Stork implements SAP Cloud ERP

Cloud ERP provides a fully integrated
Project Solution and transparent figures!

Stork’s implementation of an integrated Project Solution

Stork is a market leader in maintenance, modification and asset integrity services (MM & AI).

Headquartered in Utrecht, the Netherlands, Stork is dedicated to improving asset performance, safety and cost-efficiency for Clients throughout the asset life cycle. For Clients operating in the Oil and Gas, Chemicals and Process, Metals and Mining, Food, Pharmaceutical, Power, and Manufacturing industries, Stork aims to be their asset integrity partner. Stork offers a wide range of integrated solutions and specialist services across all areas of maintenance, modification and asset integrity. With approximately 20,000 employees in over 100 countries, Stork serves more than 4,000 Clients across six continents. Stork enters life-long partnerships, growing their Clients’ business sustainable and successfully.

Defining a Global Reporting Template for uniformity across the countries

In September 2015, Stork expanded its global footprint with the strategic acquisition of Australia-based Giovenco Industries Pty Ltd. The headquarters of Giovenco is in Ingleburn (Sydney, NSW) and they service their Clients throughout Australia. The business is realized mainly with Clients in the Oil & Gas and Mining industry.

The key business driver to pilot the implementation of SAP Business ByDesign in the new Australian branch was twofold.

First there was the need to rapidly integrate Giovenco into the Stork business operations.
Secondly, Stork desires to reach operational and cost efficiency improvements within the entire organization.

To achieve the latter, the implementation at Giovenco was used to also define a global template to further standardize processes, data and internal reporting. The next step is to roll out this global template to sites in Asia, North and South America.

Involved Project Members:

Hans Lagaaij - Corporate IT Director Stork, responsible for the selection and deployment of Cloud ERP, SAP Business ByDesign;

Ton Bruijne - Finance Business and Service Director Stork, Project Sponsor;

Chee Heng Lai - IT Manager Stork Australia & New Zealand, project manager for the selection and implementation of SAP Business ByDesign;

Ferry Bogaards - Managing Partner Scheer Netherlands;

Cloud ERP as Corporate Platform

Stork made the strategic choice to support their operating companies in various countries with SAP’s Cloud ERP solution.

Hans Lagaaij says: “SAP Business ByDesign enables Stork to realize the vision to establish a strategic Platform as a Service (PaaS) based on important principles”.

These principles are:

Full focus on the business instead of IT projects;
Easy access in all geographically spread locations;
Scalable for future changes in the number of users;
Simple IT footprint with low maintenance costs
Deployment of Mobile Applications.

With this Cloud ERP platform, a uniform way of working has been defined regarding processes in Sales, Project Management, Logistics and Finance.

Ton Bruijne, closely involved in the Project and the development of the Global Template, confirms: “The integrated ERP solution with its embedded analytics made the numerous Excel sheets redundant. Having a single version of the truth and real-time insight in the status and results at any point in time, ensures a more effective execution of projects.”

Both the local Businesses and Stork’s Headquarters leverage now from:

Uniform and efficient process control
Complete data harmonization across the Globe
Single Standard Chart of Accounts and Group Reporting Structure
Financial transparency and reliable month end closing
Global Governance
Managing segregation of duty on role level.

The Australian operations leverage from the Stork “Fit for Purpose” processes that support the business seamlessly for:

Simple and complex multi-years running projects
Different project calculation concepts
Transparent reporting to management and clients.

Local IT staff focused on Business Support
instead of IT-maintenance activities

Chee Heng Lai, project manager of the SAP Business ByDesign implementation, is pleased that the pilot at Giovenco was done in six months. A process-oriented project approach and the end-to-end process oriented SAP Business ByDesign solution increased close collaboration between Sales, Logistics, Project Management and Finance.

Key learning is that change is the primary activity in this project. The extent of the change required, can only be determined by the maturity of the organization involved in the rollout.

Chee Heng Lai emphasizes: “SAP Business ByDesign contributes to a rapid and successful implementation through its intuitive screen dialogs that provide a quick understanding of the status and the actions that need to be taken.” The workflow driven tasks provide continuous insights in “to do’s” that lead to proactive and adequate execution of activities. In addition, SAP Business by Design provides a role based specific dashboard using predefined reporting and analyses tools.

A major benefit is that the IT-department is no longer needed for maintaining and updating the ERP system. This is now fully done by SAP on a quarterly basis. The only concern that remains is access to fast internet connections at the various geographical locations.

Finally, Chee Hang Lai explains why the IT-landscape of the deployment of SAP Business ByDesign has become more simplified:

Test and production environment are both in the cloud
No in-house hardware needed
No SAP system administrators needed
Reduced IT costs for management and support.

The SAP Cloud ERP platform accelerates project operations, which translates into more efficient and effective collaboration of customers, suppliers and employees within projects.

Focus on Operational Excellence

Ferry Bogaards, Scheer project manager, explains the Scheer approach: “The starting point is always the customers’ business model(s) and the underlying processes. Our focus is on the alignment of the core business operations from an end-to-end business process perspective and match this to the best-practice-scenarios available within SAP Business ByDesign. It is not about the deployment of the application, but how the application fully supports the business operations.”

Ingredients of a successful implementation

The following ingredients have contributed to a successful realization of the implementation at Stork and the definition of the Global Template:

SAP Business ByDesign’s robust functionality yet simple configuration
From the first day on an end-to-end process focus from an operational, financial and managerial perspective
Shoulder by shoulder attitude and involvement of management and staff
Small project team with clear focus on the key issues
Training and coaching of users to make Stork self-sufficient and independent.

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