alcatel-lucent

ALCATEL-LUCENT
Telecommunication Giant Upgrades
with Help from SAP® Safeguarding
Quick facts
“The upgrade provides us with a stable
version for the next three to four years.
It moves us into the most advanced
and promising service-oriented and
Java-based architecture, which we
will now explore in order to maximize
the benefits from it.”
Jean-Luc Henrie
Vice President, Application Solutions
Alcatel-Lucent
Company
•Name: Alcatel-Lucent
•Location: Paris, France
•Industry: Telecommunications
•Products and services:
Communications solutions
•Revenue: €17.8 billion
•Employees: 77,000
•Web site: www.alcatel-lucent.com
•Implementation partners:
Accenture Ltd., SAP® Consulting
Challenges and Opportunities
•Update a critical business management
solution
•Support the alignment of enterprise-wide
processes
Objectives
•Perform a Unicode conversion
•Implement swift issue resolution
•Provide timely access to specialist expertise
•Enable project completion within the
specified time frame
•Minimize disruption to day-to-day operations
SAP Solution and Services
•SAP Active Global Support (SAP AGS)
organization
•SAP Safeguarding services
•Global Delivery group of SAP Consulting
•SAP ERP application
Implementation Highlights
•Achieved simultaneous switchover for
6,000 users in 30 countries
•Completed upgrade on schedule in
7.5 months
•Performed upgrade within the limited 4-day
downtime window
•Supported testing for 450 users across
170 business scenarios
•Converted 1.8 terabytes of data in
a multidisplay, multiprocessing (MDMP)
database to Unicode
Why SAP
Fast access to specialist expertise
Benefits
•Responsive service, thanks to on-site
presence of SAP experts and optimal
collaboration between teams
•Swift issue resolution – 6 fixes provided
within 1 day
•Short stabilization period – all issues
resolved within 2 weeks after the software
went live
•Rapid access to expertise within SAP AGS
•15% reduction in disk space used on
servers
•Faster and more-efficient processing due to
performance gains of 20% to 30%
Existing Environment
SAP R/3® software (functionality now found
in the SAP ERP application)
Third-Party Integration
•Database: Oracle
•Hardware: Hewlett-Packard
•Operating systems: HP-UX, Linux
SAP Customer Success Story
Telecommunications
Following the merger of two telecommunication titans,
Paris-based Alcatel-Lucent became one of the biggest players
in the telecommunications industry. With 77,000 employees
in more than 130 countries, it offers a range of software, hardware,
and services to carriers and enterprise customers worldwide,
earning annual revenues of €17.8 billion.
In a wide-ranging program to align
enterprise processes in order to unify
and integrate key business activities in
the new organization, a critical step
was the upgrade of “Blue Planet” –
the SAP® software–based enterprise
resource planning (ERP) solution in use
prior to the merger. When the time
came to upgrade this mission-critical
tool, the company turned to SAP Safeguarding services to have access to
experts when and where it was needed.
This enabled a successful upgrade while
minimizing disruption to the business.
Pivotal Role
To manage business-critical functions
across the company, Alcatel-Lucent
relied heavily on Blue Planet, an ERP
solution based on SAP R/3® software
(functionality now found in the SAP
ERP application). Each day, in 30 countries across Europe – as well as India,
Brazil, and Venezuela – staff use the
solution to carry out core business
activities, including general ledger,
accounts receivable, accounts payable,
sales and distribution, invoicing, purchasing, and warehouse management.
As the largest and most advanced
ERP solution within the new organization, Alcatel-Lucent chose Blue Planet
to be the foundation of a common
solution to support activities across the
newly merged organizations. Following
this decision, the company decided
to upgrade to the latest version of SAP
ERP. “The existing software was no
longer supported,” explains Gilles Imbs,
project manager at Alcatel-Lucent.
“In addition, the new version of SAP
ERP supports Unicode, and this will
make the solution much more scalable
worldwide in the future.”
Eliminating Risk
With Blue Planet performing such
a key role across the organization, it
was critical that the upgrade took place
smoothly and quickly, with as little
disruption to day-to-day activities as
possible. Without the solution up and
running, staff in some countries would
be unable to carry out basic operational
functions – with a significant impact on
business.
During the upgrade process, the
perception of Blue Planet among employees was a key consideration.
“It’s important that people feel they can
rely on the solution,” comments Imbs.
“Users understand that issues can
sometimes arise – but they don’t understand if we don’t resolve them quickly.”
In addition, Alcatel-Lucent’s external
image was at stake. “We produce software for our telecom devices, so we
have to be efficient and responsive in
administering our own solution infrastructure,” says Jean-Philippe Dolle,
ERP solution manager at Alcatel-Lucent.
The implementation team faced the
additional pressure of an unmissable
deadline. “The switchover was scheduled for a period in between key
financial disclosures,” says Dolle.
“If we missed the downtime window,
the project would be delayed for
months, as would future deployment
across the newly merged company.
Failure simply wasn’t an option.”
The experienced Alcatel-Lucent team,
with a strong internal organization and
“We wanted to have direct access to SAP expertise both before and
after going live. If any issues should arise, we needed to know we could
solve them quickly – SAP Safeguarding gave us that peace of mind.”
