Schenker started with the rollout of the FSCM Collections and Dispute Management modules, as an additional functionality to the existing ERP implementations. René Coppens has the role of central project manager for the rollout in the regions.
After nearly a year of preparations, Schenker in Argentina went live with SAP on 1st January 2011. Together with the enhanced functionality that was realised for local tax support in the operational system in a parallel project, the business processes are now supported much more efficiently and fully meet local legislation.
The SAP users of Schenker Argentina in Buenos Aires.
Schenker in Chile and Argentina have started their rollout preparations in parallel during a meeting in Santiago de Chile, but will be split later on due to the local differences. For both countries, the operational systems will also need to be enhanced to support the local functionality that SAP offers, making these rollouts challenging in different disciplines. This is also one of the reasons why the preparations are expected to take at least a year before the projects can go live.
The project team members of Schenker in Argentina and Chile
After a year of intensive preparations and parallel projects that become part of the new system landscape, Schenker in Brazil went live with SAP on 1st January 2010 as the first country in the LATAM region. All operational data now feeds into a local system that handles all complex and frequently changing legal (tax) requirements, and this local system then forwards all accounting data to SAP for further processing. This has optimised a number of key business processes significantly and also prepares the organisation for further future improvements.
The SAP users of the São Paulo office of Schenker in Brazil.
Due to the increased business requirements in the LATAM region it was decided to roll out SAP from 2009 onwards. With its complex system landscape, Brasil was selected as the first country in the LATAM region where SAP will be implemented. Together with the implementation of SAP, a number of other accounting and operational processes will be improved in order to meet the long term future challenges.
Schenker has initiated the global upgrade of their SAP R/3 systems at the end of 2007 and from there onwards a large project team at the Schenker head office in Essen has worked on all necessary preparations during the main part of 2008. The country organisation in The Netherlands was selected as the pilot and René Coppens acted as project manager. The upgrade was successfully completed as scheduled in November 2008 and all gained experiences will be used for the upcoming global upgrade projects. At the same time, governance procedures are introduced for the future maintenance of the ERP environment.
Early May, the SAP implementation project was signed off after a successful start on 1st April 2008. The local team had perfectly prepared themselves in between the end-user training and the go-live phases, which was one of the major contributions to the smooth migration. With the completion of this project, the last HAI system in the Asia Pacific region has been replaced.
The accounting and controlling department of Schenker-Seino in Japan with their certificates!
From 18th to 21st of September, the project kick-off for the SAP implementation of Schenker-Seino in Japan took place in the Tokyo head quarters. The organisation already merged with BAX earlier in 2007 and will now start working towards the migration of all accounting operations to SAP in 2008.
The SAP project team members of Schenker-Seino in Japan.
Following the completion of the SAP implementations in Australia and New Zealand, the next challenge is to integrate all BAX operations into Schenker. René Coppens is project manager for the integration of all accounting operations in Australia and New Zealand with the intention to complete the legal merger as per 1st August 2007.
From June 2006 to April 2007, the parallel projects for implementing SAP in Australia and New Zealand were ongoing, resulting in a successful go-live as per 1st May 2007 onwards. René Coppens had the responsibility as project manager supported initially by Foo Joo Liang from the regional office in Singapore, followed by his successor Chin Kee Seng. The local CFO experienced the parallel acquisition of BAX as an additional risk towards achieving the project objectives but stated that ‘proper project management and excellent documentation’ has helped to keep the project progress under control.
The local teams involved 8 members of the organisation in Australia and 3 of New Zealand. In total, some 40 end-users were trained in using SAP in both countries.
