U.S. Department of the Interior Delivers Efficiency Through ERP Modernization
U.S. Department of the Interior Delivers Efficiency Through ERP Modernization
CACI Case Study
The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) recently became the first federal agency to fully implement the SAP S/4HANA platform for its enterprise resource planning (ERP) tool, the Financial and Business Management System (FBMS), representing a groundbreaking milestone in government modernization and operational efficiency.
DOI protects and manages our nation’s awe-inspiring natural wonders, not to mention many of the resources we depend on for daily life. FBMS is the DOI’s administrative backbone, which is used by more than 14,000 users to process more than 30 million transactions annually across the DOI. This system is critical to integrating and streamlining the department’s financial and administrative functions into a single solution, eliminating the need for other systems.
This milestone is a transformative leap forward in the department’s ERP systems, ensuring the DOI remains secure, operationally agile, and future-focused.
14,000
Users
30M
transactions annually
87
FBMS legacy systems replaced
Meeting regulations while maintaining legacy data
By the end of 2027, SAP will phase out its current platform and government customers will need to move to the new SAP S/4HANA platform to maintain operational continuity and meet compliance regulations.
Modernizing to S/4HANA is a major undertaking, which can be quite costly. DOI began the migration process nearly a decade before the 2027 deadline, allowing the Department to develop a clear implementation roadmap that identified unique challenges along the way.
“An S/4HANA migration is practically a new implementation,” said James Norcross, CACI’s senior vice president of digital solutions. “It requires converting legacy SAP data to the new platform.”
In doing so, CACI and the Department uncovered several issues to resolve before implementing the new S/4HANA platform:
- Some Fiori apps, which are designed to provide a role-based user experience, could not be used by the Department because they lacked the correct fields.
- Previous standard functionality had to be customized, requiring new development.
- A new cloud hosting provider was needed to manage the migration and associated new tools.
An IT modernization pioneer
The team examined two options for conversion: one approach would take too long, and the other didn’t meet the department’s needs. Instead, they decided on a hybrid conversion approach, which involved copying the existing system configuration into S/4HANA to use as a baseline. They then transferred selected data to meet specific requirements, allowing the department to retain some of its old data in the S/4HANA system. This resolved issues from the original implementation when only open items were converted to the SAP system.
By becoming the first federal agency to implement S/4HANA, the DOI has positioned itself as a leader in federal IT modernization.
CACI’s expertise and support were key in helping DOI navigate the complex S/4HANA migration, ensuring a successful transition, and positioning the department for future success.
“CACI has been working in the federal SAP space for more than 20 years, and that unique financial management experience – specifically our deep SAP product experience – was critical in partnering with the DOI to develop solutions and resolve issues along this migration journey,” Norcross said.
System and data protection
Future-proofed
Leverages new technologies
Current platform sunsets in 2027
Navigating migration complexities
As the 2027 deadline looms, other federal agencies can look to DOI’s success as a model for selecting their own S/4HANA transition. By developing an implementation roadmap and conversion strategy early, DOI met its accelerated timeline.
By migrating to S/4HANA early, DOI takes advantage of a multitude of benefits, including enhanced security through deployment in a cloud environment that meets FedRAMP and NIST-800-53 standards. DOI’s operations are more responsive, adaptive, and secure following the S/4HANA migration.
“Our employees have vast experience implementing solutions in the federal financial space,” Norcross said. “We helped build several interfaces and integrations on the FBMS program that lay the groundwork for even easier S/4HANA migration processes for future customers.”
Setting the scope of an S/4HANA migration can feel daunting. CACI understands this complexity and, as we did with DOI, we partner with our customers to provide clarity, mitigate risk, optimize business value and processes, and ease the uncertainty of navigating the unknown.