Wrapping agility around your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system
Reduced processing time by
98%
Number of man hours saved per controller per annum
350
Reduced operator handling times by more than
75%
The Challenge
Organisations often encounter a challenge with their Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems due to their static processing approach. This rigidity slows down business agility and impedes an organisation's ability to react quickly to fast-moving, dynamic markets.
ERP systems are known for being monolithic and have been designed to handle specific business processes in a tightly integrated manner. This approach makes it difficult for these systems to quickly adapt to changes in the business process. In contrast, more flexible systems allow organisations to be nimble and quickly respond to changing circumstances, giving them a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving market and society. By embracing adaptable and dynamic systems, organisations can increase their agility and responsiveness to market changes, which is essential for success in today's fast-paced business environment.
The end-of-life announcement for SAP's older products poses a significant challenge for organisations. While SAP cannot mandate migration to S/4HANA or updates, the pressure is on to prepare for this transition. The challenge is to bridge the gap between current SAP systems and S/4HANA requirements by enabling existing systems with necessary flexibility to adapt to new business processes. Adopting overlaying platforms like Pega may be necessary to keep up with the rapid pace of change and stay ahead.
Our Solution
Together with our client, we have devised an architecture that integrates their ERP systems, one of which is SAP, with Pega as the agile processing layer. By utilising Pega as an agility layer, we have effectively enabled the creation of a flexible and dynamic processing system, while still ensuring that the ERP systems act as the platform of record.
The result is a highly flexible and adaptable system that avoids the need to force business processes into a technology process. By taking advantage of Pega’s modular reusable design approach, we can introduce small degrees of business change at a time, without disrupting the total process. By using this approach, we focus on singular business challenges starting with critical business processes.
With a structured team of consultants, in 6 months, we were able to develop:
- A North America wide order management system which has reduced operator handling times by 75%, with 50% of orders now becoming zero touch.
- Western region digital sales process handling 1 million transaction rows per month from over 16 feeds/partners.
- These applications are now saving over 350-man hours per controller per annum.
As we continue to onboard variants of the existing processes, we will focus on designing and categorising components for effective reuse, and expect the next processes to be completed within 6 weeks.
Conclusion
Organizations must embrace adaptable and dynamic systems to increase agility and responsiveness to market changes. By wrapping ERP systems with Pega as the agility layer, businesses can create a flexible and adaptable system, avoiding the need to force business processes into technology processes. With structured team efforts, organizations can expect significant savings in man-hours and successful implementation of critical business processes.
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