To make it all happen, the company turned to Accenture, a close partner for more than 10 years on a series of strategic and technology initiatives. Accenture was awarded the project in a competitive bid.
Accenture first worked with the company to outline the benefits from the project:
- Enhanced business insight to support decision making and setting the company's strategic direction.
- Streamlined processes to comply with regulatory requirements.
- More efficient partnering with suppliers and providers.
- Increased nimbleness and flexibility with a more efficient and comprehensive ERP system.
- Significant savings through new procurement systems and vendor consolidation.
Accenture led the efforts during planning, design and implementation. Workforce enablement was one important key to the project's success. For the system upgrade to have maximum business impact, company executives needed to sponsor and encourage the changes resulting from the program; the business users had to be able to perform the new processes; and workers needed to be adept at using the new tools at their disposal. Accordingly, Accenture instituted a comprehensive "business readiness" program, led by experienced resources from Accenture's Human Performance practice and Accenture Learning BPO Services.
The program included change management, training, communications and executive sponsorship and alignment. Thanks to these efforts focused on the human performance dimensions of the project, users understood their new roles and were able to use the system with minimal disruption. The project team also saw a steady increase in buy-in from executive sponsors, who eventually held regular meetings to track progress and contribute to the project's success.
For the training aspects of the business readiness program, the team leveraged the deep instructional design expertise of Accenture Learning BPO Services, delivered through the Accenture Delivery Center network. By capitalizing on the content development center—and its proven infrastructure, techniques and track record—the company could deliver training with a greater impact on performance, with less risk and cost. The training program included computer-based training modules for aspects of the SAP and Ariba capabilities. The classroom-based training delivered by Accenture for a disparate group of users received some of the highest satisfaction scores that the client had experienced.
To further ensure optimal performance by system users, the business readiness team created an online quick reference resource using a tool closely aligned with SAP to enable users to receive context-specific support as they performed the new processes in SAP R/3. The business readiness team also handled the security specifications for each user. The team defined the security levels necessary for each role, which were then implemented by the technical team. This approach enabled users to perform effectively on day one without delays or problems involving security levels and protocols.