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| Case Study |
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Outsourcing SAP production support helps Fortune
500 company improve performance at reduced TCO |
By leveraging Patni's expertise in SAP, a leading Fortune 500 company achieved a
significant reduction in downtime.
The Client
The client is a US based Fortune 500 specialty chemicals manufacturing
company.
The Challenge
Operating in a global market, the client's business operations were supported by a SAP backbone across multiple locations. Due to the distributed and diversified number of locations, the existing SAP support team operating at nine different locations was stretched for resolving SAP
related queries.
The ability to cost effectively monitor and resolve SAP support calls within
defined time frames was crucial for competitive advantage. This made it
imperative for the client to:
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Streamline the process of handling calls |
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Reduce the high cost of supporting and maintaining SAP infrastructure |
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Transition from a distributed support model to a centralized process
model. |
As the SAP system was critical to the client's success, the immediate
objective for the client was to effectively handle, improve and resolve SAP
support calls across multiple locations. To focus its time and resources on
running its core business, the client decided to outsource the activity of
providing support services to Patni.
The Solution
To streamline the process of resolving SAP production support queries, Patni defined SLA's for
different support operations. Patni also setup a 24/7 centralized remote support center to
ensure end-to-end SAP production support, and a Level-1 internal helpdesk for single window
clearance.
Patni was responsible for:
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Troubleshooting user problems with respect to SAP modules and processes |
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Fixing application and system errors Assisting users in understanding business processes
and applications. |
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Assisting users in understanding business processes and applications |
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Providing minor functional and technical enhancements Approving Master Data requests
and design extensions |
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Managing SAP Security and Authorization profiles |
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Performance tuning of applications and monitoring batch jobs |
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Establishing and documention standard operating(Sops) for different
support operatins |
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Setting up a governance structure to oversee the entire process of SAP production
support. |
To ensure reduction in call escalations and improve efficiency of support calls,
Patni deployed a dedicated team comprising of a set of SMEs and another team
with generalist skill sets. This helped the client in increasing the capabilities
of the support personnel, which in turn, led to reduction in call escalations.
Patni also deployed its proprietary 'A123T Knowledge - Gap Analysis'
framework, for comparing the knowledge base against a set of problem
tickets.
This helped the client in augmenting its knowledge base and improving the
speed of resolving support calls. Patni assigned a dedicated knowledge
engineer in the support team to implement our A123T methodology for
comparing the knowledge base to a set of problem tickets to determine which
categories and subcategories were not well addressed within the knowledge
base. This was designed on the lines of Patni's A123T knowledge - gap analysis
framework.
The Benefits
By partnering with Patni, the client achieved a significant reduction in the number of
support calls due to proactive monitoring of the SAP infrastructure.
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Centralized point of contact and end-to-end support for the client's user
community for a base of over 17000 users across 26 countries |
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Streamlined process of handling support calls |
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Improved speed and efficiency in handling support calls |
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Ensure high productivity resulting in low cost per unit processed |
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Significant reduction in downtime |
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Providing process improvements viz. augmenting first call resolution,
reducing turn around time and improving customer satisfaction. |
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