SAP Australia will work with the Federal Government to “deliver savings on IT products and services”, under a new agreement announced by Assistant Minister for Digital Transformation, Angus Taylor.
According to a statement, the government hopes to leverage demand across agencies for SAP software licences, cloud subscription and support for human resources and financial management systems to reduce prices.
The agreement takes effect immediately for both new and existing SAP contracts, though the government has said it will not provide SAP with any preferential treatment as a result.
“The SAP agreement will deliver savings through reduced duplication and administrative burden for departments,” Taylor said. “Government is driving hard to reduce costs so that it can invest in innovative new solutions. We know that a coordinated approach to ICT procurement works.”
Taylor said that maximising the benefits of single vendor contracts was as important as the Government’s focus on allowing smaller players to enter IT tenders and panels. He pointed to savings of more than $200 million for the first two iterations of the Microsoft Volume Software Sourcing Arrangement as an example of how this can work.
“We’ve done the work to consult across government and with a number of major IT vendors to make sure we have fair and transparent arrangements in place,” he said.