Jean-Philippe Dolle, ERP Solution Manager, Alcatel-Lucent
“The speed of response by SAP
Safeguarding and the reactivity
of the team were key elements
of the project’s success and
strengthened user confidence
in the solution.”
Gilles Imbs
Project Manager
Alcatel-Lucent
methodology, quickly recognized that
the main risks to the project, including
its immovable deadline, were primarily
related to the technical aspects of the
Unicode conversion. To mitigate these
risks and to minimize the possibility
of disruption to operations – and the
adverse effect on the business that
would entail – Alcatel-Lucent turned
to SAP Safeguarding. “We wanted to
have direct access to SAP expertise
both before and after going live,”
explains Dolle. “If any issues should
arise, we needed to know we could
solve them quickly – SAP Safeguarding
gave us that peace of mind.”
A technical quality manager from SAP
joined the implementation team, which
was made up of Alcatel-Lucent IT
staff as well as experts from Accenture
Ltd. and SAP Consulting. Thanks to
his physical presence on-site, the technical quality manager was able to liaise
tightly between the implementation
team and colleagues within the SAP
Active Global Support organization.
This enabled fast and efficient access
to specialist expertise during critical
phases, which ensured that project
milestones were reached on time.
Unicode Conversion
Alcatel-Lucent collaborated with SAP
to convert its existing data to conform
to the Unicode standard. “Technically,
it’s an extremely complex process,”
says Imbs. “Every single byte of information needed to be modified. When
you consider that we have over 1.8
terabytes in total, you understand
what a huge task it was. We needed
a contribution from specialists.”
Alcatel-Lucent and experts from SAP
Consulting performed the data con­
version jointly, using downtime optimization tools to reduce the duration of the
process from 72 to just 17 hours.
“SAP Consulting and its global delivery
organization provided great upgrade
detected six issues,” says Dolle. “With
SAP Safeguarding, we were able to
resolve them within one day.”
During the user testing phase, con­
ducted just prior to going live and involving 450 users across 170 business
scenarios, rapid responses from SAP
Safeguarding were critical as well.
“It was an enormous test group, and
we could not afford to halt the process,” Imbs remarks. “That’s where
“For sure, if we have another big technical project like this one, we will involve
SAP Safeguarding again. The team more than fulfilled our expectations.”
Gilles Imbs, Project Manager, Alcatel-Lucent
experience, which helped us compress
Unicode conversion timelines significantly. The project team followed a template approach that, coupled with the
remote delivery model from SAP
Consulting, ensured on-time delivery
with minimal disruption to our users,”
comments Imbs.
Swift Issue Resolution
The Alcatel-Lucent project team com­
pleted the upgrade to the latest version
of SAP ERP in 7.5 months and on
schedule, with all 6,000 users in 30
countries switched over simultaneously
within an on-target downtime window
of four days. According to Dolle, swift
issue resolution – both before and after
the switchover – was key to this achievement. “During the upgrade itself, we
the capacity for quick reaction within
the teams was crucial. The speed of
response by SAP Safeguarding and
the reactivity of the team were key
elements of the project’s success and
strengthened user confidence in the
solution.”
Rapid Stabilization, Improved
Performance
During the five-month testing phase,
SAP Safeguarding helped the imple­
mentation team to address 750 open
issues, almost all of which were resolved before the solution went live.
This, in turn, ensured a short stabili­
zation period following the switchover.
“The stabilization phase took only
two weeks – much shorter than my
experience with past upgrade projects,”
confirms Dolle.
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With the new version of SAP ERP up
and running quickly and on schedule,
Alcatel-Lucent is already reaping the
rewards. “We have reduced disk space
used on the servers by 15%,” says
Imbs. “We have also noted performance gains of between 20% and 30%,
due to new hardware and the software
upgrade, enabling users to work faster
and more efficiently.”
The successful upgrade is paving the
way for future worldwide deployment
of the company’s ERP solution, thanks
to increased performance, the Unicode
migration, and the availability of standard features that eliminate the need
to write custom code. “The upgrade
provides us with a stable version for
the next three to four years,” sums
up Jean-Luc Henrie, vice president of
application solutions at Alcatel-Lucent.
“It moves us into the most advanced
and promising service-oriented and
Java-based architecture, which we will
now explore in order to maximize the
benefits from it.”
Business Alignment
However, Dolle stresses that some of
the most significant benefits are still to
come. “Blue Planet has a fundamental
role to play in our process alignment,
helping different parts of the company
to work together as a unified enterprise,” comments Dolle.
All European business units are
plugged into the solution, and a migration of U.S. finance activities is in
progress. Over the long term, the plan
is to move all global operations to the
Blue Planet solution. “Within a couple
of years it will probably support almost
all of Alcatel-Lucent’s busi­ness,” confirms Imbs. “It will take some time, but
the SAP software will eventually help
us align our enterprise-wide processes
– enabling us to be more efficient and
competitive.”
As it works toward this goal, AlcatelLucent will continue to look to SAP for
support. “For sure, if we have another
big technical project like this one, we
will involve SAP Safeguarding again,”
concludes Imbs. “The team more than
fulfilled our expectations.”
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