Johannesburg, 13 Oct 2013
In a seven-month project, Britehouse SSD implemented the full functionality of SAP Solution Manager 7.1 for Transnet Engineering, providing service management for Transnet Engineering and technical monitoring for all the server environments across the Transnet Group.
"We had implemented the previous version of Solution Manager with a different company and ended up with problems with user adoption and an enormous number of bugs," says Derrick Letebele, ICT Senior Manager for the Project Management Office and HR systems of Transnet Engineering.
"This not only defeated our objective of enhancing the management of our environments, it also made us wary of bringing in another implementation partner when version 7.1 came along.
"However, working with Britehouse has been a breath of fresh air. Their professionalism, technical skills and project management capability are exceptional.
"More than that, they stood by us through thick and thin. For procurement reasons, the start of the project was delayed. This meant the project timeline was shortened and go-live dates had to shift. Most service providers would have insisted on a change of request and compensation for the delays.
"Britehouse simply moved their resources on to other projects off-site and brought them back when we were ready.
"Also, during the project, we had to wait for other Group implementations to be completed. Sometimes our own resources had to be redeployed elsewhere. Britehouse took everything in their stride and still brought the project in on time and on budget."
The project included a high level of training and change management. Britehouse used a dedicated Britehouse specialist, provided extremely detailed training documentation, and published information on the Transnet Intranet, saving Transnet Engineering the cost of bringing in a change management provider and ensuring that users had all the support and information they needed to most effectively use Solution Manager.
Britehouse also ran competitions within Transnet Engineering, to ensure that the organisation was aware of the benefits the project was delivering.
"Having been one of the first SAP partners to adopt and effectively use Solution Manager on the African continent, we have more experience than most in how to extract its full value on behalf of customers," says Britehouse RunSAP manager, Vaughn Booyens.
"So, our focus throughout the project was to ensure that Transnet Engineering was equipped at every level to take full advantage of Solution Manager's extensive and very sophisticated functionality and, therefore, position the company to innovate and continuously improve its performance."
Britehouse provided support after the August go-live, and, as a trusted advisor, has also helped Transnet Engineering develop a long-term strategy for application life cycle management and end-user experience management.
"I'm very proud of the Solution Manager 7.1 project because everything that was implemented is being used," Letebele says. "Britehouse's knowledge transfer was extremely effective.
"I'm also delighted that the Transnet Group views our project as a benchmark and will hopefully be using our methodology, which is based on Britehouse's use of the ASAP methodology, to do Solution Manager implementations in other divisions."
Britehouse project manager for Transnet Engineering, Martin Wagner, says that, in spite of various constraints, the project went extremely smoothly. "Together with Transnet Engineering's project manager, Henry Bekker, we developed a very clearly defined scope in the project charter that meant both teams, theirs and ours, always knew exactly what was expected and what the end goal was.
"Also, there was a close cultural fit between the two teams. We worked hard, but we also had fun. So, any issues that arose from a technical or business point of view were always addressed from a positive perspective."
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