The secrets of SAP success

More than 11,000 BAT users access SAP

British American Tobacco

British American Tobacco (BAT) established support for its SAP overhaul by highlighting potential cost savings. A clear vision and business involvement were key to the project’s success, according to group head of IT demand, Phil Colman.
BAT started the SAP programme in 2005 to bring standardisation to its ERP.

Previously, the company had 62 separate systems and a mixture of SAP and others. Now 103 countries and 11,200 users have been migrated to six SAP installations, and the business saved £26m by the end of 2007.

The business case focused on how the SAP rollout would enable initiatives such as shared services and better management information, but the company only accepted the plan on the basis of cost savings. “They were hesitant the system would bring any other benefits,” said Colman.

But shared financial services have been established in Africa, the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Western Europe.

Colman said strong alignment between global and regional programmes of governance was vital.

“Define the programme in detail, get the buy-in, then deliver, deliver and deliver. If you let things slip when rolling out to the first few regions, people will start losing faith,” he said.

“This is not just a new IT programme but a major business transformation.”

Clyde Pumps

A supplier of pumps to utility firms, Clyde Pumps rolled out SAP to support its acquisition strategy. Finance director Allan Dowie said the key to success was employee involvement.

Clyde Pumps realised it needed more “intelligent applications” when a new chairman started and set aggressive growth targets, said Dowie. A diverse set of in-house built ERP systems had been causing confusion and was a drain on resources.

The project is due to complete this month, and the firm will consider extending the system to mobile devices and investing in business intelligence (BI). Over the next nine months, four recent acquisitions will be moved over to the new system.

Dowie said one reason why the project was successful was because he kept it as straightforward as possible. For example, customisation only took place after the project was fully implemented ­ some 15 per cent of the rollout was bespoke, including a nuclear power station that needed a one-off solution.

Dowie said the biggest challenge was getting the new system accepted. “Many employees had been in the organisation for a long time so the move to a central system was difficult for them,” he said.

“We managed to get 10 per cent of the whole organisation in a room so they could learn about our strategy and feel part of the process.”

Bradford City Council

The City of Bradford Council spent £170m on a project called Bradford-i. The aim of the SAP programme was to improve efficiency and customer service. It was supported by the council’s partner IBM and implemented in 20 months.

Becky Hellard, strategic director of corporate services for the City of Bradford, said it was the biggest change the council has undertaken ­ the first system implemented across the whole organisation.

The main achievement was that the project was delivered on time and on budget by not allowing any “scope creep”.

“Once we started, we tried not to get preoccupied with anything else,” said Hellard.

Training was another success. The council managed the transfer of skills to staff by establishing a programme management office. However, Hellard said she regretted not giving more thought to how the training would make employees attractive to other organisations.

"We could have done more to retain our staff better,” she said. “And any training estimate should be doubled.”

Hellard also highlighted the importance of change management. “We should have increased the transformational nature of the project. It got caught up in politics when we needed more visible leadership,” she said.