Global oil company to roll-out global HR system from SA

Caltex Corporation is embarking on a worldwide HR system roll-out in line with its re-organisation along global lines of business. Reflecting South Africa's potential role in the new economy, the global HR system will be based in Cape Town.

Instead of operating along regional lines, the oil company now has integrated business units, structured globally along key business functions, and has chosen SAP R/3 Human Resources as its global HR system.

Already used by Caltex in southern and central Africa, SAP HR will now be upgraded and rolled out throughout South East Asia to manage a further 9 000 employees. A major advantage of the system is that it will enable companies in countries not linked to the Caltex Wide Area Network (WAN), such as India and Pakistan, to use the system seamlessly via the Internet.

All configuration, testing and system construction will be completed on the Cape Town-based system prior to implementation in South East Asia.

The sophistication of Caltex's South African HR model, its successful roll-out into the rest of Africa, two years of in-house system experience, high levels of expertise within SAP Africa and favourable exchange rates were all factors in the decision to select Caltex's African head office as the home for the new global system.

"This demonstrates South Africa's position as part of the global new economy - and is a feather in the caps of both Caltex SA and SAP Africa," says Michael Zylstra, customer services manager, SAP Africa.

The decision to choose SAP as its HR system forms part of Caltex's long-term strategy of using one, integrated system to derive real business benefit.

"Globally we are seeing companies again starting to source as many aspects of their solution as possible from one leading vendor," says Zylstra.

"Many companies that have in the past put together a mix and match of best-of-breed products are now consolidating in the realisation that they do not want to be in the business of trying to integrate a number of diverse products," he says.

The global HR roll-out was necessitated by Caltex's global re-organisation as well as the fact that the South East Asian subsidiaries were not using linked HR systems.

"Business unit presidents need to be able to view all the people reporting to them across geographical boundaries," says Richard Searle, global HR project manager, Caltex SA. "We also needed to standardise on one system."

Searle says the benefits will include the ability to further exploit functionality in the area of logistics, once the HR reporting structure is in place. Other advantages are web-based reporting, employee self-service which gives information directly to employees in the field via the Web, and the ability for more effective management of Caltex's people through tools like the Manager's Desktop.

"We also expect to benefit enormously from global training, scheduling and succession planning, as well as the ability to keep track of what our people are doing worldwide," says Searle.

"The new system gives line managers direct access to HR information, enabling them to do direct planning, and taking the load off the HR departments. It really will give management the information they need to manage their people effectively."

The roll-out is a new SAP HR implementation for the majority of the South East Asian Caltex companies. Only its worldwide headquarters in Singapore has used a limited version of the system previously.

"Change management will therefore be one of the major challenges of this project, and we have outsourced a specialist company to handle this," says Searle.

Phase one of the implementation has started, and involves pulling basic data into the system for five additional countries: Singapore, Thailand, The Phillipines, Hong Kong and Malaysia. It also includes upgrading the existing HR system from version 3.1.I to 4.6, and implementing ALE for linking the HR system to Caltex's IS-Oil system.

The next phase will include Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Egypt, Vietnam, India, New Zealand and others, while Phase Three, not yet ratified, will most likely involve the implementation of employee self-service, manager's desktop, the development of succession planning and a global HR call centre.

The entire roll-out is expected to be completed in July 2002.