Standard Bank of South Africa: SAP HR Implementation

Accenture worked with Standard Bank, one of South Africa's largest financial services institutions, to create a new human resources environment using SAP HR. As a result, a costly, burdensome administrative organization has been transformed into a driver of high performance.

Standard Bank Limited of South Africa is the largest subsidiary of the Standard Bank Group, with R533 billion in assets as of June 2004, and employing more than 35,000 people worldwide. With more than 600 branches in South Africa, Standard Bank is a major financial services provider to South African corporations and multinationals. In addition to having a presence in 17 African countries, Standard Bank is active in 22 countries and the key financial centers of Europe, North America, South America and Asia.

Standard Bank faced significant challenges in delivering HR services to the 27,000 employees across their domestic operations. The bank had a number of disparate HR systems running across the various divisions resulting in a lack of data integrity. This led to difficulty in obtaining management information that provided a single version of the truth. The HR organization was heavily focused on administrative and transactional activities and lacked a strategic focus. The lack of clarity between centralized corporate HR functions and decentralized business unit HR delivery units resulted in duplication and inefficiencies. These operational inefficiencies of HR were apparent in the low HR: Employee ratio, high cost of HR as a percentage of total operational cost and long turnaround times for completion of HR transactions. The Bank also had no single view of the headcount, and the lack of employee self-service functions meant there was a heavy administrative workload on the HR staff.

In addition, PeopleSoft as one of the Bank's core legacy systems was no longer being supported in South Africa. Standard Bank made the decision to implement SAP HR as the integrated HR system across the group.

Standard Bank Limited of South Africa embarked on a journey to transform its Human Resources Organization, and Accenture was chosen as their implementation partner. The People Online (SAP HR) project was successful in improving the Bank's efficiency and internal service delivery, by replacing current HR systems such as PeopleSoft, QPAC and Payday with SAP HR as the enabling software. Accenture was a key partner in implementing the core HR system capabilities, which provided the foundation for more advanced and value added functionality. The new HR role focuses on providing strategic and business advisory services, contrary to its previous administrative and transaction-based role. This allows greater HR focus on employee effectiveness and strategic initiatives.

The People Online Program was structured along three releases:

Release 1 involved the development of a group wide integrated Payroll System; improved data integrity in the bank's personnel administration area; streamlined time and leave processes; and the development of a standardized bank-wide organization structure, which led to more effective headcount management.

Accenture was involved in all core program activities, including program and journey, change management, business process design, SAP configuration, technical architecture development and performance testing. The project kicked off with the planning phase in November 2001, followed by the blueprint (March-October 2002). The realization phase commenced in November 2002 and went live on the 1st of July 2003.

Release 2 focused on the implementation of employee and manager self-service (ESS/MSS) using SAP Enterprise Portal version 6. In addition, an HR shared service center, PeopleServe, was setup to provide human resource services at an optimum cost and improved service quality. A people interaction center, PeopleLink, was launched, focusing on delivering a world-class, online consulting service that provides query resolution, advice and human resource consulting services. Release 2 commenced with the planning phase in October 2003, followed by the blueprint (Nov 2003-February 2004). The realization phase commenced in March 2004 and went live in July 2004.

Release 3 focused on improving the talent utilization across the bank and further reinforces the role of line management in taking ownership of people management. Release 3 saw the implementation of SAPHR modules: personnel development and compensation management. In addition, Accenture assisted Standard Bank in implementing SAP e-recruiting solutions. SAP e-recruiting is a new entrant into the online recruitment software market and is still in ramp-up status. The bank implemented Version 2.0 and is the first client outside of Europe using the SAP e-recruiting solution.

Release 1 involved the development of a group-wide integrated payroll system; improved data integrity in the bank's personnel administration area; streamlined time and leave processes; and the development of a standard bank-wide organization structure that will lead to more effective headcount management. In addition, the solution has improved service delivery and efficiency, as well as allowing for optimal talent utilization. The successful implementation also serves as a foundation for future releases, which will enable talent optimization and improved human resources service delivery.

The implementation of ESS/MSS further reduced human resource administration, improved cost control and allowed line management to take ownership of people management.

The implementation of PeopleServe has enabled the transformation of the human resource function, by alleviating administration and transactional pressures from HR consultants and thus allowing HR to focus on strategic initiatives in partnership with line management.

The implementation of the e-recruiting solution has enabled Standard Bank to transform from a personnel organization where recruitment is an administration task, to a talent management organization where recruitment is a strategic task.