NAIROBI, Kenya
National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has stepped up its corporate transformation efforts, with the integration of a new Information Technology solution to boost its efficiency. As part of NSSF’s strategic efforts to streamline its operations, the Fund has activated the Ksh300 million SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution to facilitate real time management across its core business functions.
NSSF Managing Trustee Tom Odongo said the SAP ERP has gone live at the fund’s head office and is progressively being rolled out across its branch network countrywide. Among other benefits, the new ERP system is expected to play a key role in the realization of NSSF’s pledge to reduce its member benefits payout turnaround time less than five working days.
The new SAP ERP platform while providing an overall picture on the Fund’s performance, Odongo said will significantly help in raising integrity and plugging organizational leakages. The new system he added will also play a key role in helping cut the Fund’s administrative costs as it gears up for its corporate conversion into a Social Security (Pension) or (social insurance) Scheme.
Coming hot on the Fund’s recent rebranding exercise, Odongo confirmed that NSSF will continue to pursue a variety of business process improvements to complement its new brand. With the activation of the new SAP ERP system, NSSF now will manage to efficiently deal with business challenges in areas such as Finance, Human Resource Management and its core Operational functions such as Tenant Purchase Scheme Management, members funds management, projects and fleet management.
“NSSF is a Fund valued at more than Kshs 116 billion and cannot afford to continue operating using inefficient and sometime obsolete accounting information systems,” Odongo explained. He added: “by migrating from our manual systems to an enterprise wide ERP system, we are now making a historical shift from the inefficient NSSF of yesteryear to a modern NSSF which provides value to its members through centralised modern IT systems.”
Among other benefits, the new SAP ERP system will allow NSSF to track its costs and monitor operations to produce real time financial statements that can be presented to government, banks or other stakeholders. The system will also ensure that budget allocations are strictly maintained and business transactions are managed according to the allocated budget. Within the human resource framework, NSSF staff will enjoy a range of benefits including online access to their payslips that now reduces the need to print out such documents for the 1600 workforce strong fund.
Incorporating a Real Estate Management feature, the new ERP system also provides NSSF with a platform to manage all its Real estate property including investment property by tracking rented office space as well as houses under the Tenant Purchase Scheme.
