Quebec vehicles agency spent C$245M over budget on SAP ERP it wasn't sure it needed

A judge-led commission in Quebec has found that the state agency responsible for driver's licenses and license plates misled the Canadian government about a troubled SAP ERP project that ran more than C$245 million ($179 million/ £132.6 million) over budget.

The report into the disastrous nine-year project – which went live three years later than first predicted – also reveals that Société de l'Assurance Automobile du Québec (SAAQ) did not know whether ERP was the appropriate technology for its digital transformation program and the launch of an online processing service called SAAQclic.

During the early planning process in late 2014, the project's management relied heavily on SAP to understand if it needed an ERP suite to achieve its goals in digital transformation, the report said. SAP at the time was preparing to bet its future on S/4HANA – its flagship ERP product – which SAAQ ended up adopting ...