This is what the Larsen & Toubro HR team had to say about SAP.
India, Bangalore —
THE CLIENT
Name:
Larsen & Toubro Ltd.
Industry:
Highly Diversified
SAP Products deployed:
mySAP HR
Larsen & Toubro Ltd. recently implemented mySAP HR solutions through their ePOCH (enterprise Planning Of Corporate HR) initiative. In the words of the HR team at L&T, what they discovered in the process were ‘empowered HR Solutions for Business.’
COMPANY BACKGROUND
Larsen & Toubro Limited is a major multi-dimensional conglomerate, ranked among the top five companies in India’s private sector.
It holds leadership position in most of its major domestic businesses – engineering and construction, electrical and electronics, cement and information technology. In the engineering and construction segment, L&T’s reputation is based on a track record of success in supplying plant and equipment of unprecedented scale and sophistication for critical industries – oil & gas, refinery, petrochemical, chemical, power, cement, steel and mining.
L&T’s fully-owned IT subsidiary, Larsen & Toubro Infotech Limited, has identified five thrust areas for the global marketplace – financial services, manufacturing, services, communication and utilities – with a common e-commerce and ERP focus.
With factories and offices located around the country, further supplemented by a comprehensive distribution network, L&T enjoys an image and equity in virtually every district of the country.
L&T has an international presence, with a global spread of over 30 offices and joint ventures with world leaders. Its large technology base and pool of experienced personnel enables it to offer integrated services in world markets.
HR IN L&T
The Company has prepared a road map for talent acquisition and retention, to augment its plan of making its presence more prominent in global markets. A slew of leadership programmes have been launched to segregate talent that can build business, by identifying and developing individual potential, in areas of strategic importance to the Company’s growth.
The company is emphasizing a high-energy culture by focusing efforts to recruit and retain high quality young talent. Brand building ambassadors at college campuses are making efforts to attract young top talent to join the company as trainees under various schemes. The training and development philosophy of the Company ensures that the developmental inputs are identified through a scientific assessment of competency gaps.
Feedback and coaching sessions are becoming a part of the responsibilities of every manager. A new framework for linking assessment of individual performance with incentives and rewards has been developed. The system called FAIR has been launched for objectively measuring and rewarding contribution to value drivers for enhancing business performance. A Global MLP programme is being prepared for developing global business managers. This initiative is to strengthen the Company’s efforts of increasing exports and expanding its operations to new international frontiers.
SITUATION PRIOR TO IMPLEMENTATION
It was this quest to sustain leadership that led to a critical review of L&T’s legacy systems and a search for potential improvement areas. The HR function was identified as a core area of improvement for driving change. The review revealed that multiple systems were being followed in various operating divisions and locations. These differences in process made any consolidation of data for HR decisions time consuming.
MOTIVATION FOR CHANGE
The new focus to generate value addition for business through HR generated a need for clarity by cutting through the clutter of administrative tasks within the function. As such the ePOCH (enterprise Planning Of Corporate HR) project was launched.
REASONS FOR CHOOSING mySAP HR
Adept in the use of information technology for business processes, L&T had already implemented SAP in multiple operating divisions and organizational units. In addition to this comfort with the expertise and experience at SAP, a study of mySAP HR solutions revealed that this one-stop package is capable of helping standardise HR process across operating divisions; improve efficiency & response time for routine HR tasks and transactions; and empower managers with timely and accurate information. This led to the selection of mySAP HR solutions to help bring the plan to fruition.
COMPONENTS OF mySAP HR IMPLEMENTED
Among the components that were implemented at L&T are Personnel Administration (PA) which includes Master Data (PA-PA) and Recruitment (PA-RC); Time management (PT); Training & Event Management (PE); Organizational Management (OM); Employee Self-service (ESS) and Payroll (PY).
PROJECT TIMELINE
The project consisted of two phases. Phase I comprised all the modules other than payroll (PA-PA, PA-RC, OM, PE, Time Management, PD & ESS). This was implemented in 8 months and went live on 9th July, 2002. Phase II covered the Payroll (PY) module and went live in May 2003 with a 7-month implementation period.
BENEFITS, IMPROVEMENTS, ACHIEVED GOALS
According to L&T, the vast product provides most of the features they were looking for. While customizing it to the complex requirements of a highly diversified and decentralized conglomerate was a painstaking effort, there is general satisfaction that many of the modules could be implemented simultaneously although the performance appraisal system with individual objectives linked to overall corporate goals is yet to be implemented on SAP.
mySAP has achieved the objective of providing efficient and transparent HR processes and accurate information for empowering employees. There is general satisfaction among employees with the ESS platform and physical location of employees is no longer a constraint for operating the system. Standardized processes have been established for HR and payroll. The payroll process itself has become faster, more efficient and integrated with HR decision making. The implementation of mySAP HR has led to the discontinuation of several legacy systems although a few still remain.
The movement to mySAP is expected to begin showing results through enabling informed decisions by managers by the year end. As the system is used, it will increasingly enable HR to focus on value added roles and over the next two years is expected to exponentially empower the function to take strategic business decisions and respond effectively to emerging HR challenges.
