Nothing’s harder
than simple.
Making the complex simple is far from, well . . . simple.
THOUSANDS OF CUSTOMERS AND VENDORS. SIMPLE?
The Situation
The Gordian knot was complex—but at least Alexander the Great had a sword. HP Inc. (HP) had no such luxury. And so where that long-ago king, faced with seemingly intractable complexity, was able to innovate by simply hacking the beast of a knot in twain, HP, when faced with its own complicated tangle of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and technology, had to take a different approach. A harder approach.
And yet, at the core, the goal was the same. To simplify.
HP’s Gordian knot was a snarl of a dozen or so ERP central components in use across the enterprise and around the world that affected finance, tax, IT, HR, and other processes for thousands of customers and vendors. While these technologies had served the company well for many years, the status quo was not sustainable. And so HP seized the moment to build a new digital backbone.
The objectives were clear: Modernize the infrastructure, create one integrated ERP to drive greater speed and efficiency, and become a more digital company to enable growth.
HP knew what the end state needed to look like. And it was simple: a global SAP S/4 implementation built as much as possible with “out of the box” capabilities and minimal customizations. But to get to that new, simple future state? No simple task.
THE SOLVE
To figure out a path through the knot, Deloitte, leveraging understanding culled from prior work on other large transformations and a critical blend of business and technology capabilities, helped HP with a multiyear transformational journey delivered via a hybrid agile approach. The project, dubbed “Project Simplify,” was guided by principles that helped the multiyear project stay as, well, simple as possible. For example, Deloitte and HP agreed at the outset to keep to an “out of the box” solution as much as possible, with exceptions made only if there was a clear business justification that had the approval of HP leadership. Additionally, the solution was designed from the beginning to fuse processes and systems together to meet HP’s current and future business needs.
Equally important, at every step, the team kept the focus on the “why” of how things were being done, not just the “how.” A commitment to the belief that “nothing was sacred,” combined with the commitment of critical C-suite leaders and the right resources from HP’s side of things, enabled the simplification at the heart of the program.
Beyond those precepts, Deloitte embraced a virtual delivery model; an innovative approach to implementation, maintaining constant engagement with HP to allow for rapid decision-making; and a commitment to asking “Why NOT?” at every turn. Moreover, over the many years that spanned this transformation, we a) continued to bring in new tech innovations on a regular basis—making sure that the solution we started with wasn’t defined by the technology possibilities of several years before—and b) embedded critical change management activities from day one.
KEEPING THINGS SIMPLE? THAT’S COMPLICATED.
The Impact
By the end of the journey, HP had achieved the simplicity it was after—the knot had been untangled. Along the way, HP had unified data reporting by building hundreds of interfaces that allow direct communication between legacy assets and the new S/4 software and trained and securely onboarded thousands of users.
And to list just one example of what “simple” unlocked? The tax solution now integrates with both subscription services and product billing, simplifying the company’s tax operations in a user-friendly environment, enabling the client to manage global tax operations more cost effectively.
Project Simplify has wrought many operational benefits—to provide just a few examples: a two-day reduction time for generating new SKUs, modes of transportation 24 hours before shipping, day-by-day visibility into P&L and cash data, and automated SOX compliance.
Millions of units have been ordered and shipped through the new S/4 platform. The time that it takes to onboard a new partner has plummeted by weeks, frictionless orders now comprise the vast majority of all orders, and products are being delivered and orders acknowledged sooner than ever before.
LET'S CONNECT.
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