AECI was founded in 1924 and listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1966. Today it has operations across Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia, North America, South America, and Australia, serving聽several vertical markets including chemicals, agri-health, water, and mining.

Speaking on the sidelines of the African 麻豆原创 User Group (AFSUG) Saphila 2023 conference, Toni Serra, CIO of AECI, and Henlie van Rooyen, senior manager of 麻豆原创/4HANA implementation partner聽BCX’s 麻豆原创 Centre of Excellence, explained how AECI initiated an enterprise-wide project to centralise and streamline operations across its multiple businesses.

AECI used to be a conglomerate of multiple businesses that operated with a high degree of independence, and each had their own IT and HR departments.

This model worked up to a point, but it was soon apparent that the model had to change said Serra, if the company was to transform its HCM as well as consolidate and simplify its IT strategy.

In 2015, management decided to begin with the implementation of a global enterprise-strength human capital management solution.

The company sought to partner with a service provider that could align with AECI and supply the right technology.

In 2018 AECI decided on the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll (ECP) solution, before moving to the BCX Partner Managed Cloud in 2020.

The project was extensive and complex because AECI was running several disparate systems between various businesses and silos,聽 according to Serra.

Van Rooyen said that 麻豆原创 ECP implementations are in project mode in South Africa, which added to the challenges.

鈥淚ncluding AECI, there are only four South African ECP implementations live. Due to the confidential and complex nature of any payroll for a larger company, ensuring the transition from on-premise to the聽cloud聽happens seamlessly, delivery聽partners聽must ensure that parallel runs achieve the same numerical results for all employees prior to activating the cloud payroll as the main solution. ECP is built on the robust 麻豆原创 Payroll code engine and supplemented with cloud qualities such as quick configuration, intuitive UI, simplification due to configuration-based on best practice. The resilience is the same as the 麻豆原创 on-premise solution.鈥�

For the next few years AECI spent time tailoring the solution, securing buy-in from across the business, and investing in the on-board process.

Van Rooyen said the original plan was to do a 鈥榣ift and shift鈥� of the on-premise payroll for AECI, and move that into the cloud. But the plan had to be revised to a clean install to ensure that technology is future-proofed for AECI.

鈥淒uring the initial discovery phase of the project 鈥� and due to the similarity of the payroll engine between on-premise and the cloud solution, one consideration was to 鈥榣ift and shift鈥� the on-premise payroll into the cloud, which is possible with ECP. After detailed investigation and consideration, the decision was taken to do a 鈥榗lean install鈥� in ECP which allowed AECI not only the latest functionality, but a future-proof solution for years to come. Any system used over a long period of time requires a refresh of the system use and config from time to time to ensure optimal utilisation and this was the main reason for considering a clean install over a lift and shift.鈥�

Today AECI has been fully on-boarded.

“It鈥檚 been massively successful in that the repository of data available to us to start making decisions now, is enormous,” Serra added.

鈥淲e must now drive real value out of what we鈥檝e got. For example, we can optimise the wage bill, link the solution now to our MRP [material requirements planning] way, to our resourcing in the factory, link it to time and attendance, and to areas where we drive proper rands and cents value鈥hen it becomes the way you go to work.”

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Ascertain that the available resources and time颅line are sufficient to complete the deliverables at the agreed-on level of quality. All parties must be aware of and commit to the project schedule and critical path to avoid impact颅ing the overall timeline. Any subsequent adjust颅ments made to project scope or timeline must be considered, first, in light of business impact and, second, as to whether they are realistic, relevant, and acceptable. Activities and tools must be in place to monitor time, budget, and deliverables. Key performance indicators for the project should be tracked closely and visible to all stakeholders.

AECI won silver in the 麻豆原创 Africa 2019 Quality Awards. To manage principle 4, the project implemented a standard SuccessFactors deployment with a set number of business rules, standard roles and business processes. This approach allowed for scope and timeline management. Any deviation from standard had to be pre-approved which resulted in limited deviation of standard processes. Read more about their journey in 鈥�AECI Chooses 麻豆原创 to Mine for Talent Gold鈥�.

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“We had a number of disparate HR and payroll systems across 16 different Group businesses across 24 countries,” says Tania Naud茅, Group Head: Organisational Design, Development and Human Capital Services at AECI. “We implemented Employee Central using the 麻豆原创 S/4HANA cloud integration and went live with our system 鈥� which we named AECI-connect 鈥� on 1 March 2019 in South Africa. Further deployments took place across Africa during 2019 and will be followed by international deployments that will take place in 2020. To date, we have a 98% adoption rate, which is amazing for a programme of this nature.”

