Leading UK Water Supply Organization Standardizes Its Finance & Procurement Processes 

Client

A leading water supply and treatment utility company headquartered in the United Kingdom provides essential water and wastewater services with a production output of 1.3 Gigalitres/day (drinking) and 1.0 Gigalitres/day (recycled).

Challenge

The client ran its Finance and Supply Chain Operations in SAP ECC and later migrated to S/4 HANA for Central Finance, Financial Accounting and Cost Controlling (FICO), Materials Management, Sales and Distribution, and Production Planning.

With a user base of 3000+ employees, the client faced performance issues in processing high volumes of transactions and was constrained by a complex procurement experience. Additionally, manual testing when rolling out applications led to unforeseen delays. To streamline efficiencies, the client needed to ensure the following:

• Minimize the invoice generation time
• Improve application performance for processing high volumes of transactions
• Increase spends visibility and control for procurement
• Reduce onboarding time for new joiners and user inquiries on payroll

Solution

Hexaware took stock and proposed a best-fit best-practices solution that involved:

S/4 HANA Enhancements & Database Migration

Due to the slow performance in processing/transacting high volumes for a user base of 3000+, Hexaware decided to migrate the client’s application database from HANA 1.0 to HANA 2.0 and automated invoice generation from device-based reading, resulting in a 68% reduction in bill processing cycle time.

Procurement Transformation

With distribution systems in place and no single source of truth, the procurement experience needed to be re-engineered completely. Hexaware analyzed the business processes in detail and created a uniform platform to search for goods & services using Ariba, IBP & Fiori, augmenting supply chain efficiency by 20% for wastewater management.

SuccessFactors Support

On the Human Capital Management (HCM) front, there were several user inquiries on payroll and candidate onboarding. Hexaware performed end-to-end managed services for SuccessFactors, covering Payroll, Recruitment, Candidate Onboarding, and Learning. This shortened the onboarding process for new joiners by 50% and enabled speedier resolution of user tickets by providing 24/7 payroll support.

Automation in Functional Validations/Testing

Hexaware implemented complete automation of all regression test scripts using its proprietary test automation pack, reducing the time required for global application rollouts by 25%.

Benefits

The client achieved exceptional results with Hexaware’s contribution for migrating the client’s application database from S/4 HANA 1.0 to HANA 2.0. Some of the significant benefits realized include:

• 68% reduction in the bill processing cycle time
• 20% augmentation in supply chain efficiency for wastewater management
• 50% faster onboarding for new joiners
• 25% reduction in the time needed for global application rollouts

Summary

A prominent United Kingdom-based water supply and treatment utility company, managing a substantial daily production output, successfully standardized its finance and procurement processes with Hexaware’s strategic solutions. Facing challenges in application performance and complex procurement experiences, the client sought improvements in invoice processing, supply chain efficiency, onboarding time, and global application rollouts. Hexaware’s comprehensive approach involved database migration, procurement transformation, SuccessFactors support, and automation. This case study delves into how we contributed to ensure significant reductions in bill processing time, enhanced supply chain efficiency, faster onboarding, and a 25% decrease in the time required for global application rollouts.