Vodafone Group: Standardizing 85% of core business processes across 24 countries
Explore Vodafone’s journey with SAP
Vodafone Group needed to give its customers amazing service and deliver a better user experience to every employee. With SAP’s help, Vodafone created a single digital foundation based on SAP S/4HANA and deployed it across mission-critical areas like HR, procurement, finance, and more. Now with one version of the truth, Vodafone runs its global enterprise everywhere with greater confidence and consistency.
>300 million
customers served worldwide.
85
%
of core business processes standardized across 24 countries.
100,000+
global employees supported.
We have managed to optimize our operations and be far more efficient, eliminating all the complexity from our landscape.
The Challenge
Consolidate various system landscapes with global consistency
It is hard to imagine a technology changing the modern world more than the smartphone. Every day, there are millions of us who use a single device to talk with friends, take videos, share photos, check e-mail, get driving directions, or go shopping. As one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies, Vodafone Group connects more than 300 million people worldwide.
Vodafone believes that tomorrow’s communications services will continue to transform our lives in powerful ways. Company leaders are already preparing for this future by making significant changes – starting from within.
“Vodafone has been growing in recent years to strengthen its portfolio of services and expand into new geographies,” says Ignacio Garcia, CIO of Corporate Information Systems at Vodafone Group. Garcia explains that growing through acquisitions resulted in various system landscapes and often inconsistent business practices throughout the group of companies. “We needed to operate as a single global organization and drive further innovation across the entire business,” Garcia notes. “To do that, we needed to run our company with a consistent, digital-first focus.”
SAP SuccessFactors solutions help our people consume HR services in a way that suits them best.
Marc Starfield
Group Head of HR systems, Vodafone Group plc
The Solution
Migrate complex and disparate ERP environment to SAP S/4HANA
The need for global consistency led to big changes at Vodafone. The company migrated its complex and disparate ERP environment to SAP S/4HANA to help accelerate the pace of innovation with support for end-to-end processes and intelligent technologies. Vodafone digitalized key business areas with rollouts of SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, and SAP Concur solutions.
While this was a massive transformation covering more than twenty countries, Vodafone and the project benefited from some strong partnerships along the way. This included support from implementation partner Accenture plc, SAP Services and Support, and customer success experts from SAP.
“SAP Services and Support has been a proven partner for many years,” says Holger Grewe, Head of Corporate Transformation at Vodafone Group. “So, it was a natural choice to have them with us from the beginning for technical design, migration workshops, cut-over planning, and go-live support.”
Some say digital first, but we have become a digital-only business.
Ninian Wilson
CEO, Vodafone Procurement Company
The Result
Standardized more than 80% of its core business and boosted automation levels to over 60%
Standardization and automation help Vodafone achieve cost synergies and efficiencies, freeing its employees to work with data and focus on customer expectations. Vodafone is also simplifying the workplace for its global employees in areas such as HR, travel and expense, and supply chain, knowing that empowered employees are more agile in their interactions with customers and stakeholders.
Vodafone now has one data model that is standard across its footprint, which helps the whole group become a data-driven enterprise with access to business-wide insights. In addition, new capabilities like machine learning and advanced analytics will help Vodafone develop the next generation of products and services. Vodafone is confident that today’s transformation will enable the company to build a digital future that works for everyone. “These changes are helping Vodafone work as one company,” Grewe says. “So people around the world will stay better connected.”
Using the power of the technology was fundamental. Having a single data model, a single way to optimize and understand the different markets.
Ignacio Garcia
CIO of Corporate Information Systems, Vodafone Group plc
Employees are happier because they are reimbursed quickly . . . with SAP Concur solutions, we have expense reports that almost write themselves.
Gary Allen
SAP Concur and Cross-Functional Program Manager, Vodafone Group plc
SAP helps Vodafone run better
Key business outcomes and benefits
Featured solutions and services
About Vodafone
Vodafone Group plc is a leading telecommunications company. It is the largest mobile and fixed network operator in Europe and a leading global IoT connectivity provider.
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