mySAP HR implementation

In order to unify the management rules of personnel and payroll data and reporting according to standards required for all the corporation, Makro decided on implementing mySAP HR. The coordinating company in all international units is MGI, the main supplier of IT services for Makro. The aim of mySAP HR implementation according to the corporate Common Template in all the group’s units is to enable a homogenous HR policy and creating critical reports ‘on request’.

Poland was the first country to start the implementation according to the corporate concept. Due to the complexity of the project and the local specificity of personnel and payroll management the company supporting the project in Poland was BCC (since 2018 SNP Poland).

The scope of implementation

mySAP HR implementation is, in the intention of Makro, a long-term process. In its first phase the Project has covered the following functions:

• personnel administration (HR-PA)
• organizational structure planning (HR-PD)
• payroll (HR-PY)

Since 1 January 2002 the above functionalities have been used by the personnel department in the headquarters, personnel departments in particular depots and finance departments in depots and in the headquarter.

All users work in one system, located In the IT center of MGI, in Germany. The first payroll in the new system will be settled in the last week of January.

After implementing the basic HR components (PA, PD and PY), Makro developed the system by recruitment  function (along with online recruitment).

The course of the implementation

The implementation was carried out according to the standard five-phase SAP methodology. The basic difference in comparison with other such projects was the necessity to concern Makro corporate concept (the so-called Common Template).

This document defines administrative and organizational divisions to model in the system, some configuration settings necessary for reporting and the rules for configuring and documenting works.

Considering the geographical scattering of the groups of the system key users, mySAP HR implementation in Makro was a big logistic project, as installation and configuration of the end software and user training in 21 outlets required systematic planning and reserving resources.

Because of the lack of a unified personnel and pay-roll data base in the system used so far, data conversion was a complex process. Files generated in many data bases (mainly in SIMPLE solution) had to be verified many times before and after their import to SAP system.

In terms of payroll settlement Makro has two basic personnel groups: employees paid by the hour and by the month.

mySAP HR makes calculations in two algorithmic paths, and for the employees paid hourly it is vital that their work time in the system be reflected very clearly.

Innovative solutions

For the first time in Poland the project used the Internet technologies to exchange data between an end user and mySAP HR in such a wide scope. Up till then, work time had been planned by managers in an isolated application and the data were exported through batch files to RCP (Cerber) system and personnel and payroll applications (Simple).

Now the work schedules are introduced into mySAP HR by means of an Internet application and a user logs in through an Internet browser to SAP system to work with current data. This way the number of interfaces with external systems has been minimized while also achieving a high degree of consistency of the data processed.

Advantages of the implementation

When starting the project, three main aims were defined:

• setting a standard for unified personnel and pay-roll administration in the whole company,
• ensuring authorized people a direct and easy access to consistent and up-to-date personnel and payroll data in the whole corporation,
• providing a tool supporting taking management decisions.

When speaking about the advantages that Makro obtained after implementing mySAP HR, the following should be mentioned:

• data consistency and their recording one time  only (no redundant data in personnel and payroll data bases);
• a possibility to model the organizational structure;
• integrating work time administration system with an external system recording work time;
• informational and functional integration with SAP financial areas for precise settlement of personnel costs;
• maintaining an acceptable level of data confidentionality through strict authorization control (compliance with the provisions of the act on personal data protection and with internal rules of the security policy).