FELTHAM, United Kingdom — December 2, 2014 — SAP (UK) Limited is pleased to announce the winners of its annual Quality Awards for their successful implementations of SAP solutions. Each year, SAP presents awards to recognise customers who have achieved excellence in planning and executing their SAP projects, delivering significant business value to their respective organisations.
SAP announced six winners, who were awarded Gold, Silver or Bronze accolades and this year SAP broadened the scope of the awards, offering four new Excellence awards in Cloud Innovation and Mobility Innovation. All the winners were presented with their awards at the SAP Quality Awards 2014 Dinner, held on Thursday 27th November.
Each winner showcased the quality processes they put in place during planning and implementation phases, clearly demonstrating how integral they were in ensuring success in the project, resulting in significant benefits to their businesses. The judging panel was made up of representatives from SAP, past winners and external experts who judged against strict criteria including adherence to SAP’s Ten Quality Principles, demonstration of time-to-value and a focus on how quality excellence was achieved through the entire implementation cycle.
There were two categories each with one winner of the Gold Award:
- Rapid Delivery: Gloucestershire County Council with partner Capgemini.
- Business Transformation: Sony Europe Ltd / Sony Electronics Inc. implemented by Sony with support from SAP.
The Excellence Award winners in the Innovation categories were:
Cloud Innovation: M+W Group supported by Gavdi and NATS implemented by Capgemini.
Mobility Innovation: Smiths News supported by Keytree and National Grid with partners SAP, Wipro & IBM.
The Gold and Excellence Award winners are now automatically entered in the SAP EMEA Quality Awards.
The Silver Award winners were Universal Music Group (with partner Bluefin Solutions) for Rapid Delivery and Lloyds Banking Group (with partner HCL) for Business Transformation.
The Bronze Award winners were National Grid (with partner Keytree and supported by SAP and Wipro) for Rapid Delivery and Alere (with partner HCL) for Business Transformation.
“All the award winners deserve significant recognition for their efforts with successful implementations. Coming from a customer background, I know how critical clearly defined quality measures are to ensuring a successful implementation. Adherence to our Quality Principles while demonstrating real business benefit is at the heart of this programme so what these customers have achieved is truly impressive,” said Cormac Watters, Managing Director of SAP UK & Ireland.
Watters continued; “Through the SAP Quality Programme, we aim to work even closer with our customers and partners to ensure the most value is derived from our software. I would like to recognise each and every one of the customers who were shortlisted and congratulate this year’s winners of the awards.”
Rapid Delivery, Gold Award: Gloucestershire County Council
With 11,000 employees working for Gloucestershire County Council (GCC), it is one of the top 3 employers in Gloucestershire. The Council provides services to a population of over 600,000 local residents.
GCC successfully implemented a Budget Monitoring Solution project through the use of SAP Business Warehouse (BW) and BW Integrated Planning. Working with partner Capgemini, and its Local Government template solution, GCC was able to effectively and efficiently deliver monthly forecasts and reports and the project not only resulted in clear business benefits, but even delivered additional ones.
Despite a tight project timeline of six months, using techniques including prototypes and walkthroughs technical go live was achieved within timeline and budget. Over 350 users were successfully upskilled during the implementation. Although the project faced some challenges connected to the cultural change of such a large implementation, partner support and senior management backing helped to overcome this. The project resulted in financial savings for GCC and has improved the budget holder/budget manager experience through simplification and automation of the process. The solution has also improved transparency of information, which supports critical decision taking by lead officers with financial responsibility.
Business Transformation, Gold Award: Sony
Sony successfully achieved the establishment of a global SAP Platform, consolidating two regional SAP systems and implementing a template based harmonised process model for Finance and Accounting with a high degree of standardisation.
The first go-live was achieved in only 15 months from project kick-off and the second go live only three months later. The project involved Sony teams from Europe, the US and Asia, working seamlessly as one to deliver an ambitious scope within an aggressive timeline. The system is now being utilised by thousands of users across 42 countries globally.
Cloud Innovation, Excellence: M+W Group
M+W Group is one of the world’s leading high-tech engineering companies. Partnering with Gavdi to implement SuccessFactors Human Capital Management, M+W Group were able to successfully enable 750 users across the UK, Ireland and Belgium to achieve access to HR related services.
This was the first venture into SAP Cloud HR for M+W Group, which also included the implementation across mobile devices. Careful planning, commitment and high employee engagement have made the project a success and since launch, interest has been received from other countries within M+W Group who are also keen to roll out SAP Cloud HR as a business solution.
Cloud Innovation, Excellence: NATS
A world leader in air traffic management, NATS is the main air navigation control provider in the UK. With an annual turnover over £900m, 4,500 employees and operations on a worldwide scale, NATS needed to enable its sales team to improve processes within the business. Opting for SAP Cloud for Customer allowed it to do this and NATS selected Capgemini as its partner.
Through one to one workshops with business experts and full classroom training, 100 users piloted the programme ensuring wider success. Pre-built demos from SAP and Capgemini enabled NATS to accelerate the design thinking process helping to mitigate significant risk during the implementation.
Having global access through a Cloud solution has allowed for closer team engagement, greatly improving monthly reporting by speeding up the process by one and a half days initially, with more improvements planned.
Mobility Innovation, Excellence: Smiths News
Smiths News, the UK’s leading newspaper and magazine wholesaler which is part of Connect Group PLC, worked with partner Keytree to create a free app (called SNapp) to help its retail customers manage their deliveries, make alterations, monitor and claim for any missing titles or credit, and organise their range. The project was integrated with its existing SAP system through SAP Gateway so its customers can make real-time updates; making it a vital tool for retailers whose time is precious. Throughout the go-live 1,650 users were enabled with customer focus being at the heart of Smiths News philosophy.
Taking full advantage of design thinking sessions and open communications with its retail customers, Smiths News also created a thorough testing strategy which helped to ensure its success. Retailers using SNapp have commented on the app being a ‘time saving tool’ that is easy-to-use, helping them run their business.
Mobility Innovation, Excellence: National Grid
National Grid owns and operates the gas and electricity transmission networks within the UK, making it one of the largest utility providers globally. Using SAP’s Mobility Platform 3.0, it was able to successfully enable 1,800 of its engineers with an app that allows them to check jobs whilst out in the field. National Grid has also built a platform for this solution, enabling mobile technology in the future.
Through meticulous planning, strong design principles and clear lines of reporting, it was able to create a best-in-class application that has delivered significant operational productivity benefits to the company.
To find out more about SAP’s Quality Awards please visit www.sap.com/corporate-en/our-company/quality-awards/index.epx
About SAP
As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device – SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 263,000 customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.
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