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Global Beverage Producer and Distributor Vendor Selection
Background
The client is the world's largest marketer, producer, and distributor of soft drinks. New IT capability is essential for the client to continue improving product distribution. Due to the demand for increased development of new application capabilities, they defined a strategy to redeploy their SAP support and maintenance staff into design and development activities. This launched a project to outsource SAP
support to a service provider offering in-depth SAP expertise through a mixed model of onshore and offshore support and maintenance teams, furnishing ongoing improvement, as well as savings.
Unlike many outsourcing initiatives, the client’s strategy did not include reducing staffing or transferring any resources to the service provider. They anticipated savings by replacing development contractors in combination with a redeployed of support resources and lower-cost resources.
Approach
The W Group led the way toward selecting the service provider. The W Group quickly outlined the RFP by customizing W Group templates and conducting interviews with client managers to define the scope and scale of the program.
Concurrent with developing the RFP, an RFI was sent to 15 service providers to assess their overall SAP support capabilities and resources. Following the review of the RFI responses, the RFP was released to eight service providers.
The SAP environment was well defined in the RFP, which included landscape and module information as well as a detailed examination of the effort expended by the internal team (in terms of hours), ticket and change request data, and in-flight project descriptions. The RFP also provided detailed descriptions of the services requested and desired service levels.
The W Group prepared a structured evaluation process including team worksheets and guidelines. After an initial survey of the proposals and formal presentations, three providers were invited for full-day discussions of their proposed solutions, transition approaches, and governance framework, as well as additional capabilities.
The client selected and began negotiations with two providers, involving additional due diligence to validate the proposed solutions. The W Group provided best practice templates for documenting an agreement and facilitated competitive negotiations, resulting in the selection of a single service provider to enter final contract development with the legal team.
Results
The structured evaluation and competitive negotiations provided the information and exposure to each service provider necessary to confidently make a selection, while also giving service providers the information needed to prepare responsive and accurate proposals. The outcome of this process was the establishment of a relationship with CSC that would provide the SAP support and maintenance capabilities necessary for the near-term, along with a foundation for any future IT sourcing initiatives. The transition of SAP support and maintenance responsibilities to CSC enables the redeployment of resources to more strategic activities in North America and Europe.
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