Britvic embraced change to drive greater internal efficiency with help from Basis Technologies
Overview
Embracing change with confidence
Originally called ‘the British Vitamin Company’, Britvic was established in the 1930s in Chelmsford, UK. Today the company owns more than 30 international soft drink brands and manufactures in four countries, exporting to over 100 others. Britvic is the proud holder of a Royal Warrant, granted by Queen Elizabeth the Second, and in 2018 generated revenues of around $1.9 billion.
Challenges
SAP change control process involved too much manual effort and limited the efficiency of internal teams
Added complexity of coordinating external development teams in multiple countries
Pressure from upcoming major upgrade project that would involve re-platforming their systems and implementing the latest version of ECC
Solution
Provides the automation that would enable them to move to a more efficient, transparent SAP change control process
Delivers single source of truth’ that delivers total visibility of the status of every change
Eliminates manual effort so the team can focus on value-add tasks and reducing the overall cost of change
Results
Removes historical bottlenecks in Britvic’s SAP landscape
Delivers a central workspace for everyone involved in SAP change
Supports their current five-year SAP roadmap
Customer testimonial
Driving greater efficiency to enhance customer service with Basis Technologies
Britvic chose ActiveControl from Basis Technologies’ to achieve greater internal efficiency to help improve overall customer offering
Executive Summary
The Challenge
Britvic found that although their SAP change control process was robust, it involved too much manual effort and limited the efficiency of internal teams. Approvals were slow; visibility was limited and spreadsheets were used as the primary means of tracking change – factors which also made auditing difficult. The need to coordinate external development teams in multiple countries further complicated matters.
Britvic’s SAP team was aware of the limitations of their manual change management process – in particular a slow approval process which demanded significant daily attention from the basis team – but matters came to a head in 2016 when they embarked on a major upgrade project that would involve re-platforming their systems and implementing the latest version of ECC. The team realized that managing and keeping track of transports manually in such a complex project would simply take too much time and effort.
The Solution
Britvic chose ActiveControl from Basis Technologies to provide the automation that would enable them to move to a more efficient, transparent SAP change control process, communicate more effectively with external teams and leave the use of spreadsheets behind. Manual effort has been reduced by up to 50%, freeing the basis team to focus on value-add tasks and reducing the overall cost of change.
ActiveControl was selected as the means to help the Britvic team adopt a new way of working that minimizes manual intervention. Its automated deployment capability and versatile approval workflows have eliminated a significant amount of manual effort, while the tool also acts as a ‘single source of truth’ that delivers total visibility of the status of every change, making audit reporting far quicker and easier.
“Adoption of ActiveControl was seamless for us. We’ve had no issues at all since we started using the tool. I would happily recommend ActiveControl to any other customer in a similar situation. In fact, I think there’s still a lot more it can do for us.” SAP Environment & Test Lead, Britvic
The Result
ActiveControl helps to accelerate the system refresh process – a historical bottleneck in Britvic’s SAP landscape, not least because of the time that had to be spent on transport management – by automating the deployment of transports from Production and allowing integration of project changes without conflicts.
All of Britvic’s SAP development is managed by an external service provider, whose teams are located in a number of different geographic locations. ActiveControl resolves these issues by providing a central workspace for everyone involved in SAP change. External development partners utilize a browser-based Web UI which requires no installation of local software, while the Britvic team use the more powerful Windows GUI to access the full feature set and configuration options in ActiveControl.
In addition to the significant benefits that SAP automation has already delivered, ActiveControl provides Britvic with a solution that will support their current five-year SAP roadmap. Key milestones in this plan include integration of SAP with ServiceNow to streamline the CAB process and a move to S/4HANA, along with the multi-track development this will require.
ActiveControl offers an out-of-the-box ServiceNow integration and includes a range of features that make the S/4 transition and management of N+N landscapes significantly faster, safer and more efficient, providing the opportunity for Britvic to enjoy an even greater return on their investment in future.
