Downer - Best Tech Awards 2025 Intelligent ERP
Downer EDI Business Overview Download the DocumentSAP Australia and New
Zealand Best Tech Awards
2025
Zealand Best Tech Awards
2025
Best Tech SAP
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Transport &
Infrastructure, Energy
& Utilities, Social
Infrastructure &
Citizen Services, Rail &
Transit Systems
https://www.downergroup.com/Facilities management, Asset
maintenance and management, Security
and electronic solutions
RISE with SAP S/4HANA LoB for Finance, SAP
HCM-Payroll, Supply Chain, SAP BTP, SAP CALM,
SAP SAC, SAP Fiori
At Downer, our customers are at the heart of everything we do. Enabling communities to thrive. That is our Purpose. Our Purpose guides us and gives us the courage to take on the big
things. It also drives and supports our transformation journey and defines our commitment to create a sustained impact on communities.
Our customers' success is our success. That is our Promise. We focus on our customers’ success in everything we do – because we believe that when our customers are successful, so is
Downer. Downer designs, builds and sustains assets, infrastructure and facilities and we are the leading provider of integrated services in Australia and New Zealand.
Alongside our Purpose and Promise, our updated Pillars reflect our refreshed ambition. They are the way we do things around here and underpin everything we do. Delivery, Relationships
and Thought Leadership remain the foundations of how we think, plan and solve problems together. We also recognise the importance of Sustainability. Our commitment to safety within
this pillar is the first priority of our business.
Downer Group employs approximately 26,000 people across more than 700 sites, primarily in Australia and New Zealand.
Downer EDI Business Overview
ERP Fast Growth
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Transport &
Infrastructure, Energy
& Utilities, Social
Infrastructure &
Citizen Services, Rail &
Transit Systems
https://www.downergroup.com/Facilities management, Asset
maintenance and management, Security
and electronic solutions
RISE with SAP S/4HANA LoB for Finance, SAP
HCM-Payroll, Supply Chain, SAP BTP, SAP CALM,
SAP SAC, SAP Fiori
At Downer, our customers are at the heart of everything we do. Enabling communities to thrive. That is our Purpose. Our Purpose guides us and gives us the courage to take on the big
things. It also drives and supports our transformation journey and defines our commitment to create a sustained impact on communities.
Our customers' success is our success. That is our Promise. We focus on our customers’ success in everything we do – because we believe that when our customers are successful, so is
Downer. Downer designs, builds and sustains assets, infrastructure and facilities and we are the leading provider of integrated services in Australia and New Zealand.
Alongside our Purpose and Promise, our updated Pillars reflect our refreshed ambition. They are the way we do things around here and underpin everything we do. Delivery, Relationships
and Thought Leadership remain the foundations of how we think, plan and solve problems together. We also recognise the importance of Sustainability. Our commitment to safety within
this pillar is the first priority of our business.
Downer Group employs approximately 26,000 people across more than 700 sites, primarily in Australia and New Zealand.
Downer EDI Business Overview
ERP Fast Growth
Best Tech SAP
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Transport &
Infrastructure, Energy &
Utilities, Social
Infrastructure & Citizen
Services, Rail & Transit
Systems
https://www.downergroup.com/Facilities management, Asset
maintenance and management, Security
and electronic solutions
RISE with SAP S/4HANA LoB for Finance, SAP
HCM-Payroll, Supply Chain, SAP BTP, SAP CALM,
SAP SAC, SAP Fiori
Downer currently have 4 different business entities (Transport, Energy & Utilities, Facility Management & Rail) all supported by various ERP’s. Currently there are different ERP instances
across the business units - they are SAP, JDE, Maximo. They want to move forward to a single ERP core platform.
As a first step of business transformation, TCS helped Downer to move Facility Management(Spotless) business to RISE with SAP S/4HANA from existing SAP ECC on EHP-4 in 40 weeks'
timeframe which is unheard of. TCS used a tailored Brownfield migration approach which incorporated 7 conversion cycles to learn and update the cookbook and cutover plan.
