In its latest community launch, the ASUG Public Services Community Alliance held a town hall earlier this month on Nov. 4, serving as a culmination of ASUG peer groups that fall under assorted Public Services functionalities.
ASUG Alliance structures, which saw a growing set this year, will connect and support members in industry or technology-related think tanks, peer groups, influence councils, and event collaborations, among other activities. The leadership teams include volunteers, SAP leadership, subject matter experts, and ASUG staff.
The Public Services Alliance leadership team members include:
- Hari Adusumilli, Senior Architect and Technical Advisor at Sigma International, for Public Sector and Government
- Nancy Varghese, Global Director of Higher Education and Research, Industries and Customer Advisory at SAP, for Higher Education and Research
- Jill Mikros, Executive Director, Enterprise HR/Payroll, Shared Services & University HR Compliance at Johns Hopkins University & Medicine, for Higher Education and Research
- Bill Greeves, Industry Advisor – State & Local Government, Education at SAP, for K-12 Education Industry
- Cindy Seaburn, SAP Analyst IV – HCM Payroll/Benefits/Time Management at Duval County Public Schools, for K-12 Education Industry
- Don Ingle, Industry Executive Advisor – State & Local Government, Education at SAP North America, for K-12 Education Industry
Alliance leaders discussed their commitment to networking and sharing challenges and solutions to assist other organizations with business outcomes. They facilitated an ongoing forum for customers to provide feedback to SAP, with the goal of identifying new approaches to business processes and working collectively to influence SAP products, enhancements, and gaps for their functionalities.
In addition to launching the alliance with an inaugural town hall—which was convened to introduce the peer groups that fall within its pillars of Public Sector and Government, Higher Education and Research, and K-12 Education Industry—ASUG Peer Groups Coordinator Erin Crain led members in identifying potential topics for 2023. Topics of potential discussion included the city of Toronto’s supply chain transformation with SAP Ariba, an SAP SuccessFactors update affecting the Houston school system, a combined call between Public Services and BTP, public sector budgeting, and the benefits of moving to RISE with SAP.
Addressing pain points for the public sector, Mikros emphasized the need for SAP technology to identify when individuals are located remotely across more than one state to enable payroll services, identify specific state withholdings, and bring business value by assessing workforce distribution more accurately. Seaburn and Sujatha Kamma, Industry Executive Advisor – Public Sector & Healthcare at SAP, identified the public sector’s move toward RISE with SAP and SAP S/4HANA as another topic of interest.
Addressing the move to these technologies more largely, Greeves said SAP customers are all in various stages of that journey. “Overall, it’s a slow and steady progress report,” said Greeves. “We do have frontrunners who are more on the innovative edge and some who are digging their heels and have no interest in going to Cloud, but most people are in the middle and moving forward cautiously but optimistically.”
With support for SAP Budgeting and Planning (SBP) ending in December of 2025, members asked about SAP solutions around budgeting and forecasting. “Sherpa is our recommended path forward for public sector budgeting needs,” Greeves answered. “We have a long-standing partnership with Sherpa, and they use our SAP Analytics Cloud for their back-end reporting engine. They have a long track record of success within the public sector.” Ingle also identified Signavio’s relevance to the public sector in terms of business process engineering.
The next Public Services Community Alliance Town Hall will occur in early 2023.