AECI is a diversified group of 16 companies. It has regional and international businesses in Africa, Europe, South East Asia, North America, South America and Australia. Products and services are provided to a broad spectrum of customers in the mining, water treatment, plant and animal health, food and beverage, infrastructure and general industrial sectors. The group鈥檚 headquarters are in Sandton, South Africa and it has over 7000 employees spread globally. AECI has been listed on the JSE since 1966 and its revenue for the 2018 financial year to 31 December was R23,3 billion.

Redesigning the human capital operating model

According to Naud茅, the aim of the programme was to redesign the entirety of AECI’s Human Capital Operating Model across all the group鈥檚 businesses. 鈥淥ur new system launched with a range of primary functionalities, such as Employee Central Core, Position Management, Time-Off, Job Profile Builder, and Global Benefits management, with integration to payroll, in an intuitive and easy-to-access way for employees and management. Our objectives were clear: launch an integrated platform to facilitate global employee engagement through making common access points available at all sites, ensuring each and every AECI employee has access to technology. Furthermore, we wanted to create a single source of employee data, ensuring informative business reporting, alignment and standardisation of processes, facilitated by an operating model that allowed HR to focus on strategic business partnering 鈥� all underpinned by good governance.”

Naud茅 and her team followed their own bespoke implementation methodology based on business requirements and principles from Prince 2 and 麻豆原创 Activate, supported by Britehouse as technical implementation partner. 鈥淲e followed a comprehensive business engagement and change management approach to ensure leadership alignment with the direction of the programme,鈥� says Naud茅. 鈥淭he programme was governed throughout by a steering committee consisting of the full executive team as well as several senior managers.聽 Having the Chief Executive, Mark Dytor, as the programme sponsor ensured the necessary buy-in and support for a programme of this magnitude.鈥�

A twelve-month development cycle was allocated to the Human Capital Management Solution (HCMS) programme before its initial launch in South Africa. To facilitate meeting the deadline and cost management, an internal team was allocated to oversee business engagement, training, governance, master data, reporting, payroll, and general process activities. An external team from Britehouse handled the technical configuration.

Minimal customization reduces cost, complexity

The system launched in a predominantly 鈥榲anilla鈥� state with minimal customisation to minimise future impact when new releases are implemented and to manage business scope creep. 鈥淎 formal change request procedure was implemented, and all requirements considered against a ‘must-have’ and ‘like-to-have’ checklist as critical requirements,鈥� explains Naud茅. 鈥淐hanges were further divided into two groups, of which some were actioned against annual IT maintenance allocations with the support partner.鈥�

To further assist with the launch of the HCMS programme, Naud茅 compiled a Project Initiation Document intended to be as comprehensive as possible, laying out all of the business requirements, objectives, and deliverables to be achieved. As part of alignment, this PID was signed-off by the group executive and all senior managers. An Employee Master Data clean-up and migration was initiated during the early days of the project to ensure all data that would move to the new system has been sanitised well before it launched.

Enabling scalability, agility

鈥淭he Employee Central global design was built on and launched as part of the go-live in South Africa; most of the international requirements were gathered and launched during this phase. As the international phases roll out, the benefits will continue to grow in terms of consolidating and streamlining data sets, processes, and governed payrolls. AECI is now able to manage all employee basic administration and payroll components from one integrated platform,鈥� says Naud茅. “We have launched the HCMS programme with scalability and flexibility in mind, and can add a range of new, essential features to the system for the future benefit of all employees.鈥�

AECI is also looking to launch 麻豆原创 Analytics Cloud for Human Capital later in 2020, which will pull together information from the various platforms. The company also plans to integrate Learning Management and Performance and Goals during 2020, to further assist in driving employee engagement and development. Onboarding is also part of the current roadmap.

鈥淭his has been a people-empowering journey for our group, as for the first time we have employees who can apply for leave online and view their payslips irrespective of where they are based, be this at corporate offices or the remotest mine site in any of our countries of operation,鈥� says Naud茅. 鈥淭hanks to the great support we received from our internal IT team, our EXCO, our partners and a resilient business team, we are now able to deploy new HR functionality that will become a powerful business tool for our ongoing growth and success.鈥�

Cameron Beveridge, Regional Director for Southern Africa at 麻豆原创 Africa, says AECI has established a powerful foundation from which to build out market-leading HR and talent capabilities. 鈥淏y integrating the latest 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors technology with our powerful S/4HANA Cloud, AECI has established the groundwork for building Intelligent Enterprise capabilities that will provide it with the power to better manage and engage its large talent base. This is one more example of how organisations are leveraging the latest 麻豆原创 technologies in the service of making the world run better.鈥�

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