Prysmian Group: SuccessFactors Core HR at the heart of global transformation

Prysmian Group, a world leader in the production of high-technology cables and systems for energy and telecommunications, recognized the need to develop a new Human Capital Management strategy and supporting technological infrastructure, to manage the increased complexity and geographical span of its workforce following the company’s merger with Draka in 2011. The global implementation of SuccessFactors Employee Central is one of the main pillars of this new company-wide HR strategy

The need for change Following its successful merger with Draka in 2011, Prysmian Group needed to create a global governance to ensure that the increased complexity and geographical span of the significantly grown business was efficiently managed. In parallel to this, the Group wanted to transform its Human Capital management to:

• Transition the HR function from a mere administrative role to true Business Partner and Change Agent functions, where people, not procedures, are the focus of the HR teams
• Deploy uniformed, group-wide strategic HR processes that ensure complete visibility of the workforce so the best talent can be attracted, nurtured and retained, and individual employee objectives aligned with those of the business to drive its ongoing success To achieve the desired HR transformation, a new integrated HR infrastructure was needed.

The route for change starts from Core HR In 2012, Prysmian launched a multi-step HR program to build a standardized global HR process and system architecture to underpin the employee lifecycle from hire to retire. It was agreed that a standardized HR practice would guarantee that all employees benefit from HR best practice, irrespective of job function or location, and the business from a single view of the entire workforce, opening up huge opportunities for data analysis and the harvesting of business intelligence to be fed back into the business. The above program included, as a pivotal pillar, the implementation of a global Core HR system to centralize the management of employee master-data and organizational structure at the corporate level. SuccessFactors Employee Central was chosen as the best suited solution to solve the challenges due to the existing HR infrastructure, in particular inconsistency of HR data and manual HR processes.

About Prysmian Group
World leader in the industry of high technology cables and systems for energy and telecommunications, the Prysmian Group is a truly global company with subsidiaries in 50 countries, 89 plants, 17 R&D centres and over 19.000 employees. It recorded sales of nearly €7 billion in 2014.

Headquarters:	Milan, Italy
Industry:	High technology cables and systems manufacturer
Revenue:	€6,8 billion in 2014
Employees:	19,000
Presence:	50 countries

 

Objectives of the Core HR transformation project were to:

• Standardize HR data across the organization to introduce greater data availability and reporting accuracy
• Automate and harmonize HR processes to drive global HR efficiency
• Provide a solid foundation for the deployment of Talent and Development processes

The SuccessFactors Employee Central Core HR system provides a central database for all HR information at corporate level. It integrates all administrative, managerial and organizational views into a single platform, introducing common language, HR policies, practices and outcomes around the world. The project scope included the full integration of Employee Central with:

• Multiple local payroll systems, using an hybrid (master/slave) integration approach
• SAP FI-CO
• Hyperion Planning for HR budgeting and labor cost analysis
• An external Organizational Charting solution
• Concur, for travel and expenses management
• User provisioning solution

Employee Central was also natively integrated with SuccessFactors Talent processes, some of which were already in place, some to be implemented in forthcoming years.

NGA has supported the staged delivery of Prysmian’s HR transformation project. During stage 1, the project has been delivered in pilot countries - Italy (HQ), The Netherlands and Spain – and concerned approximately 4.000 employees. Stage 2 will see roll-outs to other clusters of countries, according to a phased implementation approach

Why SuccessFactors Employee Central for Core HR Technology?

To select the best solution to meet its HR requirements, Prysmian reviewed the four leading HR platforms on the market, matching the capabilities against the following criteria: integration with existing HR solutions/processes, global coverage, future innovation and strategic alignment. SuccessFactors Employee Central was the clear winner. It was well established as the HR technology market leader; it could easily be fully and natively integrated with Prysmian existing People Performance process and, being a cloud solution, it came with the guarantee of future innovation under SAP's huge investment commitments dedicated to SuccessFactors Core HR.

Why NGA for HR Technology integration and ongoing partnership?

NGA could provide Prysmian with the geographical and functional capabilities, as well as with a proven track record in the deployment of global HR information systems in multinational environments. NGA further differentiated itself from competitors because it has the ability to support the client throughout its whole cloud journey, from the design phase through the build, post-implementation to now, ongoing maintenance and support services. The trusted relationship NGA has created with the customer, based on its commitment and focus on the client's needs, was another driver for cementing this partnership.

Results: Core HR works better with Employee Central

Main benefits realized so far, following move to SuccessFactors Employee Central include:

• Introduction of organizational benchmarking and analysis at Group Level
• Major increases in the efficiency of employee-related analysis to support HR decision making - from one week to half a day
• 360°employee insights, presenting real-time and future hire-to-fire workforce intelligence
• Fast implementation: only 6 months from design of the global template to go-live in the first three countries, including complex integration into a hybrid environment.

Easing the Transition to a Cloud Culture

Prysmian’s Core HR project made it clear that for the smoothest move, and the greatest advantages to be achieved from transitioning HR to the cloud, key stakeholders must be engaged in the culture change from the design stage. A cloud mentality, based on standardization, has to be established through an efficient change management strategy. It also proved highly advantageous to maintain a “keep it simple” attitude, remembering that while key concepts and rules are to be standardized, there is still flexibility in the deployment to adapt to different contexts.