Global template articles

[KetchCyork]

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SAP HANA S4 Global Implementation Template

CHALLENGES

This multinational conglomerate was operating in an evolving market and the company recognized that they needed to move aggressively to a recurring revenue model for their business. The company had recognized that it was unable to effect this change economically as its subsidiaries were operating multiple country locations independently across a variety of SAP and non-SAP systems. Leadership wanted to integrate all business units into a global template of SAP-based business process solutions while allowing for localizations where required. The group wanted to leverage economies of scale by leveraging business process sharing but was uncertain how closely the work was aligned. Recognizing that not all processes were identical, there was concern that without a global template design as the basis of core business operations, their ability to deliver global financials easily would be severely constrained. Ultimately, without this $10MM+ investment in transformation their ability to grow and adapt in their market would be limited.

INSIGHT

The company’s three major regions were Asia, Europe, and the US, with the US program being first out of the gate to define the template solutions. Together Ketch and the client defined multiple countries, multiple legal-entity approaches to moving the entire company onto one global template of S/4 HANA. Using Ketch Building Block Methods provided the path to harmonize the business processes between the companies, while still allowing for localization. During Ketch’s BPA (Best Practice Alignment) phase we demonstrated in system processes, drove toward commonality, eliminated redundancy and defined gaps that needed to be filled to meet local departmental needs. Furthermore, cornerstones of the solution included configurable recurring revenue services, a flexible contract model that would scale as large as the client desired and a modern user experience leveraging SAP Fiori and Open Source web apps.

SOLUTION

Ketch developed and had been practicing our Building Block Methods and tools for two years before SAP released their SAP Activate approach which follows similar rapid prototyping processes. Our initial phase is called Best Practice Alignment. In it, we show the potential future state processes by leveraging standard processes in a demonstration system using client data. This requires some basic knowledge of the client’s business without trying to recreate the highly customized solution they currently use. Therefore, subject matter experts from each line of business were present to validate alignment to the common global template processes and identify any localization required. The result was a nearly complete process design for a multi-national company in just sixteen weeks.

Ketch then moved into the Realization phase where all gaps were resolved, designed, built and tested. The most comprehensive solution leveraged SAP Variant Configuration capabilities with a quantity contract to deliver a flexible, scalable platform for numerous business models. An unexpected challenge was the level of business engagement during realization. We found that identifying decision makers and getting them engaged at the proper times was challenging and caused numerous delays in finalizing or even reworking solutions to align to all decision makers. Once program leadership made the shift and provided dedicated business team members, decision making and solution design became much easier and project momentum was restored. We fostered a period checkpoint with European and Asian counterparts to validate template process designs via design review sessions that ensured we had designed solutions that could be leveraged globally.

RESULTS

The result was a template solution that was leveraged globally allowing reduced implementation and support costs. Because the global template was defined, subsequent regions adopted the pre-defined processes which reduced the time to deploy and the consulting resources required for subsequent regions, saving millions in deployment costs versus a traditional approach of treating each sites’ requirements as unique. Consequently, the US team members were able to support other regions because the configuration and enhancements were much the same across the instances of SAP S/4HANA. Ultimately this reduced the need for functional and technical resources to be duplicated in each region to support separate SAP processes as well afforded our client the ability to reduce and/or eliminate support personnel and maintenance fees for the various legacy systems they were previously running.

Here is short form:

Templating key operational business processes across multinational manufacturing landscape

CHALLENGES

 - Client has multiple companies to integrate in one large SAP program roll out but wants to leverage economies of same business process sharing—yet not all processes are identical
 - Client has multiple country locations that operate independently; realizing how they may work closely aligned is uncertain; without some enterprise alignment S/4 HANA lacks any business case to justify investment

SOLUTION

 - Ketch and the client collaboratively defined a multiple country, multiple legal entity approach to moving the entire company onto one instance of S/4 HANA.
 - The Ketch Building Block Methods provided the path to combine and differentiate business processes between the companies. Parallel processes made a common integration model to bring company departments in line across geographies. The distinct processes are addressed along with new business models. Commonality in process, design, and front-end Fiori including master data governance are in-place.

RESULTS

 - Significantly less project spend to achieve the one instance model
 - Production support is done with fewer agents, simpler business process set costing less annually
 - Data was synchronized across regions including product catalogs and marketing efforts via variant configuration product models

[davebeach]

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