Brussels Airport Company: Taking off to the cloud to build harmonized, connected, and efficient operations
Explore Brussels Airport Company’s journey with SAP
Brussels Airport Company is building the airport of tomorrow in the “heart of Europe.” At the core of its own operations is an integrated IT landscape based on standardization and best practices. That landscape is fueled by SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and the SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, and SAP Concur solutions.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| Passenger travel and leisure | Brussels, Belgium | 1,200 employees | delaware |
to already see efficiency gains and results.
CFO, Brussels Airport Company NV/SA
Setting a course for growth with ERP on the radar as a key enabler
In 2023, 22.2 million passengers and 700,000 tons of cargo pass through Brussels Airport, one of the most important centers of economic growth in Belgium. Around 1,200 employees at the airport’s operator, Brussels Airport Company NV/SA, work hard to safeguard complex operations that account for a massive 60,000 direct and indirect jobs.
As part of a drive to simplify these operations, Brussels Airport Company decided it was time to replace its ERP system. The system, which had not been upgraded in 10 years, was old-fashioned, inefficient, and highly customized, creating a high maintenance burden and user frustration. For an enterprise with an ambition to become one of the best airports in Europe, it was clear that this software was no longer fit for purpose.
Brussels Airport Company set out to find new software more suited to its ERP and business-support needs. Having experienced the drawbacks of highly customized solutions, it decided that moving to the cloud with a standardized suite of software was the right next step.
ERP Program Manager, Brussels Airport Company NV/SA
Charting the right course for IT while getting diverse teams on board
Brussels Airport Company quickly saw that cloud solutions from SAP would enable, in the words of CFO Davy Vreys, a “user-friendly and standardized system that would help us work more efficiently and stay up-to-date with the newest technologies and innovation.”
The company decided that SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition would provide the core functionality it needed for finance, controlling, billing, and procurement. Marie-Christine Kévers, ERP program manager, explained that the solution would enable “a fully integrated backbone for support services and smooth data flows to support growth and diversification.” And its fit-to-standard approach would help reduce maintenance work and enable efficiencies and best practices.
The airport operator integrated a number of SAP solutions with this new backbone. It deployed SAP Ariba solutions for procure-to-pay processes, SAP Concur solutions for expense management, SAP SuccessFactors solutions for core HR data and talent management, and the SAP Analytics Cloud solution for reporting and planning.
The company deployed SAP Integration Suite to smoothly connect cloud and enterprise applications with other software within its IT landscape. And it also adopted the SAP Enable Now solution to provide e-learning content that helped communicate change and train users on the new software.
Implementation partner delaware was a vital part of the transformation, offering solution expertise and an embedded change and communication program that helped prepare users for the changes to come, especially the mindset shift from custom-developed to cloud solutions.
Taking flight with automated processes and a clear view of data
Now, Brussels Airport Company has an intuitive, efficient, and future-proof IT landscape with reduced total cost of ownership. Integrated solutions supporting an intelligent enterprise enhance data quality and process compliance across the IT environment. They also provide a foundation for modernizing core operational business processes by adopting best-practice application-integration scenarios and reducing manual and paper-based work.
Vreys notes, “One of the main benefits is the user friendliness. Approval of purchase requisitions and purchase orders is digitalized and can be done on any device. And users can approve expense notes on their mobile phone, which was not the case before.” After just a few months, the company had already seen efficiency gains, and it expects to complete financial closing more quickly.
Kévers elaborates, “As well as reducing the time spent on processing incoming invoices, we’ve also put the responsibility back to the business. With items such as goods and service receipts handled by expert teams, we’ve improved the quality of our data and the insights we get from that data. This means we can position finance not just as a number cruncher but also as a valuable partner in business decision-making.”
Standardized processes are a complete departure from the old highly customized environment. Jan Andries, change manager and product owner for SAP SuccessFactors solutions, says, “SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition requires the user to adapt to the system instead of adapting the system to the user’s requirements. Before, it was very difficult to maintain all our codes. Now, we get new releases twice a year, so we always have the latest information and the latest code.”
On the HR side, the company now has one integrated system for the whole employee lifecycle, from recruiting and onboarding to exit or retirement, easing processes further. For example, Andries explains that this system “also integrates smoothly with SAP Concur solutions, so we no longer need manual intervention when a new employee needs to log expenses or approve a purchase order in the system.”
Planning the next leg of the transformation journey
Having successfully implemented its ambitious digital transformation program, Brussels Airport Company is continuing to streamline the IT landscape. One planned initiative involves integrating the legacy billing system with SAP solutions for even greater efficiency and transparency. Other next steps include incorporating performance and goal management in the HR journey and automating direct entry of service sheets by vendors.
Vreys sums up the company’s experience as follows: “Based on what we’ve seen in the first four months of operation, we’re very positive about the results that SAP software has already delivered. We’re really looking forward to the next phase of our transformation.”
Featured partner
delaware provides advanced information and communication technology solutions and services, spanning international business consulting, strategy, and change management expertise, that guide customers through business and digital transformation. Together with SAP and a select group of other technology partners, the SAP platinum partner helps customers create a truly omnichannel customer experience.