myVersion

Maximising SAP usability

SAP R/3 had equipped Capita with a very stable and highly efficient transaction processing engine to replace its legacy systems. However, two years after the initial implementation, Capita realised that it was not maximising the full potential return on investment. Like many SAP implementations, the initial project aimed to deploy the solution quickly, without re-engineering the existing business processes. As a result, Capita’s processes were still largely paper-based, involving duplicate data entry and conflicting procedures.


Furthermore, the SAP system was being managed by professional administrators – individuals who regularly used SAP as part of their job. Business consultation indicated that process re-engineering needed to move data capture closer to its source – the decision makers who generated the data. However, this would introduce a new range of ‘irregular’ users to the standard, but complex, SAP graphical user interface (GUI). Software costs incurred by the need for an installed footprint on each user’s workstation, plus a potentially high training burden were additional concerns.

To release the true potential of SAP, Capita needed to increase SAP usability. The challenge was two-fold: re-engineer business processes to match the organisation’s specific needs; and provide users with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface to such processes. Key objectives were to:

• Ensure ease of use with the absolute minimum effort or formal training
• Allow easy deployment across the organisation, without the need for regular upgrades
• Provide accessibility to all users across the organisation
• Integrate with existing installed SAP administrative systems
• Employ electronic-based workflow to pass steps between participants in a process.

While the core SAP implementation had the capacity to accommodate the business logic aspects of these requirements, it was lacking a sufficiently user-friendly interface.

myVersion: SAP my way

Capita’s response is myVersion: a complementary SAP framework that enables an organisation to create its own version of the SAP system. myVersion provides the flexibility to leverage a suite of pre-built business processes; mould existing process functionality; or build new business processes to meet an organisation’s specific process needs – and realise the full capabilities of SAP technology. 

The improved business processes are accessed via an easy-to-navigate, web-based interface designed to appeal to professional and irregular users alike. The interface mirrors the behaviour of web interfaces that users are likely to have encountered when using the Internet. This supports a lower learning curve and eliminates the need for formal training. Since almost all workstations come pre-installed with a web browser and the software is normally updated as part of the local IT support maintenance, a web-based interface also helps to minimise costs, and ensures ease of deployment and accessibility across the organisation.

Capita’s initial prototype used SAP’s own portal as a platform for the interface as this did not incur additional licence costs; it was built primarily to interface directly to the SAP R/3 system; and it provided a host of pre-written standard business content (processes) that Capita could leverage. However, the standard business content within the SAP portal environment did not provide the level of process improvement that Capita needed: it was still not as intuitive as Capita would have liked and it was not close enough to the specific process steps that were required. This forced Capita to think even harder about how to improve the user’s experience.

Crucial to increasing SAP usability was the provision of an intuitive entry point to the system. Capita’s answer is the ‘Active Workplace’: an easy-to-navigate landing page that captures all the information a manager may need before initiating a process. This includes the ‘Workflow inbox’ comprising all items awaiting a user’s approval; ‘Workflow sent items’ showing the workflow already initiated by that user; and ‘Alerts’ to notify the user of information that needs their immediate attention.

From the Active Workplace, a user can easily navigate to the different business process categories, such as ‘My Team’ for personnel-based processes and ‘My Financials’ for financial-based processes. When a user navigates to a business process category, they arrive in a ‘cockpit’ from which they can quickly initiate an available business process.

Demonstrating real process efficiencies

For each proposed process improvement, Capita built a business case to demonstrate the quantifiable benefit of an electronic process over a paper-based process. One such business case focused on the paper-based ‘Leaver Notification’ process: the organisation needed to make it easier for a manager to submit notification and keep the channel open as late as possible in the payroll cycle to eliminate potential financial outflow.

A business case was built around the cost of not being able to recover financial outflow and the manual effort involved in the paper-based process, versus an improved electronic process in which a manager submits leaver notification and this is electronically flowed to the payroll system. A built-in approval phase generates a workflow to a senior-level executive to authorise payment. The projected cost reductions were significant, but in practice, the savings are outstanding, reducing financial outflow by 55 percent in the 18 months since the new process was deployed.

Similarly, a business case for an electronic ‘Sickness Notification’ process revealed that, by eliminating duplication of manual effort, Capita could save the equivalent of four employees’ salaries. More significantly, by applying a consistent return-to-work interview policy and generating a report to highlight trends in absenteeism, the electronic sickness process can potentially influence employee behaviour, reducing absenteeism by one percent.

Ian White, CIO for Capita Group, runs a monthly benefit realisation monitoring report to quantify the actual benefits realised by myVersion. Since the application’s deployment in July 2006, myVersion has realised net savings of £1.71million across Capita Group. These cost savings have been accrued in a host of benefit areas, including: a reduction in administrative time and effort; the elimination of formal training through myVersion’s intuitive interface and the improved recovery of company equipment

myVersion, my benefits

Harnessing the power, depth and breadth of an existing SAP system, myVersion:

• Increases SAP usability by providing an attractive and intuitive web-based interface that is appealing to professional and irregular users alike.
• Provides client flexibility to create their own version of SAP leveraging pre-built processes, moulding existing functionality or building new processes.
• Maximises savings by enabling substantial gains in process efficiencies – Capita has realised actual savings of £1.71million since myVersion’s launch in July 2006.
• Creates capacity by significantly reducing administrative effort, thereby freeing users to focus on value-generating activities.
• Improves data quality by encouraging employee participation, thereby supporting improved decision making and reduced compliance risk.
• Drives competitiveness by capturing the nuances of how employees like to work to maximise their contribution to the business.
• Supports business change by enabling the rapid implementation of process change, evolving to meet an organisation’s changing goals and resourcing needs.
• Cuts support costs by eliminating the need for formal training and enabling easy organisation-wide deployment.
• Leverages the value of an existing SAP investment by encouraging employees to play a more proactive role in the business.
• Enables fast and cost-effective delivery of improved processes using a proven and consistent approach to design and implementation.

Future plans

myVersion has already seen business-wide adoption in Capita with quantified success. With net value savings projected to reach in excess of £2million by July 2008, this success looks set to continue. Increasingly, SAP is acknowledging the strength in providing a flexible, service oriented architecture (SOA) to build company-specific business processes. Capita now plans to broaden the scope of services delivered via this innovative product, with the aim of enabling a user to log on to just one easy-to-use system to perform their entire administrative function.

Contact us now for more information.