Energy Queensland: Lighting up communities by transforming the sourcing and management of highly specialized skilled labor
Explore Energy Queensland’s journey with SAP
Energy Queensland Ltd relies on professional services contractors to execute its program of work. When the time came to transform contingent workforce management in its Digital Division, Energy Queensland integrated the SAP Fieldglass Services Procurement application and the SAP Fieldglass SOW Worker and Documentation Tracking solution with SAP S/4HANA.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Utilities | Queensland, Australia | >8,200 employees |
of the Digital Division’s contractor invoices paid on time-sheet approval.
faster access to reporting insights.
reduction in accounts payable processing time.
Manager Resourcing Operations, Energy Queensland Ltd
Automating contingent workforce recruitment and procurement
Energy Queensland Ltd energizes the state of Queensland, Australia, supporting communities across a vast service area covering 1.7 million square kilometers (more than 1 million square miles). From Brisbane on the east coast to Birdsville, 1,590 kilometers to the west, and from Tweed River in the south to Torres Strait in the north, the organization serves 2.3 million connected customers.
Energy Queensland operates through its distribution businesses Energex and Ergon Energy Network, its regional retailer Ergon Energy Retail, and its integrated energy solutions provider Yurika. Reporting to the Queensland Government of Australia, it’s the country’s largest, wholly government-owned electricity company.
Supporting the renewable energy transition, Energy Queensland is committed to investing in new technologies, with its digital division managing a wide program of work to support these aims. Projects range from strategy and architecture to applications and infrastructure as well as project management and delivery. To assist with resourcing this significant workload, the organization sources professional services contractors. As such, Energy Queensland’s contingent workforce management processes were robust and finely tuned but heavily reliant on manual processes, with e-mail taking center stage.
John Martinez, manager of resourcing operations at Energy Queensland, explains how the manual processes worked in the Digital Division: “We released roles to the market using an e-mail template, with proposed candidates submitted from agencies through e-mail. Contracts were issued using a contract template and e-mail, which triggered the purchasing team to manually create purchase orders.”
Wanting to make this process more efficient, Energy Queensland seized the opportunity to transform the sourcing process and minimize involvement from the purchasing and accounts payable teams.
Manager Resourcing Operations, Energy Queensland Ltd
Enabling holistic tracking of supply chains, spend, and invoices
Looking to digitalize contingent workforce sourcing and procurement and integrate these external workforce management processes with its ERP application, Energy Queensland was impressed by the capabilities offered by SAP Fieldglass solutions.
In particular, it liked the rich functionality of the SAP Fieldglass Services Procurement application that allows it to tie spend to individual contracts while providing visibility into the work being completed on deliverables. Energy Queensland also liked the SAP Fieldglass SOW Worker and Documentation Tracking solution, allowing it to simplify how it sources, engages, and manages statement-of-work (SOW) providers.
When integrated with SAP S/4HANA, the solutions enable holistic tracking of contingent workforce supply chains, spend, and invoices, as well as automation and analysis of company-wide spend across procurement categories.
Drawing on trusted consulting and implementation expertise from SAP Preferred Success services, Energy Queensland integrated the SAP Fieldglass solutions with the advanced ERP. Part of a broader implementation project, Energy Queensland also integrated SAP Ariba Strategic Sourcing Suite and the SAP Business Network Commerce Automation solution.
The tight integration of SAP Fieldglass and SAP Ariba solutions with SAP S/4HANA is illustrated in the diagram below.
Manager Resourcing Operations, Energy Queensland Ltd
Digitalizing purchase requisition to purchase order flow for contractors
With the solutions in the Digital Division, Energy Queensland has replaced a cumbersome manual process with an automated recruitment workflow, saving processing time related to the sourcing and procurement of contingent workers by more than 60%.
Whereas the legacy way of doing things had nine steps, the new approach has just three, with no involvement from the purchasing team or accounts payable, accounting for a 95% reduction in processing time. A contractor simply needs to enter a time sheet or expense form online, with a manager approving it online to trigger payment to the relevant agency.
Using SAP Fieldglass SOW Worker and Documentation Tracking, Energy Queensland has effectively eliminated e-mails from its contingent worker sourcing and procurement process, with the lifecycle of agency communication conducted through the tool.
Likewise, with SAP Fieldglass Services Procurement, Energy Queensland has moved away from manual contracts, eliminating manual errors while adding to time savings and productivity gains. For example, around 400 to 600 contracts require some sort of variation, which used to take about 10 minutes each. Now, using the SAP Fieldglass solution, Energy Queensland can make contract variations in under 30 seconds.
In terms of contingent workforce insights, SAP Fieldglass integrated with SAP S/4HANA gives Energy Queensland accurate and relevant data at its fingertips, no longer having to wait up to 15 minutes for each report.
The company has also made gains with regard to auditing and compliance. Digitalization of contingent workforce management from purchase requisition to purchase order means it now has a rock-solid digital audit trail, with a track record of invoices and payment history stored in the SAP Fieldglass solution.
In summary, Martinez says, “I don’t have a team of four to five people to manage my contingent workforce, I’m a single-person team because I have SAP Fieldglass solutions.”
Manager Resourcing Operations, Energy Queensland Ltd