The Story of Vectus Industries' Digital Transformation with SAP S/4 HANA Core Enterprise Management 1511 By Manish Sinha, Head IT, Vectus Industries

The Story of Vectus Industries' Digital Transformation with SAP S4 HANA Core Enterprise Management 1511

Manish Sinha, Head IT, Vectus Industries | Tuesday, 21 June 2016, 08:46 IST

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The Beginning

The following is the snapshot scenario upon my joining

  •  No IT Department
  •  No Handover,
  •  No Documentation,
  •  IT Team Size-4 People,
  •  Locations – 28,
  •  IT Security- Zero,
  •  LAN/WAN Infra- Full of Viruses,
  •  Email Server- Always Blacklisted
  •  Server Downtime- 4 hours Daily,
  •  Invoice Time- 15 Minutes/Invoice
  •  Usual User Hours at Work- 14

The Strategies & Planning

The strategy followed: First 20 days of my job I personally audited the following each area of business supported by IT. I prepared an honest report and submitted it to the management in the following parts: Existing Scenario & Gaps, Projects to be done in first 90 days,
Resources Required.

I prepared budget for the tasks and got it approved by my management. The best part was management understood my vision and assured me of budget and their support at times when it was required.

The toughest part was to stream line existing legacy application as lot of stakeholders were involved in application delivery such as developer, internal IT Team, Internal Infra, ISP For internet and MPLS, Data centre. These stakeholders have designed the server application delivery architecture.

That was a bench mark as on year closing day of March 31, 2015 the server uptime was 100 percent without a signal restart and last day sales touched 5.6 Cr. which was a record in last 7 year. End users working hours also got reduced from 14 hours to 8 hours as standard. So finally IT department got his recognition and confidence back at management &  end users level across nation. 

But this was not happy ending, another big challenge was in store for me when management posed their vision to for the year 2019- As this is its major responsibility shift for any corporate if they plan to go as public limited company.

I discussed with management and we jointly formed a vision: To have a world class ERP infrastructure which will ensure a robust control over financial reporting and build confidence of all stake holders through better monitoring of assets, optimum utilization of resources and complete adherence to compliance. So we zeroed in over SAP

Project Recharge

The real litmus test started the first challenge I faced to decide the project name, I gave it a name called "RECHARGE" as I wanted to register this name in every BPO, Core User and End User's mind. So I wanted to use power of subconscious mind of people to create a wave, a synergy when they work in the project or even if they are outside the office they should have something back in their mind as RECHARGE.

The Learning's Time Savers- RFP-

The RFP we prepared to invite Hardware Proposal/Implementation Partner/Collocation Proposals for Data centre. These helped us a lot for time saving and it gave us chance to revisit our terms and conditions.

Licensing

Till Blue Printing Stage we analyzed that we could have a short fall of professional users. We had limited man power and they were multi tasking so there was a requirement of more professional users rather than worker user.

Hardware on time

We got our hardware delivery on time. It helped us to create testing scenarios for our users. We made them comfortable by giving them a learning client. They did all practice session. This made them aware of the system and getting familiar with screens and T Codes.

Master Data

We got stuck at 2 places in the master data preparation- In our assumption we only considered plants where we have lot of material and we missed out on Depots.

At later stage we got stuck with material stock was lying but code was not created. The reason for that was , we stopped production of material at plant due to non movement but Depots were having its earlier stock. During time of material coding we only considered plant materials.

Trainings

Usually people who train in the project at L1, L2 and L3 level are different from implementation partner. In our Project we did not change the consultants. who configured the system and prepared the BPB- the same consultants trained our users. This helped in understanding ground realities of implementation to the consultants.

User motivation

It means we must set the energy level high among team members. It required us control our emotions and maintain high energy levels across different stages of the project. So first we as a IT team decided that this project is going to change our lives forever.

The Catalysts Management Support

It played a vital role that management understood that it was not an IT Project. From the way negotiated, kicked off project. They understood that it's a project of business and if we want to run our future business in SAP then we have to support IT team and go as per their road map. It helped us to achieve management vision that transformed
entire organization.

Collaborative Approach

This was one of the game changer in the complete Project. Be it was internal team, implementation partner or external auditor, we requested each one to work in collaborative manner. We made this message clear that please do not hold anything on you if you think others are not responding then please bring it our notice so that we can resolve it rather to pass time and later realize that it became a disaster.

Trial Run- ASAP Methodology

It was like a last over of the match for a team who chases a target to win the match. This phase proved to most scoring for us We started trial run for our 2 modules SD and MM. It gave confidence to our BPO's Core Users and End Users by checking flow of the system, identify gaps, checking integration with relevant modules, asses new functionalities or work around solutions.

The other activities were:

  •  Printer Installation
  •  Print out Permission
  •  Module Authorizations
  •  Logon Pad - connection creation for Production Server,
  •    Solution Manager
  •  Load balancing entries.

Final Achievements

7 SAP S/4 HANA Modules going live at  24 Locations Big Bang across India in just 4.5 Months at an organization where IT Department was formed just a year back with 5 team members.

These moments will always be in our heart throughout our life as we registered following milestones with Project RECHARGE SAP S/4 HANA Core Enterprise Management 1511 :

  •  1st in Indian Plastic Industry
  •  1st in Growth & Emerging Sector
  •  2nd in India
  •  2nd In Asia Pacific & Japan Region
  •  3rd in World

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