Johannesburg, 05 Mar 2014
In an African first, Britehouse has used SNP Transformation Backbone to ease phase one of the consolidation of the Zimbabwean and South African instances of SAP for PPC.
The three-month project, undertaken while both companies continued operations, entailed the migration of financial and master data as well as two years of transactional history from the PPC Zimbabwean company to the PPC South African SAP landscape.
"Given that we were working with two companies in different countries - and therefore two currencies, that there were four parties involved (the two PPC companies, Britehouse, and SNP), and that SNP had to transfer their knowledge of SNP Transformation Backbone to us before the project could start, it's remarkable that we finished the project on time and on budget in only three months," says Janeen Duckitt, Britehouse Account Manager for PPC.
"Without SNP Transformation Backbone - or SNP T-bone as we now affectionately call it - it would not have been possible. It relieved us of tasks we would normally have had to do manually. And, not only did it identify all the complexities of the project upfront, it helped us make the right decisions for handling them. It does far more than any other similar tool available on the market today."
SNP's CTO Achim Westermann says the more complex a project is, the more benefits SNP Transformation Backbone provides. "It is standardised software for automating and comprehensively supporting transformations of SAP solutions in line with business changes resulting from mergers, acquisitions, splits, harmonisations or system upgrades.
"Having been the world's first such tool and proven across multiple organisations and industries over many years, it is the most fully developed of its kind. Consequently, the tougher the project, the greater the contribution it will make to simplifying it.
"That said, you still need the project teams to collaborate closely and communicate well. And on the PPC migration project, team synergies were in place from the start."
Herman Coetzee, Head: IS Value Management Office, PPC, agrees. "It's rare for partners and vendors to take full ownership of a project from the start and maintain that dedication right to the end.
"It was very pleasant not to have to micro-manage Britehouse and SNP, knowing that, whatever they were busy with, they were doing it in the best interests of PPC. If there are going to be issues on a project, they will usually be resource related. People pick up vibes from one another. My people had worked with Britehouse before and know they're always in a project for the long haul, and have the ability to pull rabbits out of the hat. That trust rubbed off on everyone else."
Apart from the challenges of bringing two different companies operating in two different economies into alignment on SAP, the project was made more complex by the fact that the Zimbabwean business processes differed widely from those used in South Africa.
"Comparison of the two systems showed many differences, which left us no time for re-engineering," Coetzee says. "So, we undertook change management to help the Zimbabwean users adjust to the move to our processes.
"Even so, we would have had to throw many more resources at the project in order to finish in three months had it not been for SNP Transformation Backbone. We followed Britehouse's advice in opting for the SNP software and have had such value-add from it that we will apply it in another SAP consolidation project that starts in July - and even on other projects in the future."
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