British Waterways - Implementing change and increasing efficiency with SAP
British Waterways
British Waterways relies on LogicaCMG's SAP expertise and high-quality technology to help streamline operations and improve service to citizens.
LogicaCMG provides an outsourced full-service SAP implementation to improve financial and business process controls. The solution is achieving goals of process improvement and cost savings, and has reinforced British Waterways’ confidence in the benefits of partnering with LogicaCMG.
British Waterways overview
British Waterways is the public corporation responsible for the care and enhancement of a 2,000-mile network of canals and rivers in the UK. Often working in partnership with public, private and voluntary organisations, British Waterways seeks to develop and improve the waterways in a sustainable manner.
With an annual turnover of £200M and around 2,200 staff throughout the UK, British Waterways
operates a highly diverse business including leisure and tourism, property management, water sales, telecommunications and regeneration.
Business requirement
British Waterways chose LogicaCMG to implement and provide application support and hosting for a SAP solution as part of a 10-year £20M managed service contract. This was part of a radical overhaul of the business processes supporting the UK’s waterway network, to transform their business into a more efficient operation focussing on customers as much as assets.
The new solution helps maximise efficiencies in every area of British Waterways’ business, including property management, assets, leisure and tourism, natural environment, commercial partnerships and regeneration projects. Information from all these business areas is integrated and visible across the organisation, and the SAP system allows users to access and manipulate data easily and rapidly.
SAP implementation
British Waterways chose a SAP solution to replace its aging legacy systems environment, which was inflexible and unable to support the rapidly changing business.
The one year implementation project started in April 2002, and included the delivery of a broad scope of SAP functionality covering:
● back office processes such as finance, procurement, HR and payroll
● work and asset management including plant maintenance, project systems, and investment
management
● sales and distribution
● property management
● analysis and reporting with Business Warehouse
● user interface - the SAP Enterprise Portal provides users with a real time customised view of all
relevant business processes through their desktops.
The solution interfaced with British Waterways’ ESRI geographic information system (GIS) to allow
information on waterway assets from the SAP system to be viewed in GIS.
LogicaCMG’s role
LogicaCMG carried out the one year implementation project, working on-site in a joint project team
with British Waterways staff. As part of the implementation LogicaCMG also designed and delivered end-user training and change management programmes, to maximise acceptance and best use of the system associated with new ways of working.
Many British Waterways staff, including the Chief Executive, expressed appreciation of LogicaCMG’s performance and effort over the implementation period.
Delivery on schedule
The British Waterways SAP implementation went live, on schedule, on April 7th 2003. It was an important part of the most ambitious change project undertaken by British Waterways and was led by a 40 strong project team of British Waterways and LogicaCMG people. Initially, about 1,200 British Waterways’ staff had access to the SAP system from both office and remote locations, and the company estimates this user base will increase to at least 2,000 by 2008.
Commitment across both companies, combined with an innovative style and a high degree of cultural fit, continue to be key success factors in LogicaCMG’s relationship with British Waterways. The SAP system was delivered under very tight timescales and the success of this implementation project was made possible by the hard work, skill and experience of people at both LogicaCMG and British Waterways.
Valuable partner
LogicaCMG’s blended service delivery capabilities enable us to provide remote application support from our SAP Service Centre near Birmingham and application hosting from our secure data centre in Bridgend.
LogicaCMG procured the servers required to host the SAP solution, and installed them at Bridgend. From here we provide a robust, high availability connection to the British Waterways network.
Benefits
British Waterways derived substantial benefits from the integration of its enterprise software platform. These benefits include streamlined business processes and the ability to now provide a better service to both internal and external customers. Their staff now benefit from an integrated set of systems and processes, resulting in an accessible, unified and customisable view of customer and asset data.
Why LogicaCMG?
As a SAP Global Services partner, one of only a handful of accredited hosting partners in the UK., and with over 2,000 SAP experts worldwide, LogicaCMG possesses the complete range of skills and capabilities to support the development of its customers’ SAP systems.
Along with the full range of SAP solutions, we specialise in SAP support, hosting, outsourcing, and
change management. Often pioneering, we work in partnership with our customers to add value, to innovate and to deliver tangible benefits from their SAP solutions.
LogicaCMG’s Enterprise Solutions business is a centre of excellence in SAP, with links across Europe, Australia and the United States. It has been delivering successful SAP implementations for many years and now boasts over 1,000 SAP implementations completed globally.
LogicaCMG’s track record in SAP
LogicaCMG has experience in implementing SAP in various sectors and is particularly strong in the UK utilities and public sectors. The success of these projects has positioned LogicaCMG as one of SAP UK’s lead partners and our impressive track record includes SAP implementation projects for Dwr Cymru Welsh Water, UKAEA, British Waterways, Yorkshire Water Services, Powergen, Centrica HRL, Hertfordshire County Council and the London Boroughs of Waltham Forest and Haringey.
“The most pleasing thing about the whole project was the way the two teams
gelled immediately. There was no lead in time and we went live on schedule within the
space of a one year development, which is no mean feat for a project of this size” Richard Walsh, Head of ICT, British Waterways