Customers & Case Studies

Case Study

Complex SAP Business One implementation utilising advanced UI features, UI-add-ons and integrations with strategic partners - data is and always has been critical for DACS and as a result, the project entailed a complex data migration phase that imported hundreds of thousands of historical master data and transactional data elements that were further required to work seamlessly with the business processes and add-ons designed. SAP Business One replaced all source systems - including Salesforce as the CRM system as well as other internal systems for finance, royalties and distribution.

The customer

Established by artists for artists, DACS is a not-for-profit visual artists' rights management organisation.

The challenge

Due to the pandemic, the project had to be carried out fully remotely from the early phases. DACS required a number of integrations with their external strategic partners in order to bring into SAP Business One several critical data elements in large volumes and frequency - such as web enquires for copyright licensing, quotations for sold artworks and artist data updates to name a few. Within the SAP Business One system, additional services and an add-on was designed to calculate royalties for distribution of these sales based on complex beneficiary structures for living and dead artists - as well as being able to handle adjustments to these beneficiary structures and recalculate distributions accordingly. Historical data migration was, however, the greatest challenge in this project - with a requirement to import huge volumes of artist, beneficiary, customer, international sister society data, artwork data, historical and open sales transactions, open royalty journals and historical distributions to work with the services. Also due to the risk of losing key data - a significant review exercise of all source system field mappings was required (including Salesforce).

The solution

Close interaction with the SAP Partner in critical design stages along with a vigorous design review process ensuring every design detail was discussed in detail with the relevant teams (remotely with success). As part of the core design, every field from each source system was reviewed and critical fields identified and mapped to SAP Business One (with 350+ custom fields added across all data elements). The SAP screens were designed with ease of use for each relevant department. Data migration had a detailed strategy and execution plan with the use of scripts and an advanced ETL process with a significant amount of testing - with detailed fields related to the integrations needing correct valid values to ensure the services can correctly work with the imported data. Critical migration elements ran through a few test cycles.

The results

It was a priority for the critical data to be imported correctly - and with every large migration project - timelines needed to be realistic in order to achieve this level of accuracy, especially with the level of sensitivity and data object involved. Post-UAT sign off, it was down to the historical and open data migration import - we were able to import data in stages and make corrections as needed in almost all areas (as there were special characters to deal with also latter updates). We were able to test data migration elements before importing large volumes. It was critical to ensure the open transactions can correctly be picked up by the integration services and add-ons - which they have - with overall reconciliation results being 99% accurate.

The testimonial

Enterprise Information Systems worked closely with the DACS project team to work through specific business process scenarios, to sense-check the Solution Design, and to call out any missed opportunities for further streamlining, specifically in the area of FMS (field-level automation and pre-population). With no in-house SAP expertise on hand, we called upon Mohsen from Enterprise Information Systems to help answer "how would we do this?" on a regular basis, and he was inventive in helping us to think through problems and offer up potential solutions, and a good number of these were included within the final build and end-use processes. The project was substantial in scale, especially for data migration – we utilised Enterprise Information Systems to map hundreds of source database fields to SAP standard and UDF fields, populate DTW templates with clear instructions for use by onwards developers, then assist in the testing of the data output within the DTW templates, and to provide detailed help in working through the resulting import errors. In addition to assisting throughout the project, Mohsen was a critical helping hand for us during the live migration of hundreds of thousands of records.
Joy Stanley
Business & Operations Project Manager

The customer

Cafedirect PLC is a fairtrade coffee company founded in 1991. As well as producing high-quality fairtrade coffee in roasted beans and ground forms, Cafedirect's product portfolio includes organic coffee, freeze-dried coffee, decaffeinated coffee, tea products and cocoa products. Not only are their fairtrade products sold in major UK supermarkets but are distributed worldwide.

The challenge

Cafedirect have multiple procurement environments which included both purchasing, production and stock processes which needed to seamlessly integrate to the latter sales processing and distribution processes. Stock accuracy, cost of sales and revenue timing was key and a strong integration platform to ensure the end-to-end process is as seamless as possible as well easy to manage. Not only this - the entire project had to be designed and live in a very short time frame.

The solution and approach

The critical processes of the entire business relied on integrations with strategic partners that were designed and mapped field-by-field and condition-by-condition. It was critical to identify every integration's purpose clearly (start and end points) and every possible variable within each integration. It was furthermore critical to identify how the integrations linked to each other in the overall end-to-end process - whilst ensuring the integrity of the standard SAP solution was upheld and expected results was achieved. The documentation to design this was heavily detailed and technical so that the SAP Partner was able to understand and support the technical design as well using real time data and files for testing. Standard SAP processes were trained and tested on in detail to ensure full understanding of the purchasing, sales and production processes as well the finance and master data modules in user competency.

The results

The project was live in less than 6 months with all critical integrations in place. The users were confident with the system and user-experience from day one was extremely positive. The system has continued to evolve with new function being implemented (such as approval procedures and a reporting platform with Microsoft Power BI).

The testimonial

Cafédirect had encountered some early setbacks with the implementation project which had threatened the planned go-live date. The business needed an experienced and hands-on professional to support what was a very ambitious project plan. For a company of our size without in-house IT resources, and with requirements for significant customisation to integrate Cafédirect's inherent supply chain complexities, it was a very challenging project.

