STADA: Accelerating the adoption of a global HR solution that supports a consistent culture and people strategy
Driving growth with a culture that puts people first
Values of integrity, entrepreneurship, and agility fueled rapid growth at STADA Arzneimittel AG, with employee numbers rising by more than 20% within three years. To help maintain its unique culture, the pharmaceuticals company implemented SAP SuccessFactors HCM business-wide, as well as WalkMe solutions and the Joule solution to expedite adoption.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Life sciences | Bad Vilbel, Germany | 11,749 employees |
months to move sites in 50 countries to a unified HR solution.
key HR solutions rolled out worldwide.
satisfaction rating for ease of use of SAP SuccessFactors HCM in user surveys.
Head of Global Culture and People Analytics and Digital Experience, STADA Arzneimittel AG
Achieving business expansion while preserving a value-driven culture
As the owner of well-known consumer healthcare brands such as Grippostad, Nizoral, Zoflora, and Silomat, STADA has always been committed to its customers’ health and well-being. But to meet its aim of being a trusted partner for people’s health, the company believes it must also look after its employees.
STADA wanted to preserve the value-driven culture that had resulted in business success and rapid growth. However, the fact that business units in each country were running semi-independently and using a wide variety of HR systems, processes, and standards made this difficult to achieve. To help ensure a consistent culture and optimize company-wide HR processes amid double-digit workforce expansion, it needed greater global visibility and control at a group level.
For this reason, the company wanted to implement a unified and integrated HR technology foundation that would help it standardize and harmonize HR processes across the business. It also wanted to roll out the software quickly while supporting rapid adoption by its employees—and be ready to quickly adapt to future system and process enhancements.
Head of Global Culture and People Analytics and Digital Experience, STADA Arzneimittel AG
Achieving a rapid rollout—and speedy adoption
As a longtime SAP customer, STADA used the on-premises SAP ERP Human Capital Management solution for its core employee data. The company decided to base its new global HR foundation on the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central solution and began a big-bang implementation across 50 countries and 16 languages. “For us, the priority was time,” says Thomas Mattes, head of global culture and people analytics and digital experience at STADA. “To get a global view of the organization, we couldn’t do the rollout in waves—we had to get all the countries on board as quickly as possible.”
The company completed its deployment of SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central in just 12 months. Following that, STADA went on to implement SAP SuccessFactors solutions for use in recruitment, performance management, succession and development planning, compensation management, learning, and onboarding. In addition, it deployed Qualtrics Employee Experience, an SAP endorsed app, integrating with the SAP Analytics Cloud solution to analyze and distribute results across the business.
The company’s IT team worked with SAP experts through SAP Services and Support and SAP Preferred Success services to complete the implementations, prioritizing deployments that would deliver the most immediate value. According to Mattes, the ability to deliver globally was key: “We recognized the value of having local expertise to guide us not just during implementations in Germany and across Europe, but also for rollouts in the Middle East and Asia.”
While implementing SAP SuccessFactors HCM, STADA also deployed WalkMe solutions to give users the guidance they needed to quickly adapt to using the new HR software, right in the flow of work. A “Hero Navigator” pop-up enabled by WalkMe solutions provides users logged into SAP SuccessFactors with a range of support content, including step-by-step guidance, automation for common tasks, and in-app tool tips and data validation. In addition, the company uses WalkMe solutions to inform users about upcoming system changes and distribute surveys, with the ability to target specific groups of people with different guidance based on their role and location.
STADA also deployed the Joule solution to help streamline HR self-services for employees and managers. For Mattes, the value of AI functionality within SAP SuccessFactors HCM is clear: “Joule makes life easier because it guides our employees and managers to take steps themselves—whether changing their address or bank information, viewing the org chart, or finding their current title in the employee profile.”
Global Culture and People IT Head and IT Manager for Central Europe, STADA Arzneimittel AG
Increasing productivity by enhancing employee experiences
The global implementation began delivering value almost immediately. Within four months, STADA’s leadership team already regarded SAP SuccessFactors HCM as vital to its HR decision-making processes, providing a single source of truth across the business.
With a better understanding of metrics such as time to hire at a group level, recruiters are now better able to respond quickly to meet hiring needs in a candidate-driven market. Meanwhile, performance management functionality helps ensure that the company’s strategic goals are properly reflected in the expectations set for each area of the business.
Succession planning tools help STADA ensure that it has the talent needed to fill upcoming vacancies and identify any gaps, while learning management functionality helps employees gain the skills they need for career progression. In addition, the ability to run regular employee surveys enables the company to listen to and learn from its workforce.
With contextual and personalized in-app guidance, automation, and usage tips provided by WalkMe solutions, STADA’s employees were quickly up to speed with SAP SuccessFactors HCM. This boosted task completion and minimized the amount of time IT staff spent providing support. Meanwhile, with additional guidance from Joule, employees and managers are using self-services that free HR personnel from time-consuming administration tasks.
Using analytics functionality in WalkMe solutions, STADA can also understand how users complete specific processes, such as the length of time to complete forms or timesheets—helping identify trends and friction points. This helps drive continuous optimization of processes, with the HR team making changes as necessary to improve user experiences and increase adoption of self-services.
Consultant for SAP SuccessFactors HCM, STADA Arzneimittel AG
Growing a global business based on “One STADA”
STADA’s successful global rollout of SAP SuccessFactors HCM has been key to building a consistent “One STADA” culture across the company. The use of harmonized processes based on a unified HR technology foundation is supporting continued growth while providing leadership with the insights needed to make informed decisions at a global level.
What’s more, the benefits that STADA has realized so far are just the beginning. Even greater value is expected as the company implements additional SAP software at sites around the world, including SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition solutions.
Alongside these implementations, WalkMe solutions will continue to help ensure smooth software adoption and drive greater ROI from the technology investment. “WalkMe solutions are so flexible that we can use them across almost any solution or process pretty easily,” says Marija Smilijkovic, consultant for SAP SuccessFactors HCM at STADA. “This means that as new solutions and functionality become available, we can simplify the learning curve for employees while providing detailed analytics across all aspects of the employee experience.”