What is nXtgen?
Corporate Express has embarked on a significant programme of business transformation – a programme that is expected to provide: a stable platform for Corporate Express to grow and consistent ways of working across the Business.
nXtgen’s objectives are to:
• provide the business with standardised and optimised business processes across CE
• replace our aging legacy systems (ERP) & Meridian (Payroll system) with SAP and enable improved business processes
• actively engage our business to understand and manage the impacts of the changes
• prepare and support our business and people for the future and a successful transition
What is SAP?
SAP is a software system that provides functionality to support a wide range of business processes, including in our case sales order processing from order entry to the receipt of cash from the customer, purchase order processing from the determination of what to order to the payment of the supplier, financial management and controlling. SAP stands for “Systems Applications and Products in data processing”.
When is SAP going live?
New Zealand:
We will be implementing SAP in the New Zealand in early 2010, you will receive specific information relating to you area(s) closer to the implementation date
Australia:
The implementation of SAP across Australia will be deployed by geographic location through out 2010 and early into 2011, you will receive specific information relating to you area(s)
It is worth noting that CE has successfully implemented SAP functionality in Australia and New Zealand including an Enterprise Portal, Human Resources/Payroll and a Master Data Management solution
What measures are you taking to minimising the risk of SAP impacting your normal service levels?
Corporate Express have implemented several strategies to minimise any risk to customer service levels whilst implementing SAP, these include:
• IBM system integration team – Corporate Express have engaged the services of SAP experts from IBM through the life of project using ascendant SAP methodology. This methodology has been successfully in many large SAP implementations.
• Extended Testing & Mock go live – An extended 5 month testing period has been developed including system, integration, volume and user acceptance testing. In addition the business will utilise a mock go live to test the full cut over and functioning of SAP in live situations.
• Staged deployment – CE will be deploying SAP across Australia in staged deployments by geographic region to allow for more focused training and change management.
• Subject Matter Experts – nXtgen has utilised 8 full time matter experts from within the business to provide expert knowledge around process, change management and training.
• Change management - additionally an 18 month long change management project has been undertaken to examine all aspects of the current business processes and ensure that the business will continue to be fully supported by the SAP system.
To manage this project we have formed a highly experienced team which has been working for the past 4 years in standardising and simplifying our business processes. With this team and a phased roll out strategy we are confident of a smooth implementation. Consequently we do not foresee any significant risk for the business.
Will this affect how my goods are delivered?
The implementation of SAP should have no impact on the way goods are delivered to you.
What does the implementation of SAP, at Corporate Express, mean to me as a customer?
In the vast majority of cases there will be no immediately noticeable impact or change in the way we interact with any customer. The basic processes of placing orders, receiving goods and services, receiving and payment of invoices will operate much the same as it does now.
There will be many improvements to internal processes which can only improve the level of service you receive as a customer.
There may be changes to the format and appearance of documents such as invoices, however the content will be the same or greater than the current documents.
Is reporting changing?
Over the past 5 years CE has developed a large amount of on demand customer reporting. As part of the nXtgen project CE will be refining & enhancing our current reporting capability with the objective of providing customers with standardised management information reporting.
Is NetXpress changing?
If you place orders electronically via NetXpress your interaction with our business will not change. There will be minimal changes to NetXpress itself.
What are the benefits to me as a customer?
As part of the SAP implementation we are implementing a business process blueprint that will be used across Australia and New Zealand As a business we are continually striving to improve not only in the level of service but also the consistency of service we provide to you as a customer. The implementation of SAP will greatly improve our abilities to support our customers and improve the level of service we provide to our customers. For the initial implementation we have concentrated on making sure we can support and where appropriate improve on our existing processes and more importantly provide the same level of service to our customers. Following the implementation we will then start to look in depth at areas of improvement.
Will I be dealing with the Account Manager I have always dealt with?
Yes, the implementation of SAP will not have any impact on who you deal with at Corporate Express
Is my account number changing?
Your account code may change however you will be able to continue to use your current account code as they will be cross referenced.
Is my invoice going to change?
The basic format of your invoice will not be changing however you may notice some small formatting changes.
