Baden-Württemberg is the third largest of the 16 states that make up the Federal Republic of Germany, both in terms of area and population. Like Switzerland and the United States, German federalism divides power between a national government and individual states, each with their own constitution and parliament. Baden-Württemberg currently has 139 legislators who are elected every 5 years.

Baden-Württemberg is also one of Germany's most prosperous states. It represents one of the wealthiest regions in Europe and has a traditionally low unemployment rate. A number of global, well-known enterprises representing the automobile, mechanical engineering and IT industries are headquartered there, and analysts consistently rate it as one of the most economically successful and dynamic states in the country. An excellent tax base and well-run state government are indicative of its healthy socio-economic climate. 

Like many regional governments, however, Baden-Württemberg continues to weather its share of social, political, and technical change. Economic crises, privatization, budget cuts, the continuing evolution of e-government and increasing scrutiny from citizens have prompted state leaders to be more citizen-focused, more business-like and smarter in their use of technology. Baden-Württemberg seeks to use IT to achieve this kind of evolution and transformation to ensure that the state is well-positioned to be more adaptive, have citizen-focused employees and processes, and be more committed to transparency. 


Over the past decade, Baden-Württemberg has undertaken the implementation of a sophisticated IT executive management system to provide business process management and business intelligence functionality to each of its ministries and offices. The most recent addition to this system landscape is the Parliament Information System. This business intelligence solution gives all state legislators and their staffs direct access to all information on the state budget, including cost centers, performance targets, and key indicators, to provide a transparent overview of government operations.  It represents the first of its kind in Germany, and one of the most advanced in the world.

As early as 1996, The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Finance identified technology as a critical instrument in helping the state meet its future strategic and policy goals. Policy leaders thus embraced technology as an important tool to improve the flow, speed and accuracy of information for internal management. 

In 1999, the state government laid the foundation for a statewide executive management system. The core applications of the system landscape consist of SAP solutions for controlling, finances and materials management, and the sector-specific SAP component for funds management that are part of SAP for Public Sector. In October 2007, systems for budget management, cost and activity accounting, and time recording were also successfully implemented with the system upgrade to SAP ERP 6.0.

The Information System for the Parliament of Baden-Württemberg covers each of the state's key policy areas beneath the umbrella of the New Controlling Instruments (NSI) program. The NSI system supports the budget, controlling and asset accounting for each of the government's 10 departments. The technological basis for the information system  is the business intelligence component of SAP NetWeaver, SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence (SAP NetWeaver BI). This component enables online analytical processing and data mining, and alerts that provide a foundation for accessing and presenting data, searching for patterns, and identifying exceptions. A sophisticated set of decision support capabilities gives policymakers up-to-date information to spot trends, patterns, and opportunities for new cost efficiencies and revenue streams. 

The Parliament Information System uses the advanced business intelligence technology to aggregate available data from cost and activity accounting, asset accounting, and other specialty technical applications. It makes information available in target group-appropriate formats for key policy areas throughout the state government's administrative offices and agencies. 

The key objectives of the project are to execute a technology platform that can:
	Achieve seamless integration with budget management
	Create a system that can be modified and expanded without problem
	Establish comprehensive approaches rather than isolated solutions

The NSI program's replacement of legacy systems, and its ability to connect SAP and non-SAP systems to a centralized data warehouse, have provided the Parliament Information System with one set of master data, making it possible to implement a key figures-based controlling solution across all areas of the organization. The data is then delivered over a role-based user portal that delivers up-to-date data, analytical reports and other critical information. And by deploying the latest virtual network and security technology, the user portal is accessible not only in government offices, but also online in legislators' electoral district offices or even from their private homes.

Yes

Yes

The overarching benefit of this project is the link it has forged between policy decisions, budgetary decisions and their impact on government programs statewide. In an era of increasingly limited resources and heightened citizen expectations, the solutions and applications that make up the Parliament Information System help policy makers make better informed decisions based on comprehensive data and figures from current fiscal trends.
 "With the new information system, all members of our state's parliament can obtain quick, comprehensive, up-to-date information on budget-related facts and developments," say Baden-Württemberg Finance Minister Willi Stächele and Baden-Württemberg Parliament Finance Committee Chairman Ingo Rust.
Since the solution's roll-out in June 2008, the state's legislators and their staffs have realized a number of significant benefits:
	Relevant information is always up-to-date, accurate, comprehensive, and offers legislators quick access to information
	Sound decision making and better controlling based on consistent data
	Optimized information quality and continuous, paperless streams of information
	Elimination of time-consuming manual activities
	Standardized information on costs and budget targets, as well as greater visibility of administration goal successes through performance indicators
	Legislators can review comprehensive fiscal data remotely without having to physically transport a heavy, multi-volume, printed annual budget
 
Information availability
In the place of manual data retrieval and spreadsheet analysis, users can quickly and easily access all budget-related data, facts and developments. The availability of information has been vastly improved and simplified. Legislators can use the system to extract the most up-to-date information on budget planning and HR planning. They can also generate reports on state revenues, spending, public debt and other critical information. This allows the parliament to conduct more facts-based public policy debates, and to base legislative decisions based on budget projections and actual spending from previous fiscal years. 

In-depth reporting
Each of the portal's individual user screens organizes real-time information to help legislators recognize trends, improve visibility, and generate reports. Reports on the product-oriented budget, for example, contain revenues and expenditures, as well as targets and key performance indicators for individual government ministries. In addition, quarterly and annual reports can be retrieved as electronic documents.

