Discovery Consulting: Setting the foundation for an expanding business with cloud ERP
Explore Discovery Consulting’s journey with SAP
Discovery Consulting had outgrown its systems and processes. With SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, it has improved employee and customer experiences and set the stage for growth. And its clients benefit from the best practices and continuous innovation enabled by cloud ERP.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Professional services | Melbourne, Australia | 50–100 consultants |
reduction in time to issue sales invoices, from 18 to two days.
reduction in time for financial closing, from 20 to four days.
of bank reconciliation processes now automated.
Managing Partner, Discovery Consulting Group Pty Ltd.
Implementing an ERP solution fit for a growing business
With a focus on SAP solutions that help transform HR, finance, and workplace safety, SAP partner Discovery Consulting Group Pty Ltd. wants to equip clients to advance in a rapidly changing business environment. It meets these clients’ needs from the outset, supporting them throughout the lifecycle of cloud adoption and staying with them while they innovate and build a sustainable business.
However, the organization found it had outgrown its own systems and processes. Disparate, bespoke systems across time, expense, project, and accounting management led to manual work and a lack of visibility, hindering processes such as financial closing and sales invoicing. More important, employee and customer experiences were affected.
With expansion in mind, the organization needed to modernize its systems and processes with a new ERP solution.Discovery Consulting’s managing partner, Alistair Elliott, explains, “We needed a solution that could support our business and enable employees to produce the right results for our customers.”
Adopting leading practices in the cloud
As an SAP partner, Discovery Consulting had already implemented multiple SAP solutions across its business. For instance, it used SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Concur solutions for employee engagement and SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) to help integrate its IT landscape. The firm knew SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition could help simplify its IT environment and streamline processes with best practices.
The professional services firm adopted SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition smoothly without extensions and with limited customization. Errol D’Mello, national practice lead for SAP S/4HANA at the firm, praises the solution’s speedy implementation: “The limited need for configuration and customization enables rapid implementation time frames, enhancing a client’s time to value. A moderately complex business could implement the suite in 12 weeks, compared to 18 months for a single entity implementing on-premise ERP software.”
Simplifying the employee experience to aid a focus on customers
Integrating time, expense, project, and accounting management has enabled significant efficiencies and improvements across Discovery Consulting’s operations. For instance, sending out customer invoices now takes two days instead of 18. The firm expects to slash another day from this process by further automating the sales invoicing process. And increased transparency and automation mean customers have better visibility of their projects and engagements.
Automated scheduling and time sheets boost efficiency further. SAP Project and Resource Management – a real-time, mobile-enabled, and cloud-based solution on SAP BTP – replaces manual resource management processes. It allows the firm to drill down by day and more easily track and manage multiple projects simultaneously. As Discovery Consulting grows, it plans to use this capability to replace direct project staffing with automatic assignment based on skills and availability.
On the finance side, month-end close is now completed on workday four, compared to more than 20 days previously.As each invoice is generated, the firm runs revenue recognition that allocates the costs generated for the month, automatically reallocating accrued expenses and accruing purchase orders. Bank reconciliation, which used to be done manually, is automated too, with only 10% of transactions now needing human intervention.
Having implemented SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition successfully, the firm can now guide clients through similar projects. Errol D’Mello gives the example of a recent update involving automatic conversion of time sheets to service entry sheets. He explains, “I can see this being a massive benefit for customers with multiple contractors, where the effort of getting an approved time sheet to put into a service order would be hours per person per month. From an FTE savings perspective, automating that alone is quite a compelling argument we can make to a customer.”
Tapping into the full potential of a next-generation ERP solution
Discovery Consulting now plans to explore more intelligent capabilities of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. It wants to take advantage of regular software updates to create even more value in its ERP workflows and those of customers.
As Errol D’Mello says, “We’re live and using the functionality, but we need to continue to take steps to fully utilize automation. Getting to know the solution intimately and understanding what best-practice content is coming out are next for us. And this will also enable us to put the best foot forward for our customers.”