Soldier OnHelping change more veterans’ lives

Enabling Soldier On to automate manual tasks to provide much needed support for modern-day veterans of the Australian Defence Force.

Challenges

Soldier On was set up to help veterans and their families build resilience and adapt to civilian life. But having to use an outdated CRM tool that required a lot of manual data entry was really limiting Soldier On’s ability to help people at scale.

Solutions

Fujitsu has been a proud supporter of Soldier On for more than five years. Recently, Fujitsu engineers spent four weeks to design, develop, and implement a new Veteran Support Platform for Soldier On to get veterans back into the workforce.

Outcomes

Veterans are matched with opportunities in the workforce
Users can update databases and fields themselves instead of using specialists who charge by the hour
Soldier On staff have more time to focus on helping veterans find jobs rather than admin tasks

"We support over 10,000 veterans and family members, but demand has never been greater. With partners like Fujitsu, we can ensure that every single future is secure and that we’re succeeding in our mission to enable veterans and family members to thrive."

Prue Slaughter, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Soldier On

4 weeks to design, develop, and implement a new platform

Location: Australia
Customer's website

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About the customer

Through the delivery of holistic services, Soldier On provides support to more than 10,000 veterans and their family members. It has now grown into Australia’s only national and fully integrated support services provider for members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and their families.

Providing health, wellbeing, and psychological support services

The transition from military to civilian life presents significant challenges including loss of identity, purpose and belonging for many veterans and their families. Soldier On was founded in 2012 after the death of Lieutenant Michael Fussell, who was killed in Afghanistan. His close friend John Bale looked for a way to support those who had been affected by war, but he quickly realised there was no easy or accessible way for members of the Defence force, or the public, to show their support for those wounded in battle.

The charity quickly grew but was soon facing issues with its job portal for veterans and families to submit career applications. The solution Solider On had been using had limited functionality, wasn’t user-friendly and had accessibility challenges. For example, users had to manually populate jobs via Excel spreadsheets and then import them.

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Expanding social connections and access to one-on-one employment or education support

Fujitsu has a long-term relationship with the Department of Defence and a deep understanding of the issues facing Defence personnel in Australia, and has been proud to support Soldier On as a charity partner since 2015.

“The Veterans Support Platform was a long-term project for Soldier On,” explains Prue Slaughter, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, Soldier On. “We have seen the need for this platform for more than five years. The community has been looking for something that connects veterans and family members with those looking to recruit and to really support them through a portal. And it was Fujitsu who stepped up and provided the proof of concept and a portal that enabled this connection in a forward-facing way.”

In just four weeks Fujitsu designed, developed, and implemented the proof of concept platform. There was strong collaboration with Soldier On. For example, Fujitsu developers maintained a Teams meeting for 7-8 hours a day where the Soldier On team and key stakeholders could drop in and suggest changes. Product managers would be present for 4 hours a day, every day, for a month and this resulted in timely feedback and resolution for the agile project.

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Co-creating a viable long-term solution

Soldier On now has a much more accessible platform that helps match veterans with opportunities in the workplace. People can bulk upload jobs or upload immediately into the platform, giving Soldier On staff more time to focus on helping veterans find jobs rather than wading through low value tasks.

The cost to maintain the system has also been greatly reduced - users are empowered to solve problems themselves rather than use third party contractors who charged by the hour.

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