Eskom

Eskom Finesse is one of Andersen Consulting`s largest projects. In fact it is the biggest project of its type in Africa and one of the top 10 SAP implementations in the world. The relationship with Eskom began in 1994 when Andersen Consulting was invited to supply a senior executive to assist in Eskom`s Finesse strategy for financial management. This strategy involved an integrated approach to financial management involving processes, systems and human performance.

This project led to subsequent phases and Andersen Consulting continued the assignment by assisting Eskom personnel in programme management, journey navigation, and up to 50% of project staff in all process, systems and human performance within Finesse.

Andersen Consulting partner and programme manager, Clive Butkow, says: "The major achievement has been to move the organisation from a lack of understanding of the status of financial systems within Eskom in 1994 to implementation during 1998 of common process, systems and human performance improvement using SAP R/3?. The total programme investment is R330m.

Eskom, the principal supplier of electricity in Africa, and fifth biggest in the world, has an ambitious vision. It is to be "the world`s lowest cost provider of electricity for growth and prosperity". Getting approval of such a project is in itself a huge task, requiring approval of the Electricity Council, and requiring communication with over 5 500 managers, line and administration staff and presentations to the unions. A key factor in the approval process was management`s drive to support the Eskom Vision of lowest cost. Finesse has been designed to achieve significant business benefits in cash management, cost control, purchasing, asset and stores management, and process efficiency. The benefits of these areas will be measured and compared to the approved business case.

Eskom`s Programme Director, Mike Fullerton, says: "We knew that modern best practices could be introduced into Eskom?s financial management and felt that we could improve the financial systems. We felt we needed external help. We employed Andersen Consulting initially in 1994 after working with them on our customer systems. They have proven their ability and we have been happy to continue with them. We had a proliferation of systems which were largely old, not year 2000 compatible and in some cases not integrated with each other. After a detailed review of available software, all the Groups within Eskom settled for SAP as the world`s leading financial system. There were five business cases in all, and five systems could have been selected. But by having a joint approach to the Programme, savings of 30% were achieved.?

"Our critical challenge is in Change Management," says Fullerton. "We are changing the daily work of 8000 people. Their new roles have been mapped individually to the newly designed processes and software, and to their required training courses. So, in addition to a massive communication effort, we have implementation teams in all Eskom offices around South Africa to ensure that people, processes and technology are ready to benefit from the change. We also have electronic help, a help desk and specially trained `super users` to ensure that the Programme is a success."

Eskom has seconded 150 people to the project, 50 of whom are IT and 100 of whom are operations. The statistics are staggering - 80 000 man days of development followed by delivery of 40 000 man days of training: one of the world?s largest projects for one of the world's largest suppliers of electricity. The entire project is aimed at making Eskom the lowest cost provider, and Butkow says they would not be doing the project unless this goal was feasible.