Auckland, New Zealand — When Kordia ™ was baptised in 2006, it had a lot to live up to. It brought together a proud record in broadcast communications, engineering and network management, a legacy of innovative terrestrial and satellite practice and a proven ability to manage large scale and complex geographic and environmental issues.
What it had to do was to find a way to make those capabilities, values and knowledge widely available throughout a revitalised organisation operating in an environment of rapid change.
However, management saw that business growth was being held back by the disparate systems in New Zealand and Australia. Some parts of the business were operating custom-written systems held together by spreadsheets requiring additional centralised management support. They were less productive, and couldn’t provide an accurate picture of the business.
Kordia™ wanted the ability to be able to quickly roll out standard systems and procedures – doing things the Kordia™ way. It sought to operate a common set of processes across its business that everyone could really understand and communicate effectively.
Management also wanted to take costs out of the business and decentralise operations, empowering staff in profit centres by giving them the autonomy to make their own decisions. But decentralisation requires a single, simple system.
Kordia™ wanted a best of breed system that delivered breadth of functionality as well as flexibility for the future. CEO Geoff Hunt says that SAP was selected through a rigorous evaluation and tender process. The organisation undertook a three-month evaluation, involving more than 30 people across the business, to assess shortlisted systems. They also reviewed operations across the entire business, scoping and planning with Deloitte to ensure an implementation could succeed.
“In phase one, we’ve selected SAP’s core financial modules operating in conjunction with the SAP Data Warehouse and Enterprise Portal,” says Hunt. “Now we’re delivering this phase of the implementation.
“What it means for the business is a significant culture change. Kordia™ must move from fairly customised systems to a single system of well-defined processes. It’s a huge challenge. Today we are separate entities in different countries – it’s early days for us to talk about ourselves as a single unit, even though we are on the path to harmonisation.”
Deloitte will lead the implementation for Kordia™ and IBM will be the major infrastructure partner. The project is scheduled to go live in the first quarter of 2008.
“SAP has an enormous breadth and depth of functionality,” says Hunt. “It will help us drive costs down and enable decentralised accountability. Importantly we will spend less time assembling reports and have more time to analyse and improve performance. SAP will provide a development path supporting evolution of our business processes. Ultimately our customers will see better performance from Kordia™.
“This company has traditionally under-invested in enterprise applications and this is now hampering delivery of our growth strategy,” adds Hunt. “As Kordia™, we are focused on bringing people and technology closer together. SAP will provide one common set of processes across the group’s companies that will simply become an integral part of the way Kordia™ does business.”
The project will touch every one of Kordia™’s almost 1,000 employees, through timesheets, purchasing systems, expense claims and more.
About Kordia™
Kordia™ is an experienced trans-Tasman business that is fast-becoming one of the region’s leading providers of customised broadcast and telecommunications networks, network services and converged solutions.
New Zealand-owned, Kordia™ is a company with the scale, resource, partnerships and infrastructure to embrace the advancements in technology, media and telecommunications.
Kordia™ owns the third largest telecommunication network in New Zealand and is the major provider of television and radio broadcast facilities. The acquisition of Orcon this year means that Kordia™ is now more closely connected to the consumer in the telco space, and well-poised to better serve a converging market with an enhanced range of products and services.
In Australia, Kordia™ provides design, build and maintenance services to the broadcast and mobile telecommunications sectors, delivering over 65% of the Group’s total revenue.
Today, the Group employs almost 1,000 people in over 20 locations across Australia, New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region.
