Globe Telecom’s successful implementation of SAP cloud-based solutions has been recognised in the recently concluded SAP Best Run Awards 2021 for Southeast Asia (SEA), winning the company the Most Transformational Award– The Game Changer.
Globe’s continuous business growth, innovation, and social responsibility can be attributed to the robust transformation of the telecom’s internal processes in the area of finance, supply chain, and employee experience. The collaborative partnership with SAP, which dates back to 1999, has enabled Globe to achieve a purpose-led digital transformation journey harnessing various SAP cloud applications to replace several legacy systems and automate manual processes.
Winning against two equally competent contenders the National University of Singapore and Singapore Power Ltd., Globe was named The Game Changer in the inaugural SAP Best Run Awards 2021 for SEA. Globe migrated to SAP HANA DB and SAP S/4HANA as well as implemented SAP Ariba, SAP Concur, SAP IBP, SAP Fieldglass, SAP Jam, and additional modules in SAP S/4HANA and SAP Fiori to enable its internal systems and processes to cope with the growing transactions and complex business requirements. The digital event recognised Globe and other leading organisations that successfully transformed their businesses and championed innovation amidst a disruptive economy by leveraging SAP products and services.
SAP Philippines Managing Director Edler Panlilio commended Globe’s business transformation efforts in his letter to Globe President and CEO Ernest Cu. He said:
“Globe’s powerful story of transformation, agility, and resilience will continue to inspire and influence businesses across Southeast Asia, and we can’t wait to see what other opportunities await you next year. I look forward to building on our partnership, and am confident we can innovate and excel together as a stronger Southeast Asia.”
Transforming with SAP Cloud-Based Solutions
With the company’s rapid business growth, Globe faced several challenges in some of its internal business processes such as the limited availability of accurate and timely data; inefficient and non-value-adding repetitive processes in the sourcing, procurement, and invoice payment processing areas; poor employee experience from manual processes in reimbursement, liquidation, and revolving fund operational expenses; and stock shortage due to non-system assisted forecasting and planning, among others.
Adapting the SDA principle (Simple, Digital, Agile) principle and harnessing SAP cloud-based solutions, Globe was able to streamline processes and embrace a re-architectured scalable system landscape that propelled its transformation journey.
“Our migration resulted in savings of 14,200 hours and 99.99{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} uptime. More importantly, it allowed us to not drop the ball on our enterprise-wide financial tracking and allowed full work-from-home when the pandemic surprised the whole world,” said Globe Chief Finance Officer Rizza Maniego-Eala.
Here are some of the outstanding results achieved by Globe:
- Decommissioned 7 legacy systems into SAP as the digital core: 5 on-premise procurement systems, a travel request web application, and an inventory system.
- Minimised management of infrastructure due to implementation of cloud-based Software-as-a-Service platforms.
- 57{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} reduced processing time was achieved with Ariba Invoice Management
- 250{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} increase of auto invoice utilisation with 30-60 days SLA improvement with SAP Fieldglass
- ~33k hours/year saved across different groups with an average of 48,000/year expense reports with Concur (Pre-Quarantine Period) and 88{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of employees were satisfied with Concur Travel and Expense
- Simplified asset acquisition, valuation, and reporting through new asset accounting in SAP S/4HANA
- Better inventory visibility, targeted 70{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} improved processing time with SAP Fiori
- eSignature Management’s environmental savings- 78 trees, 270k litres of water, 26k kg of carbon, and 1.8k kg of waste
“S/4HANA migration paved the way for the Globe Finance Transformation Journey. Along with implementing quick wins and standard solutions such as Investment Management, the business process reviews conducted during the implementation helped us identify other opportunities where we can do further automation to achieve Touchless Finance Operations. Globe Telecom’s implementation of S/4HANA was very timely because we were able to sustain our operations even during a 100{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} work-from-home set-up without any major hiccups.” said Menchit Briones, Finance and Control Division Head.
