Network Rail’s programme to migrate its enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to the cloud, in partnership with Cognizant, has been widely recognised across Britain’s technology industry especially as it celebrates a fourth award being won this year.

This project that lasted two-years has been awarded top position in the Best Overall Use of Cloud category and Best Cloud Project category in the awards of Cloud Excellence in 2019, that were held on Thursday the 19th of September. It follows the project winning IT Team of the Year in the Tech Leaders Awards on Thursday the 12th of September and the Innovative Use of Cloud Technologies at the Real IT Awards that were in May.

The challenging and complex transformation involved migrating Network Rail‘s ERP software Oracle eBusiness Suite, which supports core business processes in areas as varied as finance, HR, procurement, supply chain and projects. It underpins almost 40,000 employees of Network Rail, more than 4,000 suppliers and 150,000 business affiliates.

The result of this is better functioning ERP infrastructure for users both inside and outside of Network Rail, with performance being improved by 50% and reduced provisioning lead timings. The new design has in fact saved money by reducing annual overhead costs by £2m and cutting the size of Network Rail’s ERP estate by 60%, as well as paving the way for a much more digitally focused culture at Network Rail to enable further transformation and efficiency.

What did the officials say?

Aidan Hancock, chief information officer at Network Rail, said:

“The transformation of our Oracle eBusiness platform is a tremendous achievement given the size, complexity and strategic importance to Network Rail. It has been completely rearchitected from ground up, providing a performant and modern platform while reducing our ongoing costs.

“This work is part of our drive towards increased efficiency and flexibility in service provision, and is part of our ongoing digital transformation.”

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