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"With enhanced enterprise productivity and insight
from the SAP
ERP application, you have the power needed to adapt quickly and cost
effectively to changing business, market, and industry requirements with ERP solutions"
Source : SAP
Case Study: Multifaceted Company Upgrades ERP Application
ERP Upgrade and Multifaceted Company is also known as :
ERP Upgrade,
ERP Upgrade Strategy,
ERP Upgrade Costs,
ERP Upgrade Info,
Upgrade Integrated ERP,
Accelerating ERP Upgrade,
ERP Upgrade Targets,
ERP Upgrade Package,
Productivity ERP Upgrade,
ERP Improvement,
ERP Upgrade Project,
ERP Upgrade Guide,
ERP Upgrade Course,
ERP Upgrade Trends,
Successful ERP Upgrade,
ERP Upgrade Program,
ERP Upgrade Constraints,
ERP Upgrade Plan,
Multifaceted Company,
Multifunctional Company,
Multifaceted Entreprise,
Multifaceted Corporate,
Multifaceted Organization,
Planning ERP Upgrade,
Launche ERP Upgrade.
SAP Customer Success Story
Healthcare, Engineering and Construction,
Media, Financial Services, and Real Estate
At A Glance
Company
- Name: Gruppo Tosinvest
- Location: Rome
- Industries: Healthcare; engineering and construction; media; financial
services; real estate
- Revenue: Between €300 million and €400 million
- Employees: 2,500
- Web site: www.gruppotosinvest.it
- Partner: REALTECH
Challenges and Opportunities
- Current software requiring new licences for new functionality
- Rapid growth ' need for more comprehensive, robust IT
- Support for top-level analytics with state-of-the-art business
intelligence tool
Objectives
- Ensure cost-effective upgrade of existing SAP® enterprise resource
planning (ERP) software to the newer SAP ERP application
- Streamline decision-making process
- Decrease IT maintenance costs
- Implement new functionality without impacting daily operations
- Improve productivity with better communication and distribution of
information throughout the group
SAP Solution and Services
SAP ERP
Implementation Highlights
- Length of upgrade project: 3 months
- Duration of technical upgrade: 3 days, with only 6 hours of downtime
- SAP ERP enabled for 200+ users
Why SAP
- Fast ROI through savings on maintenance costs
- New functionality delivered cost-effectively
- Proven upgrade methodology
Benefits
- 22% reduction in maintenance costs
- Better software performance and usability
- Streamlined business processes
- Stable IT platform, enabling future evolutions
- Improved productivity with new self-services functionality
Existing Environment
SAP R/3® software
Third-Party Integration
- Database: Oracle
- Hardware: IBM
- Operating system: Microsoft Windows
Gruppo Tosinvest
Multifaceted Company Upgrades to the SAP® ERP Application and Slashes IT
Costs
In times like these, when IT spending is increasingly subject to cutbacks but
demand for growth and innovation is high, finding out how to get "more for less"
is as crucial a task to a company's IT department as making sure that
applications run smoothly. In Rome, Gruppo Tosinvest managed to prove that this
challenge, which can keep some IT managers awake at night, is very easy to
solve. By upgrading its existing SAP® software to the latest release of the SAP
ERP application, the company lowered its IT maintenance costs by up to 22%. CIO
Fabio Fricano and IT manager Mario Buttá were also particularly pleased to
inform the board of directors that they now had state-of-the-art software for
running the company's current as well as its future processes.
Gruppo Tosinvest is hardly what you would call a single-process company.
One-half of its core business is in healthcare. Its subsidiary Tosinvest Sanitá
manages 11 healthcare facilities, each accredited by Italy's National Public
Health Service. In addition, the group operates a scientific institute for
research, hospitalization, and healthcare (the IRCCS San Raffaele Pisana); a
diagnostic center; and 13 nursing homes in Lazio and in Puglia. The diverse
group with revenues between €300 million and €400 million also runs businesses
throughout Italy in the media, real estate, financial services, and engineering
and construction sectors. In a company of this size, and with such a wide array
of processes, keeping IT costs in check is obviously of utmost importance. To
ensure stable and cost-effective operations, the group relies on a subdivision
devoted solely to IT activities: Tosinvest Information Technologies, or T.I.T.
It was in this subdivision that the decision was made to upgrade the existing
enterprise resource planning (ERP) software that Gruppo Tosinvest had been
running since 2001.
". . . by upgrading to SAP ERP, IT maintenance
costs would decrease by up to 22% over the next three years, leading to a fast
return on investment."
