Grupa Żywiec from Heineken Group uses SAP CRM
11-09-2007
A next important stage of one of the largest SAP CRM in Europe has just finished. The solutions implemented with BCC support are used by over 1,300 people.
Grupa Żywiec is made up of five breweries and a dozen of distribution units (Żywiec Trade) as well as the company Grupa Handlowa, which centralizes marketing and commercial operations. The offer is directly received by customers of all distribution channels for retail trade, catering, modern and wholesale trade. A few hundred representatives take care of customer service.
In 2004 Grupa Żywiec decided to start a multi-stage implementation of SAP CRM solution. Its aim was to strengthen the company’s competitive edge, first of all through optimizing customer service, improving communication among commercial, distribution, marketing and maintenance departments. This has been one of key IT projects in Grupa Żywiec recently.
Supporting this part of the multi-phase enterprise was entrusted to BCC, which for Grupa Żywiec supported a comprehensive implementation of the SAP ERP system and other projects. In the periods of the most intensive works on the project about 60 people worked on the implementation (both Żywiec employees and consultants) in eight work teams.
From the end of 2004 to the beginning 2007 subsequent functional areas of SAP CRM were started: Business Partner (handling business partners), Marketing and Mobile Sales (a mobile application for sales managers). Moreover, during the project based on SAP CRM and SAP ERP applications the solutions supporting advertising materials management and commercial fixed assets were created. The works also resulted in preparing a system of analyses and reporting based on the SAP BW data warehouse.
The last stage, completed in spring 2007, was implementing a mobile system of Sales Force Automation (SFA) type by Lublin-based Anica System company. The application operates on PDA devices and closely cooperates with the SAP CRM system.
BCC consultants supported the IT department at Żywiec in integrating SAP CRM with other systems, particularly with the SAP ERP system operating in breweries and other units, MS Dynamics used by Żywiec Trade units, and a mobile application.
Integrating SAP CRM with other systems is performed on the basis of the SAP NetWeaver platform (the technology SAP XI – Exchange Infrastructure), which helps support business processes in progress in a few systems at the same time. As regards SAP XI maintenance, Grupa Żywiec decided on outsourcing an entrusted BCC with administering of the SAP XI integration solution.
In terms of the number of users it is one of the largest implementations of SAP CRM in Europe and the largest in the Heineken corporation. Currently over 1,300 users work on the SAP CRM system at Żywiec, including sales force – trade representatives, operations managers, sale analysts, customer service departments in each distribution unit and marketing department employees in the company’s headquarters.
’It is not easy for a large company with units scattered geographically to unite marketing, sales, distribution and service operations in one integrated process. Thanks to SAP CRM solutions implemented with BCC we have taken an enormous step ahead in managing customer relations, which will be reflected in customers’ trust in our enterprise and favorably influence the effectiveness of our market operations. I strongly believe that using SAP CRM adds to our competitive edge and that is why we are planning to develop further SAP CRM functionalities’, said Grzegorz Jaworek, Development and Sales Support Manager at Grupa Żywiec.
Anica System S.A. is a Polish IT company specializing in executing advanced IT projects. It is a leader in SFA (Sales Force Automation) system manufacture, mainly mobile applications that support managing networks of representatives. Its range of products includes the EBI mobile, a European leader among mobile systems. Through this solution over 10,000 sales representatives in Poland and other European countries (Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Portugal, France, Greece, Ireland) send hundreds of thousands of orders to a few hundred distributors monthly. Anica System S.A. is not only a supplier of IT solutions, but also a conscious business partner that within its implementations offers a wide scope of consulting services; it also offers clients comprehensive outsourcing services in infrastructure, software and specialist services. Anica System provides services for dozens of the largest FMCG producers and distributors as well as businesses from pharmaceutical, finance and public sectors.
