Renewable energy company reaps benefits of enhanced user experience and improved finance processes after successfully migrating to SAP S/4HANA
SYDNEY – 02 February, 2022 – SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced leading clean energy business Hydro Tasmania has achieved significant benefits after migrating from SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) to SAP S/4HANA in September 2020.
As Australia’s largest producer of renewable energy, Hydro Tasmania employs more than 1,100 staff to manage its large asset footprint including 30 power stations and 50 major dams. After several years of leveraging SAP ECC to manage financial operations, Hydro Tasmania migrated to SAP S/4HANA to eliminate manual accounting processes, building an intelligent, data-driven foundation for future innovation.
Hydro Tasmania undertook a remote, 10-month implementation process with SAP partner Zag part of Accenture against the challenging backdrop of a pandemic. In the year since the project completed, it has seen significant business benefits from the conversion and subsequent projects, including improved customer experience and increased systems speed, which reduced IT frustrations and allowed staff to focus on value-add process improvements and functional changes.
“We were looking for an innovative, reliable technology partner to streamline current finance processes and lay the foundation for broader digital transformation,” said Tristan Coleman, Manager IT Solutions, Hydro Tasmania.
“In the year since we converted to SAP S/4HANA, the platform has continued to enhance the user experience for staff and streamline business processes. Our employees have faster, more transparent data visibility, which is helping them to work more efficiently and collaboratively with integrated cloud solutions such as SuccessFactors. They have mobile access to the platform anytime and anywhere, even if we have someone located remotely in the field with poor mobile reception.”
Improving user experience is a key benefit of Hydro Tasmania’s transformation. SAP S/4HANA provides greater visibility into accounting processes and the conversion also enables more efficient access to data analytics. For example, the enhanced search functionality and organisation of data now available simplifies accounting processes that were previously run manually off a spreadsheet.
Damien Bueno, President and Managing Director, SAP Australia and New Zealand said: “Since converting its ERP solution to SAP S/4HANA just over 12 months ago, Hydro Tasmania has reaped the benefits of building intelligence into the core of its organisation. Its employees are empowered to work more collaboratively and with greater visibility of the organisation’s operations, with time and resource delivered back into the business. This is more important than ever in Australia’s renewable energy sector, which is becoming increasingly competitive and focused on cost-saving. Hydro Tasmania’s transformation also acts as a launch pad for greater business benefits to be achieved in 2022 and beyond”.
Nick Mulcahy, CEO, Zag part of Accenture said: “We’re proud to be selected as a strategic partner to support Hydro Tasmania on its SAP S/4HANA journey. Despite delivering the project remotely during COIVD-19 lockdowns, it’s fantastic to see how the conversion to SAP S/4HANA continues to positively impact employees and wider business operations.”
As part of its broader innovation program, Hydro Tasmania is planning to deploy SAP solutions across its spatial data, finance, assets and HR teams.
