Case Story: SAP as a strategic solution
The client was a pan-European business that had enjoyed remarkable short-term growth. But this growth had put strains on its systems and controls. The Peter Charles team were called in to help. An initial review revealed that the company needed to install a finance and accounting system that would provide timely and accurate information — and the system had to be designed to grow with the company.
Working closely with the client's finance team, the Peter Charles team project-managed all implementation, from selecting the system and its provider, negotiating the contracts, through to the final sign-off. No implementation is easy and the Finance Director admitted that there were a couple of difficult moments. From a strategic perspective, it did not make sense to use (expensive) equity funding to invest in hardware and software, so the Peter Charles team recommended to use an Application Service Provider (ASP) version of SAP.
The accounting system in place was a local Dutch system, which was struggling to cope with the growth from one legal entity to six and, more crucially, failing to cope with the raft of currencies and issues of cross-border payments.
Accurate financial information was vital: not only was the year-end approaching but the next round of financing was also looming. Installation had to be completed quickly. SAP installations can take 18 months to two years. This one was installed in just three months. Angela said: "We could not have gone through the year-end with our old system."
The major difficulties came in uploading the data from the old system and then verifying its accuracy and completeness. For all involved in the project, there was a steep learning curve with many challenges — such as bugs in the system — and innovative solutions needed at short notice.
Angela said: "One of the big advantages of installing an ASP version of SAP, is that we have in place a massive global system at a very early stage in our development. It's very scalable and we have now been through the pain barrier of implementation."
While many consultancies would be able to put in large SAP systems using an armies of consultants, Peter Charles' unique advantage is the ability to make-to-measure an SAP model that took into account financing and strategic considerations, as well as the specific operational needs.