The digital transition is not reserved for France and examples can be taken from other European countries. Particularly in Belgium where the Belgian Development Agency Enabel wanted to modernize their tools and digitize their processes. And this is at all their hierarchical levels (1,250 people), with an international deployment, since more than 80% of the civil servants are based outside the European Union.
Enabel is a Belgian federal agency whose mission is to eradicate poverty in the world. It works through development programs carried out on behalf of the Belgian State and other contractors (200 projects and programs in 18 countries). For this, they rely on a budget of 244 million euros and on their approximately 1,250 collaborators, including more than 1,000 in the field.
SECURE COLLABORATION
Enabel wanted to manage and share all of their documents, promote collaborative work between civil sevants, as well as between civil servants and their head office in Brussels, allow mobile work in the field both online and offline and promote "best-practices" in collaborative document processing. The objective is also to secure data with a long-term solution and an alternative to proprietary tools (Office 365 / SharePoint, GoogleDocs, etc.), as well as to avoid unauthorized applications. In the age of GDPR, it is not only about counteracting cyber attacks, but also about organizing the document exchange in compliance with respecting personal and confidential authorizations, as well as data integrity.
SELECTION OF A COMMON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PLATFORM
Aware that their tools (mainly file servers and classic messaging) were no longer satisfying and could not meet these new requirements, the agency launched a European call for tenders in order to equip themselves with a cross-functional collaborative DMS. Beyond the objective of consolidating IT tools and enabling the sharing of documents and knowledge, it was a question of creating proximity and a spirit of community between civil servants. Let us not forget that the advantage of a tool is primarily to support humans.
PASSED TEST
Composed of 5 collaborators at the time, the French software publisher CEO-Vision had the audacity to position themselves on the call for tenders. Audacity rewarded after a detailed application and a demonstration, because the Agency's choice fell on their GoFAST solution. The publisher has indeed carried out a test with a voluntarily restricted flow to prove the effectiveness of their solution, including in countries with limited Internet networks. Added to this is the fact that GoFAST is based on an open source basis (including Alfresco) and that their pricing was quite advantageous.
MAXIMUM ACCESSIBILITY
Therefore, all Agency documents have been centralized and secured on the GoFAST platform so that each Enabel collaborator can access them at any time and anywhere in the world. GoFAST is now used by all levels of the Agency, both civil servants and managers. Therefore, the documents are no longer exchanged by email (zero attachments, zero duplicates, etc.), but secure on the new platform. As for the knowledge that was not shared until now, it is now consolidated and accessible to all civil servants.
HANDLING AND A SENSE OF BELONGING
Other advantages include the quick handling of the solution and its very satisfactory acceptance rate. Thus, cross-functional DMS has succeeded in achieving the objective of creating a feeling of belonging to a larger group and also allows head office to have a view of the activity of civil servants and to collaborate with them in real time. In turn, users no longer need to use applications unapproved by the IT department.
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
The GoFAST solution deployed OnPremise in the Enabel datacenter, at the end of the day, with numerous improvements in terms of security and confidentiality (secure access, simple management of rights and roles by business managers, version management, multi-location, etc.). The publisher also supported the organization in the change management and provided it with valuable functional support (creation of the documentary structure and authorizations, training, analysis of feedback, improvements and document production to support).