, and technology.

The ministry increased the productivity, efficiency, and proficiency of academic and nonacademic personnel by automating many financial, human resources, and administrative functions. By freeing resources to focus on core competencies, the deployment extended the ministry’s ability to provide access to tailored learning for all children in Saudi Arabia, according to their abilities and inclinations.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education

  • “We rely on Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 to transform Saudi Arabia into a digital society and to increase the country’s global competitiveness.” – Dr. Jarallah Saleh AlGhamdi, Chief Information Officer, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education

  • Improve the ministry's ability to efficiently use ERP for the educational system of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, to manage distribution and spending for 20% of the country’s annual budget allocated for education, training, and human capital development
  • Convert years of legacy data into easily accessible formats to increase productivity of 6,500 application users and eliminate duplicate records that were inconsistent and located in isolated databases
  • Ensure system configuration accuracy and optimal data quality while reducing IT complexity and management costs by replacing hundreds of proprietary systems with a single ERP platform
  • Free resources to enhance the ministry’s ability to expand access to tailored learning for all children in Saudi Arabia

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Established a single ERP platform for all MOE directorates, using Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 to standardize services, increase overall efficiency, and enhance the ministry’s ability to provide to tailored learning for all children in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by maximizing organizational efficiency
  • Increased productivity of 6,500 application users and increased efficiency of the ministry’s 651,000 employees, who represent more than 50% of the Kingdom’s total civil government workforce, by automating numerous functions related to schools, educational directorates, students, teachers, and staff
  • Established guided workflows for financial transactions and reporting, helping to reduce budget report-generation time from months to minutes and human resources and financial report-compilation time from two days to two minutes
  • Gained the ability close and process payroll in 10 days as opposed to between 10 days to two months in the legacy systems—when remote directorates initiated payrolls two months in advance and sent the data to headquarters for processing
  • Reduced the average time between a service request and a service acknowledgement from a tedious and time-consuming manual operation to an automated process that is completed in one to two days
  • Implemented Oracle Purchasing to replace manual procurement processes and enable the ministry to create a purchase order in 5 to 10 minutes and approve it in 1 to 5 minutes, as opposed to manual procedures that previously took hours or days
  • Used Oracle Financials to reduce the time required to obtain budgeted funds from several weeks to two days and increased the ratio of error-free supplier invoices from 80% to 99%
  • Automated warehouse processes and optimized the quantity and type of stock ordered, improving warehouse space utilization and enabling MOE to identify availability and locate any inventory item, countrywide, in less than two minutes—for example, schoolbooks and other items required in elementary and secondary school education—while eliminating inventory losses from damage, expiration, loss, and theft
  • Enabled MOE to register a new supplier in just 10 minutes and ensure that supplier performance meets contractual agreements
  • Enabled accounts payable employees to process 2.5x more payments in a given period and accounts receivable employees to process 5x more payments
  • Introduced effective change management in people, processes, and technologies to enhance operations and strengthen employee buy-in to using best practices embedded in Oracle E-Business Suite

Why Oracle

The Ministry of Education selected Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 due to Oracle’s open architecture, scalability, and information security. The ministry recognized that Oracle’s applications are based on best business practices, provide Arabic user interfaces, and support the Hijra calendar. Further, Oracle has proven implementation partners with a track record in Saudi Arabia and qualified local teams to support future projects.

“The Ministry of Education is constantly updating its IT systems to maximize organizational efficiency, streamline departmental work, and meet long-term development objectives. Oracle E-Business Suite met our expectations after careful evaluation,” said Dr. Jarallah Saleh AlGhamdi, chief information officer, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education.

Partner

The Ministry of Education worked with Oracle Partner Tata Consultancy Services, as it has vast knowledge of Oracle E-Business Suite and in-depth government sector experience to help the ministry complete the administrative resources information system initiative.

“By implementing Oracle E-Business Suite and taking advantage of the training and support services offered by Oracle Partner Tata Consultancy Services, the Ministry achieved a quantum leap in transforming the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia into a digital society,” AlGhamdi said.