Epta, a great example of Agile Digital Governance

Epta is collaborating with the Enterprise Application Governance (EAG) Observatory of the Polytechnic of Milan on the research project “Agile Digital Governance: ready for the digital transformation!”. This interesting partnership aims to provide a clear vision of the path Italian companies are taking to develop their governance mechanisms and make Information Technology a key feature of their business strategies.

Amongst others, one of the main aspects analysed by the Observatory is the management of projects using the Agile methodology. This instrument has already been adopted by Epta and was chosen in particular for the activation of the SAP Finance module even in its Qingdao premises, with the objective of harmonising and centralising all the administrative and financial processes. This important step has made the Group a virtuous Corporate example of successfully exploiting the Agile principles: thanks to an incremental approach it has been possible to drastically reduce the timeframe for the completion of the project.

The introduction of SAP within the Group’s processes started back in 2001, but only recently has it been fully activated even in the Qingdao production premises, where the SAP financial and administrative module was integrated with the Chinese government instrument Golden Tax System. Using the Agile methodology, in collaboration with ICM and an Asian partner, the ICT Epta team succeeded in completing the job in just four months. A detailed analysis was made of local requirements and potential criticalities were immediately identified, while there was constant monitoring of the state of progress of the activities.

The use of the Agile method will continue to be a useful support to the activities of Epta’s ICT Department and applications are also starting in other departments, thanks to the flexibility of this method and the advantages it offers.