Customer Story Municipality of The Hague

As early as 2002, the first contact between the Municipality of The Hague and MCX was established at the initiative of Oracle. The question at the time was whether MCX could assist the municipality with the technical implementation of the Oracle E-Business Suite. These were the first steps in a long-term collaboration between The Hague's Business Systems Knowledge Centre and MCX, which continues to this day to everyone's satisfaction. Department Manager Wouter van de Westeringh shares his experiences.

European tender

In the early stages of the collaboration, MCX provided remote management of the technical applications. The Oracle E-Business Suite ran in The Hague's own data center. The collaboration took a new turn following the European tender in 2015, which MCX won. Since then, MCX has been responsible for the hosting and technical application management of the E-Business Suite and the Oracle Data Warehouse environments. The Oracle E-Business Suite is used daily by more than 1,000 civil servants. They work primarily in the finance, procurement, logistics, and projects modules, as well as with Oracle Business Intelligence, or use the Human Resources self-service pages.

Extremely stable environment

The Oracle E-Business Suite is a business-critical system within the municipality. “That naturally depends on the timing, but it is indeed highly undesirable if the system is unstable or even inaccessible,” says Wouter van de Westeringh. He continues: “Fortunately, that is not the case. The system runs extremely stably. I have never experienced a major outage, and the system has never spontaneously crashed. That is, of course, largely thanks to the knowledge and expertise of MCX.”

Operational excellence

The fact that the systems run stably is, of course, a major point of satisfaction. However, Wouter van de Westeringh indicates that, in his view, there are three points that are even more important in the collaboration. “It is important that MCX understands how we work. They think along with our processes, understand our specific situation, and act accordingly. The open way of communicating ensures that we are truly equal partners and that we share ideas and solutions with each other. Together, we are working towards operational excellence. The interests of civil servants, but certainly also of citizens, are always central. That is never lost sight of.”

contributing ideas

A second point Wouter van de Westeringh mentions is MCX's proactivity. “MCX demonstrates its added value by actively getting involved in matters outside their primary field of work. 'Getting involved' sounds negative, but it is one of the most pleasant things you could wish for in a partner. Together, we regularly look at matters such as security, architecture, and continuity. A good example is the Wannacry ransomware outbreak. In such a case, MCX responds very appropriately and immediately checks whether our systems and data are at risk. In no time, they were able to demonstrate that the infrastructure contained no vulnerabilities and that the system was not susceptible to this attack. They also handle less urgent matters adequately. Communication lines are always short. This applies at a strategic level as well, by the way. For instance, they also contribute ideas regarding Oracle's cloud strategy. They provide us with sincere and sound advice.”

First time right

Finally, Wouter would like to point out that it is very pleasing that MCX knows *how* to ask a question. “That might sound a bit vague, but if a party manages to ask the right question in one go and thereby immediately puts their finger on the sore spot, it saves an enormous amount of time and perhaps even frustration. The same applies to the questioning of our administrators; MCX helps our administrators formulate the questions so that MCX knows immediately what the question is. This KPI is a joint effort between the Municipality of The Hague and MCX. The first-time-right percentage is extremely high.”

Flawless collaboration

In short, Wouter van de Westeringh is satisfied with the collaboration. “I would always recommend MCX to fellow IT managers. At both the strategic and operational levels, they meet our requirements in every respect. Ultimately, our goal is to help the citizens of The Hague as best as possible. In this mission, I feel fully supported by MCX.”

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