Business Challenges
SFG supports thousands of the most innovative companies in Austria’s Styria province with a total funding of 60 million euros per year. The significant growth in clients and projects over the past five years was further propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, as the Government decided to support the Sytrian industry with broad funding to economically overcome this challenging period.
The challenge was to develop a portal solution that would be versatile enough to meet the expectations of different client groups, ranging from global corporations with high investment sums to a local food supplier that might be co-financed to purchase a new sausage slicer. The portal should help to speed up the whole process, including digitizing applications, decisions, payout, and monitoring without increasing the SFG’s total headcount.
The application also needed to fulfill the EU’s (European Union) strict “e-cohesion” requirement – a strictly audited e-government guideline that aims to simplify the distribution of European funds.
Why did SFG choose Oracle APEX?
SFG switched to Oracle Database in 2013 because of its fine-grained access control features. APEX was the obvious solution to bringing their data online. A detailed feasibility study confirmed the advantages of running APEX’s Universal Theme: The intuitive interface for users and developers and regular updates to components and features made it the clear choice.
Results
SFG’s customer portal is powerful and accessible. It loads fast enough to meet the company’s tight performance budgets and passes all the Austrian public sector Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance checks. WCAG is an international standard for the barrier-free design of internet offers that has been binding for public bodies in the European Union since 2019.
“Knowing the client” has become true as the application comes with the centralized Austrian e-identity program for logon-procedures and includes secure e-signature tools. Oracle APEX has allowed SFG to replace all paper processes and channels for legally signed contracts with electronic workflows.
Implementing the APEX portal has significantly reduced the administrative burden on both beneficiaries and SFG. Data is transferred only once, safely stored in one place, and is always available for all program authorities. Electronic submissions of information save time and storage space. Using the application also helps to avoid the errors that can result from encoding the same data several times. The system guarantees data integrity and confidentiality, as well as authentication of the sender and storage in compliance with defined retention rules.
The responsive web layout and APEX’s no-code approach cut development time by nearly two-thirds, which resulted in a significant boost in time to market for new financing products. The APEX-developed portal.sfg.at web application is one of the most innovative e-government solutions in Austria, reflected by reviews that show a rise in overall client satisfaction of 100 % during the last three years.
About the Customer
SFG, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Province of Styria/Austria, positions itself as an initiator, supporter, and promoter of more than 60,000 companies. The portfolio of activities includes promotion campaigns focusing on business start-ups, innovation, growth, and further education, as well as various financing programs focused on SMEs increasing entrepreneurial equity.
Other tasks include location and theme development, company settlements and networking between business and science to further enlarge the province’s R&D ratio which is currently among the highest in the whole of Europe. In addition, the Styrian cluster and network strategy is considered an international brand of success.
Learn more about this story: SFG speeds funding support for government promotions with Oracle Cloud and APEX