SA Eagle undertakes HR transformation with SAP Africa

As part of the business transformation process, SA Eagle undertook to re-engineer its Human Resources Department. This has been achieved by redefining their business processes as well as re-evaluating existing systems and technology. In an effort to reposition the role of 'people management' as a true business function, SA Eagle has also redefined its service delivery model, critical skills and core objectives.

"In today's fiercely competitive business environment, any initiative an organisation can adopt to improve its internal systems will add to its longevity," says Clifford Zungu, SA Eagle General Manager: People Management. "We therefore required a solution that would allow our people management department to bring its focus back to our most important asset - people.

"We needed to ensure that we focused on delivering a value-added service to our customers and shareholders, specifically around those aspects directly linked to the achievement of corporate objectives."

To ensure that SA Eagle's people management department could achieve these objectives, the team needed the chosen software vendor to fulfil certain criteria. For example, the vendor of choice had to be able to offer an integrated payroll solution, with an extensive menu of additional and relevant HR modules. Additionally, the vendor had to make full use of leading-edge technology (such as workflow), have excellent reference sites and be a leader in the field of HR software.

"We were looking for a partner, that could not only guide us through the blueprinting, realisation and implementation process but also assist us in capitalising on the potential business benefits," says Kirsten Mann, SA Eagle SAP project manager. "SAP was able to demonstrate a clear understanding of our business needs as well as demonstrate excellent people management reference sites, including Vodacom and MunichRe," says Mann.

SA Eagle has successfully completed the first step in phase one of the implementation of SAP HR. The People Management Team has been live on the system since 5 July 2001, and SA Eagle is in the process of consolidating the feedback from its Employee Self-Services and Manager's Desktop pilot site (which included approximately 85 end-users, based in various locations throughout SA, accessing the system with effect from 1 August 2001). The further roll-out of Employee Self-Services and Manager's Desktop functionality to the broader organisation has been planned for the first half of 2002.

"Part of phase one's objectives included the implementation of the employee self-service on SAP version 4.6c via the Workplace. However, one of the challenges of this phase included integrating SA Eagles' Lotus Smart Suite environment with the existing SAP Office solutions, which we did by utilising standard SAP and Lotus functionality," says Marguerite Crawford, SAP project manager.

"This successful implementation has contributed towards achieving SA Eagle's vision of creating a people management department that is more strategic and is freed up to focus on people management, rather than administrative activities, in support of its global business vision. However, the success of this project thus far would not have been achieved without the commitment of the SA Eagle team, who took complete ownership, dedicated four people to the project, and provided us with an ideal partnership model during the initiative," says Crawford.

"The next phase of the implementation will focus on increasing the functionality of the employee self-service module, as well as implementing the personnel development functionality. We are aiming to make full use of the solution, whereby the complete suite of SAP Human Resources modules are fully utilised," says Mann.

"From our experience thus far with the live system, we believe that we are truly delivering against our objective, and have taken the first significant steps towards the transformation of People Management within SA Eagle," says Zungu.