by something quite humdrum as payroll software.

Where the US leads, its oldest ally, France, follows
The French military is smaller in size than its U.S. counterpart (300,000 troops half of which in the Army) but it is proportionately as maddeningly complex, if not more. As in the US every branch of the military uses a different HR/payroll system, each originally custom-built and with pleasant names such as Concerto, Rh@psodie, Symphonie. Starting around 2005 each branch decided to move to a package software based on SAP. As the below diagram shows each branch had its own version of SAP HR which was interfaced to Louvois, a new custom-made payroll system, to be replaced in 2016 by ONP, an HR Access-based payroll system for all French government employees. Unfortunately for Frenchservicemen and taxpayers Louvois, like its US counterpart, was an unmitigated disaster. Costing north of half a billion euros, with several hundred million more in overpayments, compensation paid to tens of thousands of military families who got shortchanged and additional implementation/maintenance costs to fix the issues, the French military will probably end up paying even more than the Pentagon for the same result: a failed payroll system. At least we French have one consolation: in one area, failed military payroll projects, we outdid the Americans. The French Minister of Defense had to recognize the failure since it was on such an epic scale and promise to build a new payroll system by the end of next year before it was to be replaced by ONP. Even the CEO