The migration to SAP Fiori, S/4HANA & SAP BTP has drastically improved the user and employee experience, with user friendly & intuitive Fiori apps and embedded reports. The mandatory
transformation/simplification in Finance, HR and Supply Chain has provided key benefits and have set-up Downer for the future.
During this migration, the data centre exit was completed to RISE with SAP for SAP workloads, along with Azure for SAP BW. This move enabled a 15–20% productivity gain across business
functions such as Finance and HR. As part of the migration, the SAP BW system was upgraded to the appropriate level to be compatible with S/4HANA, and SAP Embedded Analytics was
enabled. All integrations were moved to SAP BTP for greater flexibility and ease of maintenance.
Downer collaborated with all its strategic partners to focus on innovation that delivered value to customers while delivering the program on time and under budget.
Downer’s S/4HANA transformation Program
Overview
Best Tech SAP ERP Fast Growth
Industry WebsiteProduct and Services Featured SAP Solutions
Transport &
Infrastructure, Energy &
Utilities, Social
Infrastructure & Citizen
Services, Rail & Transit
Systems
https://www.downergroup.com/Facilities management, Asset
maintenance and management, Security
and electronic solutions
RISE with SAP S/4HANA LoB for Finance, SAP
HCM-Payroll, Supply Chain, SAP BTP, SAP CALM,
SAP SAC, SAP Fiori
Downer currently have 4 different business entities (Transport, Energy & Utilities, Facility Management & Rail) all supported by various ERP’s. Currently there are different ERP instances
across the business units - they are SAP, JDE, Maximo. They want to move forward to a single ERP core platform.
As a first step of business transformation, TCS helped Downer to move Facility Management(Spotless) business to RISE with SAP S/4HANA from existing SAP ECC on EHP-4 in 40 weeks'
timeframe which is unheard of. TCS used a tailored Brownfield migration approach which incorporated 7 conversion cycles to learn and update the cookbook and cutover plan.
The migration to SAP Fiori, S/4HANA & SAP BTP has drastically improved the user and employee experience, with user friendly & intuitive Fiori apps and embedded reports. The mandatory
transformation/simplification in Finance, HR and Supply Chain has provided key benefits and have set-up Downer for the future.
During this migration, the data centre exit was completed to RISE with SAP for SAP workloads, along with Azure for SAP BW. This move enabled a 15–20% productivity gain across business
functions such as Finance and HR. As part of the migration, the SAP BW system was upgraded to the appropriate level to be compatible with S/4HANA, and SAP Embedded Analytics was
enabled. All integrations were moved to SAP BTP for greater flexibility and ease of maintenance.
Downer collaborated with all its strategic partners to focus on innovation that delivered value to customers while delivering the program on time and under budget.
Downer’s S/4HANA transformation Program
Overview
Best Tech SAP ERP Fast Growth
Challenges
Overall:
• Out of date user experience, processes & technology that created risk of losing large contracts and impact to the pipeline of work. SAP systems that required
urgent upgrade from SAP ECC 6.0 to improve insights, processes that meets stakeholders' expectations and customers compliance requirement. A strong
foundation was missing to build on to future Downer processes across the business that can leverage AI & automation capabilities.
• Increased overhead due to nonstandard processes, system limitations resulting in the need for manual processes and outdated system and unrationalized
landscape.
HR:
• There were number of users who used to request for manual payroll adjustment (because the users couldn’t enter leave or do payroll bank account
modification or approve leave in time because of inconsistencies in EP ESS/MSS).
• Absence of a Payroll Control Center, lot of users used to have a bad experience due to errors while accessing Enterprise Portal for Employee Self Service
function very frequently and this will lead to high calls to support center.
• Long running HR reports/process that were not creating best experience for the end users and staff.
