Automation of SACCOs - FSD Kenya

AUTOMATION OF SACCOS: ASSESSMENT OF POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS • 57
ID opportunity Benefit obstacle Change requirement System requirement
5 Decide if to reduce dependency
on stand-alone point solutions
(usually locally built in Excel)
used to cover gaps between the
system and business processes.
6 Integrate with employers’
systems to exchange data for
salary processing.
Ensure that all employees
have access to tools
and data in contrast to
being isolated on one
workstation.
Ensure consistency and
quality by centralising
development and control of
the application.
Gain efficiency from
standardisation.
Reduced manual effort
Increased speed and
accuracy and thus customer
service.
Very few core SACCO
applications provide
all the functionality
required. Exhaustive
customisation of
the solutions would
require a dedicated
development
effort including
functionality the
vendor have no or
little experience from.
I.e. the marginal
cost to provide an
additional module
for e.g. cash flow
modelling would
be significant as
the vendor would
lack any significant
economies of scale.
Merging data from
multiple source and
destination systems.
Do an inventory of which
point solutions are in use
and what they provide.
Assess risks with the
current point solutions.
Assess if the
functionality can be
provided profitably
through the core
application.
Determine which
information is
exchanged, the format
of the transfer medium
and the data format.
The system would need to
replicate the features that are
custom built in Excel. This
might be outside the core
competence of the system
and not a logical extension.
E.g. modelling and analysis
features required to forecast
cash or tools to calculate
various corporate taxes.
The SACCO’s system needs
to be able to technically
exchange information with
the employers system by
exchanging files in a variety of
formats. The table structure of
the data needs to be agreed
and the SACCOs system needs
to be able to handle differing
table structures as the
employers cannot be expected
to adapt to the SACCO. The
system needs to be able to
export information to the
employers as well as import.