What to do to minimize losses and get your business processes back on track as soon as possible? The answer is: outsource SAP Maintenance to Hicron, a partner with over 13 years of experience.
In this article you will read two stories of companies that struggled with difficulties with their ERP software. What were the obstacles to overcome, and what did we do to help? Continue reading to find out!
Maflow’s problem: specialist not found
Although SAP has a significant share in the ERP systems market, it is not the only provider of business software. Sometimes it happens that a company decides to use a solution offered by one of the smaller producers. This decision often results in completely unexpected problems.
Maflow experienced it first-hand. This multinational company used an implemented system for electronic data interchange (EDI). Because of Maflow’s continuous structural development, the existing solution was no longer sufficient and the company began to look for specialists to carry out its expansion. However, it quickly turned out that the implemented EDI system is quite niche, and thus – there are very few experts on the market. The prohibitive price of its expansion also turned out problematic.
Solution
There was a way out of this situation – establish close cooperation with Hicron. In consultation with the committed, experienced specialists from our team, Maflow made a decision to implement an SAP system “from scratch”. It was a big challenge to prepare and implement all the modules the company needed, but the resulting software could support a dynamically and constantly developing company.
However, the partnership between Hicron and Maflow does not end there. In order to have constant access to committed and experienced specialists, the company decided to use our Maintenance services. Under the contract, SAP experts, people responsible for the development and maintenance of systems, provide the company with support and advice at any time. This ensured the efficiency of SAP systems at Maflow!
Mitutoyo’s problem: untrained workers
Many companies implementing SAP still do not pay attention to conducting trainings for software users. As a result, when the system is launched, employees do not have the necessary skills, which results in a buildup of errors. IT specialists – unprepared to work with the new tool – are not able to resolve the incoming incidents. In such a situation it is very easy to completely break down the company’s business processes.
Fortunately, the disaster at Mitutoyo was prevented, although the future looked very bleak at times. The company lacked people who could resolve user requests on an ongoing basis. Worse still, the SAP system was just taking off and remained in the demanding hyper care phase – and the company had no specialists to oversee it.
Solution
Hicron turned out to be the cure for the bad SAP system implementation and ignoring the issue of employee training. The vast knowledge and experience gained on international markets (also on the German market), that we share, for example, within the DSAG group, allowed our SAP experts to offer exactly the support that the company needed.
Maintenance specialists became part of the Mitutoyo team: they worked at the company’s premises for 3 days a week, solving problems on an ongoing basis, stabilizing the operation of the SAP system, and conducting training for employees. Thanks to their hard work and the commitment of the users, together they managed to keep all business processes running, and thus: protect the company from colossal losses.
One of Hicron’s activities was transfer of knowledge. As a result of the training, the IT specialists from Mitutoyo mastered the SAP system enough to easily cope with 1st and 2nd line support. However, this does not mean that Hicron’s role ended there. As part of long-term cooperation based on trust and support, our SAP specialists are still ready to ensure the smooth and stable operation of the system and support the company with 3rd line support.
It was equally important to design the Fi-Co module from scratch – enabling efficient and effective handling of financial and controlling processes. This task rested on the shoulders of an expert from Hicron, who turned into a solution architect for the duration of the support service at Mitutoyo.
True partnership is based on commitment!
Both of these stories have a common moral – the SAP Maintenance contract means cooperation based on deep commitment and experience. You can trust a partner who is willing to be part of your team and cares about your success. So if you are wondering where to outsource the supervision of your company’s software – contact us! If you want to learn more about Hicron’s activities, see the case study of our cooperation with Maflow and Mitutoyo.