Finance:
• Manual process for payment approval, cash receipt allocation and forecasting required large team focused on sorting out operational issues
• Manual adjustment in SAP fixed Asset for Leased Assets
• No real time FI & CO reconciliation process leading to delay in Closing process
Technical:
• SAP Applications/ DB and OS had high vulnerability risk due to non availability of regular patches and updates as the systems were out of support.
• There were around 55 On-Premises SAP servers sitting on exiting data center with huge cost to Downer.
• Absence of Mobility across the business functions for ease of use and being productive while on the go.
• No innovation and extension capabilities that were future safe.
• Heavy dependence on external reporting systems, system was heavily customised.
Overall:
• Out of date user experience, processes & technology that created risk of losing large contracts and impact to the pipeline of work. SAP systems that required
urgent upgrade from SAP ECC 6.0 to improve insights, processes that meets stakeholders' expectations and customers compliance requirement. A strong
foundation was missing to build on to future Downer processes across the business that can leverage AI & automation capabilities.
• Increased overhead due to nonstandard processes, system limitations resulting in the need for manual processes and outdated system and unrationalized
landscape.
HR:
• There were number of users who used to request for manual payroll adjustment (because the users couldn’t enter leave or do payroll bank account
modification or approve leave in time because of inconsistencies in EP ESS/MSS).
• Absence of a Payroll Control Center, lot of users used to have a bad experience due to errors while accessing Enterprise Portal for Employee Self Service
function very frequently and this will lead to high calls to support center.
• Long running HR reports/process that were not creating best experience for the end users and staff.
Finance:
• Manual process for payment approval, cash receipt allocation and forecasting required large team focused on sorting out operational issues
• Manual adjustment in SAP fixed Asset for Leased Assets
• No real time FI & CO reconciliation process leading to delay in Closing process
Technical:
• SAP Applications/ DB and OS had high vulnerability risk due to non availability of regular patches and updates as the systems were out of support.
• There were around 55 On-Premises SAP servers sitting on exiting data center with huge cost to Downer.
• Absence of Mobility across the business functions for ease of use and being productive while on the go.
• No innovation and extension capabilities that were future safe.
• Heavy dependence on external reporting systems, system was heavily customised.
Solution
Overall:
• Brownfield migration approach to move quickly to the supported and improved version of SAP S/4HANA 2023 in 40 weeks, alongside upgrade of outdated Process Integration
technology to SAP BTP, upgrade to SAP Fiori 2.0 for better user experience, enabling SAP Embedded Analytics to leverage out-of-the-box reports, and upgrade of other
peripheral systems such as SAP BW7.1 to SAP BW7.5 to be able to move to SAP Data Cloud and SAP Datasphere.
• SAP Solution Manager migrated to SAP Cloud ALM for real-time health, integration and job monitoring.
• Enabled 40+ Fiori applications across different business functions for better user experience along with many embedded reports for real time reporting.
• During the process of conversion, mandatory changes in finance and other business functions were adopted, all integrations were migrated to SAP latest Business Technology
Platform(SAP BTP) for ease of maintenance.
• Digital core enabled for innovation (AI, ML, IoT).
HR:
• Enterprise Portal(EP) ESS/MSS replaced with SAP Fiori 2.0 to exit from SAP Netweaver version which was out of SAP support lifecycle. With SAP Fiori mobile apps, and
employees can easily submit and track leave requests, reducing HR support calls by 20-30%. This transformation has directly boosted productivity and user satisfaction. It
created agility into the approval process and eliminated dependence on manual processes.
• Enabled SAP Fiori and Workzone UI which is modern, intuitive, user friendly and faster than traditional EP screens.
Finance:
• New Asset Accounting implemented allowing more flexible depreciation process.
• Real time FICO reconciliation enabled with the introduction of Universal Ledger.
• Material ledger introduced a robust system of Real-Time valuation of Materials.
