How Franke unified global HR data with SAP SuccessFactors
The Franke Group is a world-leading supplier of products and services for domestic kitchens, foodservice, convenience store segments as well as the professional coffee making industry. With over 8,000 employees in around 60 branches, Franke is at home on five continents. To get a clear view of their global HR data and automate FTE reporting, Franke decided to implement SAP SuccessFactors.
With their “One Franke” approach, the group increasingly looks for ways to harmonize their business processes, eliminate redundancies and ensure that each division and region can focus on their potential. To do that, they launched a project to get a unified view on their global HR data.
Eliminate blind spots in HR data
Since Franke is a global organisation, a harmonised view on data and reporting became increasingly important. The first challenge they wanted to tackle was the need for Finance to get a centralized view and to eliminate blind spots in the HR data. “We struggled to know how many employees we had”, says Adèle Fouet, Head of Global HR Systems and Reporting.
“There was no single global database for our employees. Every country would key in their FTEs, but it was impossible to dig deeper in the details. How many of those are salespeople? Why is there an increase of 0.2 FTEs in a certain country? We needed a better view of our HR data.”
The best method to verify the number of FTEs was by comparing the FTE data with the global Identity & Access Management (IAM) data: the individual accounts that can log in to the computer systems. Still, none of that data was synced and that meant that the HR team first had to look up information and then link it manually.
Trying to get advanced FTE reporting
Apart from the general overview, the HR department wanted to connect their employee data with their financial reports to build more advanced reporting. To achieve that, they started working with group controlling, but that way of working still had its challenges when it came to efficiency and alignment. To conclude, there was no precise source of truth that could deliver reliable FTE data.
“Local HR departments sent the lists of FTE data to Controlling, which was then integrated in our finance tool. But since this was a Finance responsibility, HR wasn’t fully involved in the process. As a result, there were various interpretations of definitions and, combined with human errors, it cost both teams a lot of work to patch together all this input.”
In conclusion, the organization decided to look for a tool or a solution to meet their business needs and tackle these challenges.
SAP SuccessFactors paves the way
The launch of a 'Business Intelligence' group initiative at Franke was the perfect opportunity to develop the global HR data and bring it to the next level. But centralizing and harmonizing processes is, of course, a step-by-step process.
The team at Franke investigated whether a tool or platform could help them out. SAP SuccessFactors quickly came to mind, as the organization already worked with this for Performance Management and Recruiting. In addition, the HQ in Switzerland was already using SAP SuccessFactors module of Employee Central to manage its Core HR processes.
The initial idea was to integrate Switzerland’s SuccessFactors with the new, global one. But that turned out to be more complex than starting over fresh and integrating everything into a global template. To do this, Franke chose Flexso as a partner.
What contributed to the success of the project?
Adèle Fouet looked back on a successful global HR migration process and identified the key factors making the project with Flexso a real success:
Global alignment
“Aligning teams in 40 countries, who speak five different languages – including Chinese – and centralizing all the data in one master database can never be easy. But we worked really well together and made it work.”
Integrations
“We had to integrate different sources of data. To add to the complexity, we’re working with a lot of external partners who have partial and temporary access to our systems. That too, however, could be done.”
Data collection
“Franke had many small sets of data with insufficient quality. So we had to reach out to many different departments to gather and clean up all the basic employee data: both personal (gender, birth date) and organizational data (position titles, functions, cost centers, legal entity). We had no other choice than a big bang approach as we had to 'turn around' our interface to our Identity and Access Management system.”
Aligning HR and Finance with SAP Analytics Cloud
With all global HR data now automatically managed in SuccessFactors, HR associates can now key in all the FTE data directly into the centralized cloud system. This data is then automatically processed in SAP AnaIytics Cloud, which calculates and displays all FTE information.
From there, the data automatically flows to the finance tool, where Controlling signs off on the data or directly contacts HR if something is missing. That means HR is now in the lead for the data. While before, both HR and Controlling were making assumptions about the data coming from the other side, there is now direct communication between both departments.
“HR and Finance are now working with the same central database in one system. This means they are cooperating and communicating more closely. Both departments understand each other’s processes and needs and work around a single source of truth.”
Find out more about how SAP Analytics Cloud In combination with SAP SuccessFactors provides RBI Bank with an Integrated view on Workforce Planning
Access & Identity Management through SuccessFactors
Another major benefit is that on- and offboarding is integrated with other systems via SuccessFactors. If someone leaves the company, HR enters the termination date in SuccessFactors. The Windows account is then switched off automatically on that date. Vice versa, if someone is hired but onboarded on a later date, they can access everything exactly on that date.
It’s quite impressive to see you can manage this completely through SuccessFactors, and it works perfectly. Even with all complexities of external people with specific security rights and exceptions. We’re very proud to have delivered this project within scope and budget, and on time. A lot of people in the company consider this a true reference project.
A new World of Opportunities: HR KPIs
Franke also recently launched one of the final steps of their digitalisation journey with HR KPIs available in SAC.With KPI dashboards visible in a few clicks and with appropriate permissions for various business partners, HR can now understand and act on any potential issues such as high attrition rates or high average ages and drill down effortlessly to specific countries or functions.
Powered by Flexso for People: experts right out of the HR world
The experts behind all that HR experience? Flexso for People: the Flexso team with specialist knowledge of the HR world.
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