The Directorate for Employment and Professional Training, the DGEFP (Délégation Générale à l’Emploi et à la Formation Professionnelle) has demonstrated its continuing confidence in Bull with the extension of its outsourcing contract for Parcours 3, its core business application
Parcours 3: the information system supporting the network of local employment offices
Spread across the whole of France, the 486 local offices and duty offices for registering claimants, providing information and careers advice fulfil a local public service role with a key objective: to enable all young people aged between 16 and 25 to overcome the difficulties preventing them from playing an integral role in working and social life.
Focused on the everyday work of employment advisors and their relationships with these young people, Parcours 3 enables local offices to support over a million clients every year in accessing the workplace, by helping them to build a personalized career path into employment. The project, launched in 1998, has become a vital management tool for the local offices, and is also used by the State, regional councils and local authorities.
Outsourcing for a mission-critical, multi-player ‘full Web’ solution
In 2001, the DGEFP opted for outsourcing to provide secure hosting of this innovative, mission-critical, partnership-based and scalable application. As this application is used nationwide – having been developed by the Ministry following a competitive tendering process, and used by local offices as well as private sector organizations – the outsourcing service that Bull offers responds to the financial and legal complexity of the project, with the aim of simplifying it and reducing its cost for users.
In October 2009, the DGEFP renewed its confidence in Bull, with the signing of a new four-year contract. Bull, which defined and provided the technical infrastructure (including six Bull NovaScale servers and an Optima storage bay) is hosting all the national platforms as well as some of the regional platforms at its Data Center in Trélazé, in Western France, and is responsible for operating Parcours 3 and guaranteeing the very high levels of confidentiality and security required. Bull also provides the first point of contact for requests for support and assistance (the Service Desk) from local offices, in partnership with Micropole Univers.
Flexibility: the central core of the outsourcing contract
From the very start of the contract, Bull has taken account of the need for a high degree of flexibility, related to the complexity and constantly changing nature of Parcours 3.
Bull has designed a highly modular architecture and now operates the system taking full account of the various different levels of availability required. This flexibility means it can respond to ad hoc demands and requirements for monthly increases in loading, for example when the local offices send their monthly reports through to central organizations and the Ministry, when high availability is needed for several days. For more evolving environments, a system of billing for units of work has been put in place.
Such flexibility creates essential value for the Parcours 3 project.
