Pierre Leroy, Director of Shared Service Centre, Kimberly-Clark
Kimberly-Clark is a consumer good company which has been operating more than a hundred and thirty years. We have our product across a hundred and fifty countries across the globe. The type of product we are manufacturing and selling are tissues, facial tissues, bathroom tissues.
Alison Powell, MIS Director (CRM Systems), Kimberly-Clark
When we originally looked at SAP it really was the key player in the market that offered us the ideal solution for what we were trying to do, which was to move from individual country operating units to a pan-European business.
Chris Scott, IT Director, Kimberly-Clark
By the end of the 90s we were aware that business was moving on, customer needs were changing, we needed to be able to move more effectively to meet those needs. R/3 was seen as the solution which would enable us to do that, and BW was seen as the solution from a consolidated sales reporting and analysis perspective.
Mike Listello, Director of Accounting and Reporting, Kimberly-Clark
When we went to put in SAP R/3 it was part of a broader programme referred to as Going for Growth, which was about the consolidation of customers and the implementation of our Shared Service.
Alison Powell, MIS Director (CRM Systems), Kimberly-Clark
It was really to enable us to respond to changes in the market place to position ourselves to grow as a pan-European and a global company.
SAP R/3 was the technology layer, the enabler in that whole business change programme if you like.
Pierre Leroy, Director of Shared Service Centre, Kimberly-Clark
SAP has been an enabler to help us re-engineer our business processes across Europe, and that has been a great help particularly err as a support to a Shared Service Centre where we want to get simplification, standardisation, common business processes
We are actually using one single instance of SAP R/3 for all our European units, we are covering several business processes - order to cash including customer service, as well as requisition to cheques or purchasing requisitions, accounts payable, and accounting and reporting.
Alison Powell, MIS Director (CRM Systems), Kimberly-Clark
What we did as part of that is we did implement the Customer Interaction Centre, which is part of SAP CRM module, for the Shared Service Centre people, so that they could take queries from customers, respond to any problems or issues that they have, and record them centrally.
And were now actually more recently starting to embark on a whole programme of looking at other modules within the CRM suite so that we can build on that and really engage with our end customers.
Chris Scott, IT Director, Kimberly-Clark
EBP was about changing the way in which the company requisitioned and purchased items. Maybe the same item was being bought by different people at different places at different prices. What this catalogue approach through EBP put in place was the ability to actually have a standard online catalogue - very, very simple, and straightforward. The business knows what we bought and how many we bought and what price we paid, and the actual purchaser or person requisitioning those items does it in a very easy online and quick way.
As part of the project when we were implementing R/3 and BW, in tandem with that a separate team was working on implementing APO across the whole of Europe as well, Its used for a number of things such as demand planning, which is related to forecasting from the businesses for what their requirements will be for the finished product. Its also used for what we call central inventory deployment, which is working out where stock should be located to be the most efficient and cost effective way of actually meeting a customers needs.
Mike Listello, Director of Accounting and Reporting, Kimberly-Clark
SAP and Kimberly-Clark have worked together for quite some time now and SAP is the backbone of what we do in terms of our all of our back office activity, from my perspective and also an awful lot of our customer facing activity.
Alison Powell, MIS Director (CRM Systems), Kimberly-Clark
SAP provided us with a lot of consultancy. We used them um exclusively for training to bring our people on board.
Chris Scott, IT Director, Kimberly-Clark
We have approximately four and half thousand users spread across our manufacturing sites, our offices and our sales forces across the twelve or so geographies where weve currently implemented the system.
Prior to the implementation of our R/3 and BW system our R/2 SAP environment touched a lot of people in the organisation but it didnt really touch everybody. The new system and the new processes now do that.
Alison Powell, MIS Director (CRM Systems), Kimberly-Clark
We had a very aggressive timescale; we were putting in sweeping changes, not only systems changes but also organisationally.
Chris Scott, IT Director, Kimberly-Clark
We actually implemented in all the geographies within the time period specified, within the costs authorised, and also to the quality levels and scope that were agreed by the business.
Alison Powell, MIS Director (CRM Systems), Kimberly-Clark
Where we are now is that we have virtually completed our European roll-out of SAP R/3 and indeed SAP APO. Probably the key area moving forward would be now extending the functionality that we have within Sap CRM and also building on our Business Warehouse management reporting are probably the two key areas over the next; perhaps two to three years that well see a lot of energy going into there.
Pierre Leroy, Director of Shared Service Centre, Kimberly-Clark
I would recommend an SAP ERP solution for any other Shared Service Centre. The benefit of having a common single instance ERP tool which is bringing business commonality, simplification, better control, and ease of use
Alison Powell, MIS Director (CRM Systems), Kimberly-Clark
I think weve got a lot of confidence in SAP - we see them as very professional, the system is very robust, as we come up with new business requirements wed always speak to them first.
Pierre Leroy, Director of Shared Service Centre, Kimberly-Clark
SAP implementation is not about system implementation, it is about a business implementation
Chris Scott, IT Director, Kimberly-Clark
This was a top down business-led, business-sponsored project, and thats what really makes the difference.
Alison Powell, MIS Director (CRM Systems), Kimberly-Clark
I think the major thing is that we have now been able to position Kimberly-Clark as a pan-European business, as a global player, able to engage effectively with its customers, engage effectively in the market place. We have a very strong systems infrastructure supporting our organisation now and positioning us to be able to make the steps forward and the growth that we need to in the business.
Interviewed by Sarah Turner, Customer Marketing, May 2005