• SAP Business Object decommissioned, enabled SAP Embedded analytics as much as possible for better user experience & real time reporting capabilities.
Technical:
• Upgraded all SAP applications/DB/OS to the supported level. SAP ECC upgrade to S/4HANA, SAP BTP, SAP Fiori, SAP CALM provided future path to innovation and extension.
• Decommissioned 55 On-Premise SAP Servers and moved required workload to RISE with SAP.
• Enabled Mobility & SAP Build Work Zone to create personalized, digital workspaces for approval of leaves or purchase orders.
• Analysed and modified SAP standard objects to be in line with clean core concept.
• Reduced the total of 2.6 TB of DB size after archiving activities in the ECC Production system. This reduced the S/4 Hana Conversion downtime by 16 hours.
Overall:
• Brownfield migration approach to move quickly to the supported and improved version of SAP S/4HANA 2023 in 40 weeks, alongside upgrade of outdated Process Integration
technology to SAP BTP, upgrade to SAP Fiori 2.0 for better user experience, enabling SAP Embedded Analytics to leverage out-of-the-box reports, and upgrade of other
peripheral systems such as SAP BW7.1 to SAP BW7.5 to be able to move to SAP Data Cloud and SAP Datasphere.
• SAP Solution Manager migrated to SAP Cloud ALM for real-time health, integration and job monitoring.
• Enabled 40+ Fiori applications across different business functions for better user experience along with many embedded reports for real time reporting.
• During the process of conversion, mandatory changes in finance and other business functions were adopted, all integrations were migrated to SAP latest Business Technology
Platform(SAP BTP) for ease of maintenance.
• Digital core enabled for innovation (AI, ML, IoT).
HR:
• Enterprise Portal(EP) ESS/MSS replaced with SAP Fiori 2.0 to exit from SAP Netweaver version which was out of SAP support lifecycle. With SAP Fiori mobile apps, and
employees can easily submit and track leave requests, reducing HR support calls by 20-30%. This transformation has directly boosted productivity and user satisfaction. It
created agility into the approval process and eliminated dependence on manual processes.
• Enabled SAP Fiori and Workzone UI which is modern, intuitive, user friendly and faster than traditional EP screens.
Finance:
• New Asset Accounting implemented allowing more flexible depreciation process.
• Real time FICO reconciliation enabled with the introduction of Universal Ledger.
• Material ledger introduced a robust system of Real-Time valuation of Materials.
• SAP Business Object decommissioned, enabled SAP Embedded analytics as much as possible for better user experience & real time reporting capabilities.
Technical:
• Upgraded all SAP applications/DB/OS to the supported level. SAP ECC upgrade to S/4HANA, SAP BTP, SAP Fiori, SAP CALM provided future path to innovation and extension.
• Decommissioned 55 On-Premise SAP Servers and moved required workload to RISE with SAP.
• Enabled Mobility & SAP Build Work Zone to create personalized, digital workspaces for approval of leaves or purchase orders.
• Analysed and modified SAP standard objects to be in line with clean core concept.
• Reduced the total of 2.6 TB of DB size after archiving activities in the ECC Production system. This reduced the S/4 Hana Conversion downtime by 16 hours.
Impact
20–30% time saved across functions via SAP
real-time reporting, and enablement of SAP
Fiori applications.
Faster finance close(10-15%), better
operational reporting.
Enabled the business for further
improvements.
Average Runtime of HR-Payroll reports
reduced by 50%, Payroll process improved by
15-20%.
Reduced PO approval cycle time by 30–50%
Retention of at-risk existing contracts
amounting to 30-50% of the revenue as well
as enabling the new value propositions to
new clients.
S/4HANA provides the instrumental
operational backbone for critical social
infrastructure contracts that underpin
significant critical government services to the
Australian & New Zealand populations
Overall: Upgrade to RISE with SAP S/4HANA, SAP BTP, SAP CALM, SAP Fiori provided improved processes, user experience, reporting & mobility capabilities. It eliminated the compliance
risk to retain existing contracts amounting to 30-50% of the revenue and has become a key enabler in positioning the business to bid for and win more long-term, large-scale contracts.
