Hoeksche Waard, Digitisation is Flexibilisation
The municipality of Hoeksche Waard was created in 2019 from the five...
An ambitious ICT-driven municipality that surrounds itself with the right partners.
This drive for technical innovation has created an application landscape with Office365 and Microsoft Azure, which are combined and linked with a wide range of Task-Specific Applications. For these Task-Specific Applications, different sources of data must be retrieved from the National Facilities, and all these data flows must be managed securely and in accordance with GDPR regulations.
The municipality therefore opted for Managed Integrations as their solution: fully managed and secured connections between different information systems. They now have nine integrations operational in various areas.
Sergei: “Two years ago we ran into the issue of how to deal with Cloud applications that talk to internal systems. This happened when Openwave went to the Cloud but our Decos business system remained internal. Then we included in our architecture principles that we always want a secure and controlled connection between the Cloud and internal infrastructure. As a municipality, we cannot carry out everything ourselves: we are a coordinating municipality. That is why we work with partnerships, such as with Enable U, to increase the effectiveness of our 25 FTE. As a result, the municipality can focus much better on its core tasks: The municipality as a board and policy maker, as an organisation, as a service provider and as a partner in the region.”
How has Managed Integrations given the Municipality more control? Sergei: “We no longer have to worry about software versions, training courses and knowledge, also management and security are now in the right hands. To put it simply, now that someone else takes care of all the integration difficulties we can completely focus on our core tasks. This means that our users, the residents of our municipality, get access to new services and solutions much faster. Solutions such as eIDAS, which enables every European citizen to log in with his/her eIDAS ID, but also ‘My Neighborhood Team’ where residents can get a detailed overview of their current debts. In addition, more and more information can be accessed from one central municipal online portal. In this portal citizens can find information about all possible services that the municipality offers, and that saves a calls to our civil servants.”
What does the municipality find important in its partners? And what characterizes good partnership? Sergei: “True partnership means being able to act as a sparring partner and be honest with each other. Sometimes this is also accompanied by the necessary discussions. I don’t want to feel inhibited and I also expect others to be open and professional towards me. In Enable U we have found an experienced and committed partner. They have a lot of experience in doing business with the government, they know the language, the specific problems and they have built many standard links that are used by the government. As a customer, we have access to this via the Managed Integrations platform.”
“Enable U is a proactive integration partner; by joining a meeting every four weeks in which we discuss account and technology with each other, they stay well informed. This brings structure to our collaboration and makes our partnership all the more valuable. We really feel supported by Enable U.”
“I always give a tip to municipalities that are in similar processes: Spend sufficient time on creating support for your projects within your own organization. It takes more time and effort than you think. Once you have them with you, nothing stands in your way. We now have a grip on how everything works. There is control. In addition, we have a Managed Roadmap that we maintain with Enable U, and adjust it if necessary. That makes it a lot easier for both parties.”
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