Looking back to the time we engaged Mohsen from Enterprise Information Systems, we didn't fully appreciate how important engaging the right consultant was for our business. The scale of 'unknown unknowns' was, as we learned later, monumental. Had we not found support of this calibre, we would have experienced skills gaps that would have been insurmountable and resulted in an implementation that was both much later than planned, and vastly inferior.

Thanks to these "Project Manager PLUS" credentials, together we executed an implementation that was delivered on time and exceeded our expectations. It cannot be underestimated the benefits to our business derived from this involvement. That gap between Project Manager and "Project Manager Plus" would be enormous - put simply - the difference between long-term success and long-term compromise for our business. We are moved to comment, on behalf of Cafédirect, as to how and why Mohsen enabled this achievement:

He cares. It is evident that the right outcome for the customer matters greatly. Commitment to the project and personal integrity is absolute
Personal skills - Mohsen proved able to stay focused on tasks and deliver them to plan without causing tension with people in the business. When people are being asked to do work on top of their regular job - success requires a certain character and a certain approach. We never needed to manage a single situation where tension arose but at the same time, tasks were always delivered on time and the timing of the program maintained
Vast experience and technical knowledge of the SAP product but also with SAP implementation partners. The knowledge Mohsen has with their ways of working leads to a much more efficient process - put simply he knows what they need which saves a lot of time that would otherwise be lost in translation, with the consequent delays and cost arising from that
Willingness to help, even when it doesn't fall strictly within the scope of his work, he understands how important user acceptance is and helps them to master SAP
Listening and positivity - never pre-judges and always focused on finding solutions to problems. It cannot be stressed enough how the, all too common, experience with consultants who are naturally inclined toward the "path of least resistance". This always leads to sub-optimal solutions. We were always comfortable to push and explore the best solutions

Two years after go-live we are still developing the system with Enterprise Information Systems in support. That is an endorsement of the quality of the approach to the project - we established something that could be built upon. Implementing SAP is not a one-time event - the transformation it brings to the organisation brings more opportunities to evolve, and to refine the solution. Being in a position to depend on the continuity of their input has been critical as part of our journey. From our CEO down to operational people throughout our organisation - there is outward and total respect for their lasting contribution to our business success.

We furthermore agree to being a reference site for Enterprise Information Systems.

James Nixon Katrina Pantelli
Head of Finance Head of Operations

The customer

Renowned in the global showbiz industry as a maker, supplier and hirer of professional costumes for the film, theatre, TV and other related industries - they have the largest collection of quality costumes and accessories anywhere in the world. Established in 1840, they have worked with some of the most prestigious film and TV productions in history - as well as a history of working with known costumiers and production firms. The smaller entity focuses on selling non-professional stock costumes directly to consumers and distributors globally via various online and distribution channels.

The challenge

The two entities focus on entirely different areas of the overall business and follow completely unique processes. Though fundamental financial configuration and master data concepts are shared, the individual processes designed had to be considered with care and detail; as there was little or no overlap in terms of the processing of sales and purchase transactions and even G/L transactions. The smaller entity furthermore required their SAP Business One system to integrate with the main stock system that feeds from several website channels and with dedicated VAT requirements across Europe.

The solution and approach

Despite the challenge around significantly different business processes, a template approach was taken to designing the chart of accounts (to enable consolidated reporting for future) and core configuration of the system as a whole. After this stage, each individual entity was designed with its own processes. Many common elements of training were shared with slight tweaks - such as financial training, business partner training, stock management training, report training and even the fundamentals of sales and puchasing were shared. The specifics for each entity were then differentiated to the relevant teams; along with the latter UAT-phase and go-live/cutover planning. Working with an SAP Partner, a rapid implementation process was followed. For the smaller entity, the end result was 8 integrations with the stock system - from item updates, purchase receipts and stock adjustments to sales invoices/credit note imports and stock reconciliation. This phase required heavy testing - including significant focus on like-for-like testing with the current systems in order to test stock reconciliation and values based on daily changes. This release went through four test cycles before final sign-off.

The results

The project was rolled out over two separately-phased go-lives. The main entity was the first to go-live in 2020; with the implementation an immediate success with immediate adoption and very few go-live issues. Further small post-go-live phases were completed for Fixed Assets implementation and other areas over the next 3-6 months. The smaller entity went live in 2021 after a detailed UAT-phase - and successfully ran daily imports for a number of weeks without any fundamental issues. Any post-go live integration issues were resolved quickly and recommended improvements were designed, tested and released efficiently. Due to the success of the project, there is a strong, trusting and on-going relationship.

The testimonial

The Angel's business had for many years operated on an ancient platform and was ready to take the plunge in aligning itself with a new modern system. Having shopped around we finally settled to go with SAP.

In order to migrate to the new system, we required an affluent and skilled Project Manager. Our SAP Partner recommended Mohsen from Enterprise Information Systems Ltd to take this on. Since taking him on as our Project Manager, we have had nothing but progress and success. He has worked with us throughout the project, sat in on all of the meetings whether big or small and ensured that we had the right support and guidance from the inception of the project right through to go-live and post go-live. He has provided sound advice and solved any issues that we have faced. He has also provided the business with training and detailed explanations of processes within SAP. The technical experience, problem solving skills and Mohsen's all-round good nature and willing to support and guide are his biggest assets.

I would highly recommend Enterprise Information Systems to anyone thinking of implementing SAP within their business.

Rohit Pankhania

Director of Finance