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Explorer

By nancy.martin

Bluefin Solutions knows all about the considerable business value of SAP software.  After all, the company’s business is dedicated to helping a who’s who list of global clients optimize their SAP investments. So it should be no surprise that Bluefin uses SAP Business Suite software and specific applications such as SAP Business Planning and Consolidation to run its United Kingdom-headquartered global operations. 

Bluefin Solutions’ own implementation experiences can tell us a lot about how to ensure a successful rollout of SAP solutions. “I believe it comes back to the methodology we use with clients to ensure a successful business outcome,” says Mark Chalfen, Finance Capability Lead at Bluefin. “It was an agile methodology, where the team implementing the solutions worked with the business users to explain the capabilities and benefits of the system.” This collaborative process included involving Bluefin Solutions’’ employees right from the start during the project scoping phase. “The business users had exposure to the screens, to the process, to the business language, to the system language,” explains Chalfen, “so they felt comfortable during training and then after in terms of the day-to-day running of their tasks.”

The engaging customer interfaces of the SAP software have also helped Bluefin achieve a rapid time to value. “The tools are very easy to use,” notes Chalfen. “They are intuitive and this ensures that our staff spends more time on the right value-add tasks than on the technology itself.”

A better user experience for employees in the area of resource planning, for example, has helped improve productivity for the company. Previously, planning was spreadsheet-based, making forecasting time consuming.  Today, the process is centrally managed and Bluefin benefits from the interactive screens of SAP Business Planning and Consolidation.  This allows the sales team to gain a faster understanding of resource availability when bidding on client projects.  And, with the enhanced forecasting ability, Bluefin’s resourcing team can better assess talent on hand and make necessary adjustments to meet project demand.

This kind of efficiency is exactly what the company needs going forward. Bluefin plans to triple its workforce over the next five years. The simplified user experience – coupled with the robustness of its entire SAP system – has helped Bluefin reduce its operating costs and better position the company for future growth. The company’s global clients will be able to grow their businesses, too, by taking advantage of Bluefin Solutions’ strong systems implementation knowledge and business advisory services and its demonstrated understanding of strategic planning.

Watch the video and listen to Mark Chalfen on sap.com

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