Defence turns to ServiceNow to aid ERP uplift

The Department of Defence has engaged ServiceNow to assist with its gargantuan enterprise resource planning (ERP) system uplift, handing over $62 million to the vendor since January.

The department kicked off the year with a $40 million ServiceNow software subscription purchase from the Digital Transformation Agency’s Cloud Marketplace.

Defence is “using the ServiceNow platform to assist with the provision of IT service management” related to the upgrade of its SAP-based ERP system.

While ServiceNow is traditionally known for its service desk ticketing system, the vendor also offers a project portfolio management (PPM) solution.

In the past month, Defence has since signed a further three contracts for additional ServiceNow licenses: one charged at $8 million, one at $7.8 million and one for $5.5 million, bringing the total cost up to $62 million.

The latter will support modules of application portfolio management and IT operations management operator professional, Defence said. 

In a statement to iTnews, a Defence spokesperson said it "is using the ServiceNow platform for enterprise portfolio, program and project management services.

“Defence has commenced leveraging the same platform to assist with the provision of IT service management for Defence’s enterprise resource planning capability," the spokesperson said.

Defence added that the management solution’s licenses are used on a consumption basis and form part of phased delivery.

Defence has been working on the ERP migration to SAP S/4 HANA since 2019 when it handed IBM a systems integration contract for what is ultimately anticipated to be a $1 billion project and could take up to eight years to complete.

Taking place over a series of "tranches", the ERP project's next phase will see the roll-out of its financial management information system, as well as supply chain management, enterprise asset management, purchasing, finance and foundation human resources.

‘Exactly what we need’

Having implemented the ServiceNow platform, Defence has also used the vendor within its new incubator, which serves as a try-before-you-buy function for technology procurement.

Defence first assistant secretary of group operations in the Defence Digital Group Monique Hamilton said the vendor’s platform was used to assist another department that had been “stuck” for months on a “critical” range-management toolset.

Speaking at ServiceNow’s Federal Forum in May, Hamilton said Defence is "in the infancy of our ServiceNow journey."

"Our portfolio management office were the first adopters and that’s now up and running, and we are building that out," she said.

“A different part of the organisation had been deep in the design and planning to replace a critical range-management toolset. They had been going about it in a typical Defence way: very explicit detail in their state of requirements, telling us exactly how they wanted it to work and, no surprise, they were stuck for months on end with no sign of how they were actually going to deliver this tool.”

According to Hamilton, Defence CIO Chris Crozier passed the project to the incubator, instructing it to: “go do your thing and find the solution to this problem.”

“The incubator spent six hours with the ServiceNow platform and delivered a proof-of-concept that the [internal Defence] customer said is 'exactly what we need. It’s not what we would have asked for, but it’s exactly what we need',” she added.

'An enormous beast’

During the Federal Forum event, Hamilton also spoke about the Defence Digital Group’s efforts to change the technology culture within the department.

“If you can deliver IT in Defence, you can deliver it anywhere,” she said. “Integrating tech is often not about the tech, it’s often about the culture of tech.

“Defence is an enormous beast to navigate. Historically we do things as point solutions, designed in a bespoke way [to with]in an inch of their life... then spend a solid two years or more to deliver.

“Transforming the culture from ‘we don’t know what it will look like on day one, but we will iterate as we go' is a challenge. Getting them to integrate best-in-class solutions once that we will leverage many times is [also] a challenge.”

Hamilton explained that the department had recently “re-shaped” the Defence Digital Group in an effort to ensure no duplication across functions.

In addition, the group is also focused on technology architecture specialists “who are “not the historians, but the prophets” and can focus on Defence’s tech stack’s future needs as well as solution replacements.

“We do not have time to waste taking our organisation from our legacy platforms to the modern stack,” she said.

“Key to Defence is integration and interoperability and that goes beyond the enterprise working in its own walls. Obviously, interoperability with our allies is a key part in that. We must pivot really quickly.”

Eleanor Dickinson attended Federal Forum in Canberra as a guest of ServiceNow.