Fabio Fricano, CIO, Tosinvest Information Technologies
Major Business Challenges
When Gruppo Tosinvest first implemented SAP software, including functionality
for financial accounting, controlling, materials management, and asset
accounting, the group had all the right tools to manage its internal processes.
However, over the years, as the group grew, so too did its demands on the IT
infrastructure. In addition to needing more robust functionality for human
capital management (HCM) and financials, it needed software that would provide
detailed analyses to help top management make informed decisions. As Fricano
says, "We needed a sophisticated business intelligence tool that would support
analyses by enabling cross-company communication and by providing a better
overview of the group's financial situation."
A New Foundation
T.I.T. initially took the need for more features as a cue to implement new
functionality in the existing software system. This would have meant making
additional modifications to the existing IT landscape to accommodate new
requirements as and when they arose. However, after talking to SAP, the T.I.T.
team selected a different option ' one that would benefit the group in the long
term. By upgrading to SAP ERP, T.I.T. would have in place the latest information
technology and an entirely new foundation for both its current and future needs.
"Gruppo Tosinvest needed software that would allow it to flexibly disseminate
information, according to whichever department or business was asking," Fricano
explains. "SAP convinced T.I.T. that an upgrade to SAP ERP was the right choice
to achieve these goals. By upgrading, we'd be able to streamline our processes
and add a whole new array of self-service functionality." However, considering
the magnitude of the group's national IT and telecommunications operations,
T.I.T. had to convince not only the users of the benefits of upgrading ' but,
more importantly, the board.
A 22% Reduction in Maintenance Costs
As it turned out, Fricano and his team didn't need to do much persuading. "Gruppo
Tosinvest is a private group," Fricano says. "For this reason, the board is very
keen on keeping investment costs down. T.I.T. convinced the executives that by
upgrading to SAP ERP, IT maintenance costs would decrease by up to 22% over the
next three years, leading to a fast return on investment." Because T.I.T. took a
departure from its original plan of adding more features to its software, it was
also able to leverage new functionality delivered by SAP ERP ' and do so
economically.
"We followed SAP's recommendations step-by-step and took advantage of
Realtech's technical expertise, enabling T.I.T. to complete the entire upgrade
project on time and within budget." Mario Buttá, IT Manager, Tosinvest
Information Technologies
"The IT and business reasons came together," says Fricano. "We were looking
for a cost-effective way of enabling HCM functionality for new users. With SAP
ERP, you get a whole range of self-service functionality, including the SAP
Employee Self-Service and SAP Manager Self-Service applications." On top of
that, T.I.T. leveraged the SAP NetWeaver® platform (a part of the SAP ERP
license) to redesign HCM features. This included realization of a new
people-centric user interface. "For better usability and productiveness," Buttá
confirms.
Smooth Upgrade Based on Efficient Collaboration
"With the upgrade to SAP ERP, Gruppo Tosinvest now has an open
gate to the future."
Fabio Fricano, CIO, Tosinvest Information Technologies
Before users could make use of the new software, T.I.T. had to ensure that
there would be no disruption to daily operations during the upgrade. To do this,
Fricano and his team chose a twofold approach. First, they used the SAP upgrade
methodology ' an approach that was completely new to the T.I.T. employees.
However, with the help of support tickets sent to SAP, the T.I.T. staff members
had answers to queries and issues almost in real time and were able to continue
with the project by themselves without delay. Second, they engaged the services
of implementation partner, REALTECH. It was this combination that ultimately
made the project such a success. "Collaboration between T.I.T., SAP, and
REALTECH was excellent and key to the success of the upgrade project," says
Buttá. "We followed SAP's recommendations step-by-step and took advantage of
Realtech's technical expertise, enabling T.I.T. to complete the entire upgrade
project on time and within budget."
Minimum Downtime and Seamless Switch for Users
With a downtime of a mere six hours for the actual technical upgrade, users
managed to resume work without any interruptions. "Since users were properly
informed before the upgrade, they had no problems accepting the new look and
feel of SAP ERP," says Buttá. "And the new HCM functionality was up and running
with 30 new users immediately after the upgrade. We also plan to increase the
numbers of users throughout 2007." Besides improving speed, performance, and
usability of its software, the group has realized a greater level of scalability
for further rollouts. T.I.T.'s road map for 2007 is on track for implementing
the SAP NetWeaver Business Intelligence component and additional financial and
self-service functionality. Fricano puts it nicely when he says, "With the
upgrade to SAP ERP, Gruppo Tosinvest now has an open gate to the future."