In 2007, Mahindra & Mahindra looked at creating a common IT
platform for common processes across the Group. The Group, which
comprises over 100 companies operating across different sectors,
had no common IT processes or shared services. It was running
several projects on multiple instances with no standardization of
processes, systems or data related to customers, partners, vendors,
employees or even products.
Creating a common shared-services platform would enable the Group
exploit synergies better, improve efficiencies and
effectiveness—while reducing overall costs. It would also
help the Group to grow both organically and inorganically. With
this objective in mind, the Group implemented SAP ECC 6.0.
During the implementation phase which lasted eight months, the
IT team implemented harmonized processes for HR, finance, accounts
and procurement, employee and manager self-service, and logistics
processes for the manufacturing and services companies within the
Group. A Common Business Analytics strategy was drafted prior to
the actual implementation and Business Analytics (BW, BOBJ), was
implemented.
“When this initiative of bringing together the entire
IT infrastructure of over 40 companies on a single SAP instance was
suggested, I thought that like all other IT guys, our guys were
also a bit of dreamers. But one year down the line, the team did
what SAP thinks only Indians can do and that is make the impossible
happen.”
- V S Parthasarathy, Group CIO, Executive VP – Finance and
Mergers & Acquisitions Services, Mahindra & Mahindra
Besides implementing Master Data Management and Governance, Risk
and Compliance (GRC), the team looked at integrating the overall
system with other systems such as SAP SCM and dealer portals. The
most important change in the IT infrastructure was that all
individual SAP instances that previously ran on separate servers
were consolidated into a single SAP ECC 6.0 instance. Some of the
new companies in the Group who were implementing SAP for the first
time were also integrated with the Harmony project.
Given the huge scale of the project, a 400-person team of over
40 companies and consulting partners worked together during the
implementation phase. There were two mock runs with 100 percent
data which required a migration time of less than 24 hours. A
special tool was developed to tackle the huge volume of data
(approximately 90 million records). It could extract data from the
legacy system, convert it automatically as perthe new data
structure in the Harmony system and upload it to the new system.
The IT team was thus able to reduce the downtime from the estimated
four days to less than 24 hours.
The implementation phase went live in just eight months making it
one of the fastest implemented projects of its size.
Project unprecedented in the SAP
world
The company now has a common invoice format for all the Group
companies having different businesses.The system provides a common
view of customers, partners, vendors, employees and products. The
employee self-services capabilities allows employees to have direct
access to their information, eliminating the need to go to the HR
department. In the ‘Go Live’ stage, the project has
about 14,000 users from across 100 different cities together on a
single consolidated instance with over 40 harmonized processes. The
project has not only brought together over 40 company codes on a
single ERP instance, but has also seen almost 20 horizontal and
industry-specific SAP solutions being implemented in parallel,
which is unprecedented in the SAP world.
Project Highlights
- Creation of a Single Platform for common processes and master
data, which would lay the foundation for the roll out of Shared
Services across the Mahindra Group
- Largest ever SAP project implemented in India and one of the
largest globally as well.
- Most projects attempt go-live of only ERP for a few Companies.
This project not only brought together 40 plus company codes on a
single ERP instance; it also involved implementation of almost 20
horizontal and industry specific SAP solutions in parallel, which
is unprecedented in the SAP world.
- Despite the complexity and size of the project, the
implementation phase went live in only 8 months in a big bang way,
which also makes it one of the fastest implemented projects of this
size.
Mahindra & Mahindra is a Diamond EDGE (2010)
winner. The complete list of EDGE winners is published in the
October print issue of InformationWeek (India)
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