IDG News Service — An early-stage planning document for the United Nations' ongoing global ERP (enterprise resource planning) project calls for a budget north of US$300 million and provides a detailed look at the challenges the effort must overcome.

Dubbed "Umoja," after a Swahili word meaning 'unity,' the project "presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to equip the organization with twenty-first century techniques, tools, training and technology," the document states.

Read United Nations' SAP ERP Rollout: High Profile and High Risk for CIO.com Blogger Thomas Wailgum's Analysis

The UN's IT infrastructure is a staggering tangle of disconnected, redundant and antiquated legacy infrastructure, resulting in gross inefficiencies throughout the organization, according to the document.

Over the years, the organization has collected "at least" 1,400 information systems, many of which are "used to support or track paper-based processes," states the report, which was first brought to light in a Fox News report this week.

For example, the equivalent of up to 40 full-time employees is currently being used to process interoffice and interagency vouchers, and the total time spent each year processing travel claims "is more than the full-time equivalent (FTE) of 60 person-years," the report said.

IT operations are also heavily siloed, according to the report: "Most duty stations, and many organisational units within duty stations, contain their own stand-alone finance, human resources, supply chain, central support services and information technology areas."

If the ERP implementation is successful, it could provide between roughly $470 million and $770 million in "ongoing annual capacity improvements, costs savings and cost recovery," the document states.

But the project has a sizable price tag of its own. The report proposes a budget of $337 million, which is divvied up among a series of line items, including:

-- $76 million for "2,597 work months" of system build and implementation services.

-- $14 million for travel, which presumes 1,285 trips will be taken by "ERP team members, subject-matter experts and corporate consultants" at an average air ticket cost of $6,000. Each trip will also get $202 for "terminal expenses" and $5,000 for 20 days worth of per diems, for a total cost of about $11,000 per trip.

-- $1.8 million for office furnishings to support 234 workers, including 80 core staff, 66 subject matter experts, eight consultants and 80 system integrators, or about $7,700 per person.

-- $6.7 million for office rental, based on an annual rate of $14,300 per person

-- $564,200 for long distance telephone calls, teleconferencing and videoconferencing

-- $18 million for hiring "limited replacements" for subject matter experts involved in the project

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