Analytics functionality also provides legislators with information that allows them to more fully understand service requirements and to deliver efficiency. Legislators can see which processes are working and which ones must change. As a result, legislative working groups and committees work more efficiently, develop more coherent policies and programs, and are more responsive to the constituents they serve. 

Analytics functionality
At a micro-level, legislators are able to use the solution's analytics functionality to introduced a new level of financial transparency, deliver more effective budget management, and to compare financial results year by year. The system also enables collaboration among the state's executive and parliamentary bodies, both of which share discretionary authority over budget making, spending and appropriations.  Now, budget targets and actual expenditures can be more effectively compared, providing a concrete, year-on-year picture of what is being accomplished in a given policy area.

Greater transparency
The implementation of the Parliament Information System has also created a higher degree of fiscal transparency. It allows historical values to be identified for enhanced fiscal and resource planning. The resulting financial insights are used, in turn, to allocate binding budgets by successfully combining and embedding the best practices and structures of private business within a governmental budget framework, and by anchoring these structures in a framework for overall planning. This framework is then integrated into the strategic planning structures.

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The implementation of the Parliament Information System, in terms of its comprehensive coverage, business process impact, and scale, represents one of the most modern available software platforms in the public sector worldwide. Technologically, it is the first of its kind in Germany. The information system's extensive use of extended SAP ERP and SAP NetWeaver component functionality also make Baden-Württemberg one of the most technologically advanced users of SAP in the country.

In Germany and throughout Europe, legislative information systems have traditionally remained largely paper-based. By consolidating data from diverse data sources into a single information system, state leaders have opened unprecedented new opportunities for harvesting, utilizing, and presenting information. The solution's multiple interfaces make it possible to capture key financial information that was previously prepared manually, aggregate it, and then deliver it in a user-relevant format to policy makers.
 
The system has introduced a completely new form of information management that bridges the state's legislative and executive branches of government. The content, structure, and presentation of information was developed in an iterative process between the state parliament (legislative branch) and the ministry of finance (executive branch). 

The Information System for the Parliament of Baden-Württemberg goes well beyond conventional, paper-based government budget analysis. It gives legislators and their staffs the ability to generate customized reports that integrate performance data with meaningful, year-on-year budget figure comparisons. By using advanced search selections and combinations, policy makers can use the greater availability of information to create enhanced report content and graphic layouts to address constantly changing information requirements.

This functionality is introducing an unprecedented level of sophisticated analytical capabilities into daily work processes. It is also enabling legislators to analyze financial information from prior years against a timeline. As the repository of data continues to grow, reports capable of providing budget comparisons over several years will become an even more valuable analytical tool. 

From the outset, the project faced numerous challenges that were both technical and organizational in nature:
	Develop and establish the credibility of the Parliament Information System as a key element of the statewide New Controlling Instruments (NSI) program.
	Deliver data from diverse data sources on a consistent basis and structure it as an information medium for legislators
	Provide time-critical information as a critical success factor for the budget decision making process for policy makers.

Legislators and their staffs have embraced the project with enthusiasm. Although there were no significant obstacles to the implementation, effective use of the new system did present a short-term learning curve for users. The system's user-friendly graphic interface, intuitive design, and comprehensive training program, however, provided legislators and their staffs with the necessary knowledge and skill to use it to its fullest potential.  Following the completion of the training program and subsequent go-live, all users indicated that they had overcome initial learning hurdles.

In addition to the training program, however, legislators and their staffs also requested additional customized report formats and information presentation options. Both requests were quickly implemented, and the system's ability to accommodate this level of flexibility was viewed as highly positive.

From the outset, the solution's integrated functionality preempted potential difficulties. One poignant example was compliance with federal and state data privacy laws. Because these regulations were integrated into the NSI project from the very beginning, the implementation of the Parliament Information System required no additional enabling legislation.

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Exceeded

The project has achieved significant successes for the parliament in a number of key areas. From the beginning, the design and implementation was collaborative in nature, ensuring valuable input and buy-in from all groups, parties and organizations within the state legislature.

The implementation of the Parliament Information System took place in two stages. First, a prototype was presented to the parliament at the end of 2005 and was positively received. Beginning with the development phase and ending with go-live, the parliament's finance committee was kept regularly informed of all developments. During the second stage, a working group under the direction of the finance committee chairman identified legislators' information requirements and technically implemented them. One representative from each party delegation actively participated in the working group.  Thanks to this close collaboration, a pilot version was made available as early as 2007. As a result, the original scope of the information offering was expanded at each successive stage of the project, and the content of the various analytical reports was changed and enhanced accordingly.

Before go-live, the Ministry of Finance undertook a comprehensive education and training program to educate legislators and their staffs on how to use the new system. 16 training sessions covered its use and capabilities, and feedback was consistently positive. 

The new system represents an outstanding, modern communications link between Baden-Württemberg's executive and legislative branches of government, and may serve as a model for other state and regional legislatures in the future. The system's success is underscored by a number of indicators, particularly the positive feedback from the legislators themselves. There is a general consensus that the new system is one of several contributing factors to cost reduction and more informed policy decision making. 

The high levels of utilization, as measured by hit rates corresponding to the number of reports called up by users (front end sessions), highlight the system's added value to the organization. They are also a strong indicator of the extent to which users have adopted the system and integrated its functionality into their daily work strategies. In fact, when correlated to the system's daily hit rates, the project has already exceeded expectations. Original estimates projected a utilization volume of around 5,000 hits per year. Yet in 2008 alone, there was an annual total of 8,518 hits. And although the system is now completely functional, it can also be scaled and expanded in the future for greater content quantity and frequency.

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