SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced general availability of a new citizen engagement offering that works with SAP® Hybris® solutions to help government organizations deliver omnichannel citizen services. It has also officially opened an SAP Hybris data centre in Sydney – the first in the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region, and third globally.
SAP Hybris citizen engagement accelerator
SAP partnered with UXC Oxygen, a leading provider of consulting and services for SAP in Australia and New Zealand, to develop the solution for the public sector. This new SAP Hybris solution expands SAP’s strategy for industry-specific accelerators of its SAP Hybris Commerce solution, which already includes telecommunications, financial services, media and the recently announced travel accelerator.
The citizen engagement accelerator for SAP Hybris solutions helps bring services to citizens through a single, unified user interface that allows end users to navigate across all content easily through one single user interface, which resides in users’ personal accounts. It will provide ease of use in document handling, requests, payments, permits, and registrations in areas such as:
- Civic services — delivering public services online, such as applying for an ID, visa or parking permit, or to file public grievances
- Social services — for support with financial or medical assistance, child care assistance or unemployment benefits
- Tax and revenue management — such as online taxpayer services or using omnichannel capabilities across all devices and channels, allowing agencies, citizens and government to exchange information and minimizing the need for “double-touch” interactions
- Grantor requests — allowing schools, for instance, to easily request and track grants for modernization projects, such as new building insulation
The solution improves service delivery through seamless application program interface-driven data exchange with back-end systems. It can easily plug into an SAP or any other back-end system, so its integration capabilities support the agility required within the public sector.
This is a step change opportunity for public service organisations to ignite citizen engagement,” said UXC Oxygen director, Stuart Dickinson. “Around the world, governments are moving from high touch service delivery models to one where citizens can access information and execute core processes via any device or channel themselves. The SAP Hybris citizen engagement accelerator will provide these agencies with a platform to speed up the delivery – and improve the effectiveness – of citizen self-service.”
Public services organizations are faced with complexity, needing to respond to policy changes and legislation while often having outdated legacy systems fueling their back-end processes. With digitization now ubiquitous across society at large, governmental organizations are looking to integrate digital technologies into their modernization strategy to create value for the public. A key aspect of citizen engagement is to interact with people according to their digital preferences in a way that reflects their digital experience in industries like retail and travel.
“The digital economy has impacted the way consumers engage with brands, and the same applies for interacting with government agencies,” said Kathleen O’Brien, SAP Hybris Australia global industry principal for public sector. “We believe the public sector has a great opportunity to transform and improve citizen engagement, and the new solution is equipping and empowering them to meet these expectations quickly, efficiently, and through digital channels.”
Public sector organizations can use the citizen engagement accelerator to save time through fast implementation of citizen engagement projects, using prebuilt capabilities and templates specific to the needs of public service agencies. Importantly, it offers citizens the use of digital channels for all types of service requests, thereby lowering customer service costs.
SAP Hybris Sydney Data Centre
The SAP Hybris Sydney data centre is the first to be opened in the APJ region and addresses demand for locally hosted cloud-based solutions enabling private and public sector organisations in their transition to the cloud.
The data centre hosts SAP Hybris Commerce, Cloud Edition, with plans already underway to introduce other cloud products including SAP Hybris as a Service, SAP Hybris Engagement Center, SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer and SAP Hybris Marketing.
“SAP Hybris has a commitment to build on our investment and technology partnerships here and across the APJ region. The new service addresses the requirements of many Australian organisations eager to move to the cloud to innovate, create, deploy and host services in a single location,” said Stuart O’Neill, Head of Business – SAP Hybris ANZ.
The opening of the data centre forms part of SAP’s global strategy to provide full security and regional data compliance to all of its customers across the globe.
SAP Hybris’ Sydney data centre is the most recent SAP Hybris data centre to be built since 2013 in Frankfurt, Germany. Another is housed in Boston, USA and was opened in 2012.
To learn more about how SAP Hybris solutions are serving the public sector, visit our Web site and our white paper entitled Serving a New Generation of Citizens. Note to journalists: to request the white paper by e-mail, contact SAPHybris@pancomm.com.
For more information, visit the SAP News Center. Follow SAP on Twitter at @sapnews and SAP Hybris solutions at @saphybris.
*SAP Hybris is a new brand name launched in January 2016 to represent the SAP solutions for customer engagement and commerce as well as the offerings, employees, and business of acquired company hybris AG, which continues to be our legal entity until integration with SAP is complete.
Media Contacts:
Anastassia Keltchina, Howorth Communications for SAP Australia and New Zealand, +61 2 8281 3879, anastassia@howorth.com.au
Simon Gomes, SAP, +61 2 9935 4698, simon.gomes@sap.com
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