Music company EMI is rolling out a single SAP enterprise
resource planning platform across its worldwide operations,
following a successful implementation in the UK.
EMI has moved to consolidate onto a single global ERP platform,
running MySAP on Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Windows Server 2003
in a system dubbed Evolve. Eventually, the system will have 2,500
users worldwide.
The move reflects the company's changing business and its need
to run billing and transactions in real time, as sales increasingly
include digital products that are downloaded from the internet. EMI
is replacing a variety of legacy systems introduced locally by its
operating companies around the world.
EMI Music's chief technology officer Andrew Hickey said SAP
systems best fitted with EMI's business needs in areas such as
intellectual property and digital sales.
Using Microsoft allowed tight integration with the desktop where
Windows software is used across the company, he said.
The system will remove the need to use legacy programming
languages to adapt existing software to the changing needs of the
business, said Hickey. "It is about future-proofing EMI," he
said.
The music firm used consultancy Accenture to configure and
customise the SAP package, with some of the work outsourced to
Accenture's offshore development facilities in Spain and
Malaysia.
A team of 50 people created 148 custom SAP objects and more than
74,000 lines of code as part of the UK installation. Top EMI
managers, including its UK finance and sales directors, were also
closely involved.
Hickey said gains from the UK implementation were now being
realised. "One of the key new capabilities is real-time
profitability analysis around our projects and releases. The other
area is much improved approaches to procurement around marketing
and promotions."
Having a single system around the world would also mean reducing
overall IT costs by having a shared service, he said.
The new system will be rolled out in North America and Europe
following the current implementation in Japan, Hickey said.