HR: Average Runtime of HR reports in Payroll reduced by 50% that led to productivity gain of 15-20%. Huge reduction in manual payroll reconciliation requests that led to less calls to
Payroll team and Service Desk. With the S/4HANA implementation, a strong foundation is in place for the business to implement Payroll Control Center.
Finance: New Asset Accounting allows more flexible depreciation process where the business can process depreciation posting in the scenario where one or more assets not finalized for a
particular period. Users now have the ability to catch-up with depreciation from previous periods and process in current period. Now with Real time FI-CO reconciliation with the
introduction of Universal Ledger, leveraging standard reporting is easier. Material ledger has introduced a robust system of Real-Time valuation of Materials during each transaction
thereby diminishing the need of a customized process as well as ensuring zero incorrect entries.
Procurement: Consistent and better user experience because of enablement of SAP Fiori and Workzone UI. My Inbox PO approval app designed with better look and feel for ease of use.
Technical: Innovation ready landscape with huge reduction in operational costs due to decommissioning of 55 on-prem SAP servers. SAP Build in SAP BTP configured for the End users to
approve Purchase Order and Leave using their own mobile, better control over role-based access and personalisation using SAP Fiori. Intuitive UI reduced training requirements &
increases productivity. Faster execution of batch jobs(20-30%) leading to much quicker data updates and better user experience, accuracy and consistency.
20–30% time saved across functions via SAP
real-time reporting, and enablement of SAP
Fiori applications.
Faster finance close(10-15%), better
operational reporting.
Enabled the business for further
improvements.
Average Runtime of HR-Payroll reports
reduced by 50%, Payroll process improved by
15-20%.
Reduced PO approval cycle time by 30–50%
Retention of at-risk existing contracts
amounting to 30-50% of the revenue as well
as enabling the new value propositions to
new clients.
S/4HANA provides the instrumental
operational backbone for critical social
infrastructure contracts that underpin
significant critical government services to the
Australian & New Zealand populations
Overall: Upgrade to RISE with SAP S/4HANA, SAP BTP, SAP CALM, SAP Fiori provided improved processes, user experience, reporting & mobility capabilities. It eliminated the compliance
risk to retain existing contracts amounting to 30-50% of the revenue and has become a key enabler in positioning the business to bid for and win more long-term, large-scale contracts.
HR: Average Runtime of HR reports in Payroll reduced by 50% that led to productivity gain of 15-20%. Huge reduction in manual payroll reconciliation requests that led to less calls to
Payroll team and Service Desk. With the S/4HANA implementation, a strong foundation is in place for the business to implement Payroll Control Center.
Finance: New Asset Accounting allows more flexible depreciation process where the business can process depreciation posting in the scenario where one or more assets not finalized for a
particular period. Users now have the ability to catch-up with depreciation from previous periods and process in current period. Now with Real time FI-CO reconciliation with the
introduction of Universal Ledger, leveraging standard reporting is easier. Material ledger has introduced a robust system of Real-Time valuation of Materials during each transaction
thereby diminishing the need of a customized process as well as ensuring zero incorrect entries.
Procurement: Consistent and better user experience because of enablement of SAP Fiori and Workzone UI. My Inbox PO approval app designed with better look and feel for ease of use.
Technical: Innovation ready landscape with huge reduction in operational costs due to decommissioning of 55 on-prem SAP servers. SAP Build in SAP BTP configured for the End users to
approve Purchase Order and Leave using their own mobile, better control over role-based access and personalisation using SAP Fiori. Intuitive UI reduced training requirements &
increases productivity. Faster execution of batch jobs(20-30%) leading to much quicker data updates and better user experience, accuracy and consistency.