Since its establishment in 1967, GC Biopharma has become one of Korea’s leading pharmaceutical companies with a product portfolio specializing in blood products, including the world’s third successfully developed hepatitis B vaccine.

To further expand its global business, GC Biopharma selected SAP SuccessFactors solutions for its human resources (HR) transformation. Its legacy HR portal was developed long ago, and its IT team encountered many challenges in responding rapidly to employees’ change requests. Employees did not access the legacy HR portal often due to its inferior user experience and limited access to the PC environment.

To improve the situation, GC Biopharma leveraged SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone to design and implement its new HR portal, which serves as the main entry point for all employees to access the corporate HR systems through both PCs and mobile devices.

New HR Portal Designed along SAP’s Human-Centered Approach to Innovation

The SAP AppHaus team worked with customer representatives by first listening to the end users and accurately defining the as-is situation. The joint project team investigated the HR business scenarios for several personas, including employees, managers, and executives, and discovered their needs and pain points. As a result, the team defined a set of essential HR tasks, such as time and attendance management, talent recruitment, and employee training, and validated the end users’ expectations for the new HR portal.

SAP AppHaus designed various cards on SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone tailored to the customer’s needs and developed user interface (UI) integrated cards with the SAP T&I Platform Adoption and Advisory team. Through this journey, the customer team was able to get various ideas for configuring their own HR portal.

“We’re delighted that SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone now serves as the main entry point to our whole HR system. Mobile access is now available and the system is more responsive to the needs of our employees,” says Youngwoon Kim, corporate human resources officer at GC Biopharma.

Based on SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone and SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), the solution enables a personalized employee experience when using the HR portal as well as a rapid response to users’ change requests.

Easy Maintenance Thanks to SAP BTP

SAP BTP supports easy maintenance without code development by utilizing the appropriate application with SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone based on employee requirements. Also, flexible portal configurations for HR personas – that is employees, managers, and executives – for individual HR tasks are available.

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Moreover, SAP SuccessFactors Work Zone allows IT users to develop in the PC environment and seamlessly adapt to the mobile app without any further development. Therefore, end users can easily access HR-related information on both PC and mobile devices, which increases its accessibility and utilization.

The new HR portal went live in October 2022, ushering in both improved functionality and user experiences for more than 2,300 GC Biopharma employees.


Euree Hawer is a senior UX designer for SAP AppHaus Korea.