Milestone in harmonisation of travel and expenses management process including the integration into S4/HANA
Driving transformative change at Ferring International SA – a dynamic landscape with over 7,000 employees spread over more than 50 countries. Following the implementation of a state-of-the-art global core system and preparations for a forthcoming S4/HANA implementation, the decision was taken to harmonise the travel and expenses process as well. Find out in this success story how the HR Campus project team developed solutions to statutory requirements, special cases and exerted preparation work for the integration into the S4/HANA landscape.
Ferring International SA was not only looking to the successful introduction of a global core system, but also had its sights set on the forthcoming implementation of S4/HANA and harmonisation of the travel and expenses management process. We found a variety of situations currently prevailing among 7,000-plus employees spread over more than 50 countries. Some countries were using a stand-alone standard solution to record expenses, others entered their expenses in an Excel spreadsheet and pioneers had digitalised and automated their entire travel and expenses management process.
To address the harmonisation of the travel and expenses process, satisfy the legal requirements and unforeseen special cases, Ferring International Center SA opted for SAP Concur. SAP Concur is the ideal solution for global companies not only because of various modules, such as Expense, Travel and Request, but also thanks to the flexibility in the integration of different finance systems.
To facilitate the future centralised support in Switzerland, the aim was to configure the system identically as far as possible for all countries and only to accept differences required for legal reasons. The first step towards making this possible was to prepare a global template. This template not only reflected Ferring International SA's global travel and expenses directive, but also adhered to the SAP Concur best practice approach. Since Ferring International SA did not have a uniform finance system in place at the time of the project, in addition to the global template an accounting template had to be created for each company and finance system. While creating these accounting templates, the readiness for S4/HANA was ensured in order to enable a successful transition with minimal efforts. Despite special cases and divergences from the template, this approach not only enabled efficient introduction, but also promised simplification in the future support function after the trouble-free go live. At the end of the project, we can look back on stimulating workshops, challenging demands and not only a satisfied but also happy customer.
Company:Ferring International Center SA
Sector:Pharma company
Employees:approx. 7,000
Products: SAP Concur (Travel, Expense, Request)
Picture: the project team of Ferring International SA and HR Campus
Published: 13. February 2024
