Accordingly, the BKW Group has switched to SAP 4/HANA, in order to handle all industry-independent business processes such as finance, procurement, sales, HR, logistics or plant maintenance transparently and efficiently. The technical complexity of an SAP infrastructure increasingly requires specialized know-how. The BKW Group hence decided to outsource its SAP Basis operations to T-Systems in First Generation Outsourcing. As a specialized service provider, T-Systems provides BKW with professional support in achieving three key objectives: A high degree of standardization and automation as well as utilizing the economies of scale help to keep the maintenance costs for SAP rule operation low. BKW can quickly implement further digitization steps on a stable, functioning system. And thanks to its operating partner, BKW can focus on competitively differentiated application management.
By reducing its on-premise infrastructure, BKW can lower fixed costs in its investments and released resources can focus on business application management, enabling BKW to better differentiate itself in an increasingly competitive environment. This makes the tasks for the inhouse-IT interesting, as these are innovation-driven. The procurement of SAP services from a private cloud creates greater flexibility and allows BKW to dynamically adjust capacities according to demand and also to call in additional temporary systems at short notice, in order to cover peaks in demand elastically. At the same time, T-Systems guarantees maximum security, availability, performance and stability in the operation of the "backbone" of BKW's operational processes in accordance with agreed Service Level Agreements. The BKW Group now has sufficient resources and Know-how to tackle more innovative ideas together with its provider. This includes, for example, supporting the business in generating more benefits and added value from the available data.
We flexibly receive the highest performance and maximum high availability for our critical infrastructures from T-Systems and can focus on competitively differentiating innovation.
“T-Systems won us over with its technological and methodological expertise, experience, openness, flexibility and creative approaches to solutions," sums up Michel Frey, Head of Business Process Support at the BKW Group. "Migration and operation run smoothly on the T-Systems platform and we are a well-coordinated team. Now we can look further into the future with our partner and accelerate our digitization on a stable, modern and powerful basis.”
By outsourcing the SAP Basis operations, BKW Group is placing a central element for handling its corporate processes at the hands of T-Systems. The technology competence and experience of the service provider are equally important. Scalability in the cloud, stability and reliability in operation as well as data storage in Switzerland are compelling key factors for BKW, which T-Systems can fully guarantee with its private cloud for SAP solutions in its own data center. Both partners give great importance to the human factor. For the BKW team, the skillset changes, when moved from in-house operation to provider management. The T-Systems team follows triedand-tested methods in a targeted and solution-oriented manner and incorporates its know-how with regard to the special features of First Generation Outsourcing. There is also enough flexibility during Corona to move project management to the virtual space at short notice.
When the project started in September 2019, T-Systems already took over the first SAP operating processes in Outtasking, so that BKW could conserve resources and T-Systems could get to know the systems. In parallel, the solution design was worked on. The platform was made flexible by T-Systems according to the zero-downtime principle. All components are redundant to minimize maintenance windows. Although, in the private cloud, BKW can dynamically adjust capacities. T-Systems has taken a creative approach to develop the standby systems by using them as test environments as long as the primary systems are stable and reliable. In this way, valuable resources are not wasted. Despite the Corona lockdown, the migration proceeded according to the specified schedule. Since summer 2020, all systems have been running in regular operation in the private cloud at the T-Systems data center. The two partners are already preparing to switch the system to the new release.
The BKW Group is an internationally active energy and infrastructure company headquartered in Bern. It employs over 7.000 employees. Thanks to its network of companies and competencies, it offers its customers comprehensive overall solutions. It plans, develops and operates energy production, trading and supply infrastructures for companies, private and public sector and offers digital business models for renewable energies. The BKW Group's portfolio ranges from planning and consulting in engineering for energy, infrastructure and environmental projects to integrated offerings in the field of building technology and construction, to service and maintenance of energy, telecommunications, transport and water networks.
