Via the Government Agency for Financial Applications, the French Ministry of Budget and Government Accounting, Civil Service and State Reform, has retained the consortium led by Steria and its co-sourcing partner, Capgemini France - a subsidiary of the Capgemini Group - for the maintenance of Chorus. The six-year contract, is worth around €120 million, and is part of the French state modernization program.

A part of the Ministry of Budget and Government Accounting, the AIFE is in charge of running the state financial information system in France, which notably includes building, deploying and maintaining Chorus.

The Chorus program is based on an SAP solution. It was designed to make a unique and integrated information system that conforms to the Organic Law Relative to the Laws of Finance (LOLF)[1] available to all stakeholders involved in spending, non-fiscal receipts and accounting[2], for financial, budget and accounts management. Chorus contributes to the modernization and rationalization of budgetary and accounting processes of French state services.

Steria and Capgemini at the centre of the modernization of the French Administration

Steria and Capgemini have worked with the French Administration on the deployment of the LOLF for a long time. After having been selected to take part in the construction of the LOLF Agreement budgeting and accounting system, Steria has handled its maintenance since 2005. Capgemini has also been a major partner in Chorus construction, since 2007. Capgemini has supported the deployment of all State budgeting and accounting systems, since 2001, and since 2009, the Group has notably handled the deployment of Chorus to half of all ministries, thanks to the mobilization of 230 IT consultants, from 23 sites around France. This new information system will eventually be used by nearly 50,000 users, of which 25,000 will use the core SAP application.

This new contract sees Steria and Capgemini strengthen their position as partners of large-scale government IT programs, and continue their support of the French state in its modernization program.

“Steria’s expertise in industrialized global maintenance solutions, and the skill of the 150 team members dedicated to the project - notably from the SAP services center in Toulouse - who handled Third Party Application Management under very tight deadlines, were deciding factors in this new contract, and confirm our ability to support major transformation projects for the Administration,” comments Olivier Vallet, Senior Executive Vice President and CEO France, in charge of Group Innovation Policy and the supervision of Scandinavia and Belux.

“Our offer stood out for the complementarity of our skills, and ability to respond to the client’s particularly selective quality and cost criteria. Capgemini’s strategy is to accelerate its commitment to public institutions, by building on its international experience and ability to support the Administration in its large-scale modernization projects,” says Jean-Philippe Bol, Head of Technology Services, Capgemini, in France.