BP North America: SAP Application Management

Mergers with Amoco and ARCO created a complex business process and applications environment for BP. The company called on Accenture to help it meet the challenge of harmonizing business processes and realize the full benefits of its merger.

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BP acquired Amoco and ARCO in the late 1990s. As with all mergers and acquisitions, the challenges of post-merger integration had to be overcome to realize the full benefits. As a result of the merger, the BP Refining and Marketing operations in the United States found itself with three application solutions, each managed from a different location with different processes and support organizations. Overly complex business processes needed to be streamlined, and the excess costs associated with the heterogeneous application environment eliminated.

In 2000, BP launched a multiple-year program to harmonize business processes across its North American Refining and Marketing organization on a single instance of SAP enterprise resource planning software. BP saw this program as critical in accelerating growth in the United States.

In 2000, BP turned to Accenture to help it achieve its goals. Accenture was engaged to design, build and run a harmonized business process for the US Refining and Marketing business. This included a 10-year contract for the total outsourcing of the company's SAP environment. The scope of services included base maintenance and support, as well as project and enhancement work.

Leveraging our Global Delivery Network, Accenture delivers a cost-effective, quality service from centers in Bangalore, India (where 70 percent of the work is performed), Cincinnati and Houston. Transitioning environments of this size is always risky, but we were able to reduce that risk through using elements of our Accenture Delivery Suite for Outsourcing.

With a harmonized business process supported by a stable SAP environment, BP's workforce has increased its productivity and been empowered to focus on service. The new environment supports more than 3,000 users managing over $60 billion in annual revenue.

Thanks to the power of the Accenture Delivery Network, Accenture has helped BP achieve high performance with a 45 percent reduction in base-line costs. Based on these achievements, Accenture is now working with BP on other major projects and outsourcing opportunities.