Will my EDI/B2B link change?
For B2B/EDI transactions we will continue to use our industry leading and flexible WebMethods platform to manage our electronic transactions with customers consequently no changes should be required in setup. Corporate Express will be including all B2B/EDI customers as part of our testing plan.
Are product codes staying the same?
Product codes will be remaining basically unchanged, Corporate Express will use the implementation of SAP to improve the data quality of a limited number of codes to remove duplication between Australia and New Zealand.
New order confirmation attachment for NetXpress users
NetXpress users will receive a new order confirmation that will be emailed as a PDF attachment rather than a text based email. This new format is easier to read and will allow for easier storage and printing of confirmations.
We use SAP at our company, what modules will Corporate Express be using?
SAP has a wide range of modules and provides functionality and capabilities suitable for a wide range of industries such as financial and banking, manufacturing, services etc. We will be using the following modules in SAP ECC6:
SD – Sales and Distribution
MM – Materials Management
FI – Financial Management
CO – Controlling
LE - Logistics execution
CRM – Customer Relationship Management
What is Corporate Express doing to train your staff?
We have embarked on a complete change management programme which includes role based application and process based training for all staff that are impacted by the implementation of SAP, plus system overview training for staff that are indirectly impacted by the SAP implementation.
Who else uses SAP in the market?
Many large international companies use SAP, including some of Australian best known brands.
Glossary of Terms:
CO
Controlling is a module within the ERP system that represents the company's flow of cost and revenue. It is a management instrument for organizational decisions. It is automatically updated as events occur.
CRM
Customer Relationship Management system (SAP CRM): supports all the business processes in which customers and external business partners participate. A comprehensive product for all users with customer contact, SAP CRM includes solutions for sales, service and marketing.
ERP
Enterprise Resource Planning system: a packaged business software system that allows a company to automate and integrate the majority of its business processes, to share common data and practices across the entire enterprise, and to produce and access information in a real-time environment.
FI
Financial Accounting is a module within the ERP system designed for automated management and external reporting of general ledger, accounts receivable, accounts payable and other sub-ledger accounts with a user defined chart of accounts. As entries are made relating to sales production and payments journal entries are automatically posted. This connection means that the "books" are designed to reflect the real situation.
FICO
Financial Accounting and Controlling are modules within the ERP system.
HR
Human Resources is a module within the ERP system used for supporting the planning and control of personnel activities.
HRM
Human Resource Management: Process stream that encompasses all areas of HR for example recruitment, compensation management, performance management and learning & development.
Legacy System
System(s) currently used by CE.
Master Data
Master Data is created centrally and used on a long-term basis to ensure consistency of information across several business processes within the SAP system. (E.g. Customer Master, Material Master, Vendor Master and the G/L Chart of Accounts)
MDM
Master Data Management: Process stream that encompasses lifecycle management of any standardised descriptive or numerical term used to identify data objects within our business.
MM
Materials Management is a module within the ERP system that supports the procurement and inventory functions occurring in day-to-day business operations such as purchasing, inventory management, and reorder point processing, etc.
nXtgen
CE business function responsible for the adoption of common processes and data standards and implementation of the SAP solution across CCA Australia and New Zealand.
PM
Plant Maintenance is a module within the ERP system supporting equipment planning, servicing, rebuilding, scheduling and completion of maintenance tasks.
SAP
The acronym stands for Systems Applications and Products. It is both the company and software name of enterprise-software.
SCM
Supply Chain Management: Describes the active management of the entire supply chain from supplier to customer. SAP solution that integrates information and decisions from the entire supply chain into a seamless, automated, and optimized information infrastructure. It provides the framework for integrating strategic decision support, data warehousing, planning and simulation, forecasting and execution systems in a closed loop with core enterprise financial, logistics and human resource applications.
SD
Sales and Distribution is a module within the ERP system handling customer transactions of orders.
SME
Subject Matter Expert: an individual from within the business who has expert working knowledge of a particular business process and/or system.
UAT
User Acceptance Testing: activity undertaken to confirm systems operating relevance.
