Fressnapf digitalizes its HR department

AUTOMATED PERSONNEL PROCESSES WITH TOOLS FROM CENTRIC

Fressnapf is Europe's number one in pet supplies. With its modern process and system landscape, the successful franchising group is ideally equipped for its further growth strategy. In the HR area, a modular internal control system for SAP® HCM, expanded step by step with Centric tools, consistently advances digitalization.

About Fressnapf

Fressnapf Holding SE is a franchising company based in Krefeld, Germany. With over 1,650 stores in eleven European countries and more than 12,000 employees, the Fressnapf Group is the largest specialist retail chain for pet food and accessories in Europe. The group employs more than 7,000 people in its own stores, at its corporate headquarters, and in its logistics centers. The national franchise partners employ another some 5,000 people.

With its Fressnapf and Maxi Zoo brands, the Fressnapf Group now has a footprint in ten other European countries in addition to Germany. In the coming years, the franchising company is planning strong bricks-and-mortar expansion with more than 800 new stores. The online store will also be gradually rolled out internationally. The company headquarters in Krefeld sees itself as a service provider and link for its local partners.

Efficient SAP standard environment

The head office introduced SAP HCM for HR management in 2012. Initially, the quality assurance of payroll accounting with the SAP solution was still carried out manually. However, it became clear that the regular payroll check needed to be automated, simply because of the rapidly growing number of employees. After the persons responsible in the HR and IT departments had familiarized themselves with the new SAP system, the next step was to select a suitable ICS solution for SAP HCM.

Centric was already known within the company. Since the user-friendly, easy-to-implement add-ons for SAP HCM met the HR department's expectations exactly, the Centric ICS tools PLK and PLX were initially implemented in 2013 for the quality assurance of payroll accounting. The digitalization measure came at the right time, too: Since the Centric tools went live, the number of payrolls checked with them at the German companies has doubled from 2,000 to around 4,000 today – and further increases are foreseeable due to the declared growth strategy.

Step by step to a comprehensive ICS

In combination with PLK and PLX, the Master Data Audit Program MADAP PA was implemented for the control of HR master data, which checks the plausibility of master data before each payroll run. In further expansion steps, the comparison and calculation tool VBT2, the extension of the Master Data Audit Program to include the OM component, and the audit tool PLK_AT for the Austrian sites were added. The implementation of further Centric tools is already in the pipeline. Janine Thiele, responsible for SAP HCM at Fressnapf, notes:

"Since all Centric tools can be integrated with each other, we can use them to build a comprehensive modular ICS for SAP HCM step by step."

Long-term data quality management

Centric tools have enabled the HR team in Krefeld to establish regular quality assurance and reporting processes for payroll accounting. A total of up to 20 users works with the tools regularly. While the monthly payroll audit with PLK, PLX, and PLK_AT are specific to the German and Austrian locations, the tools MADAP and VBT2 are used to analyze data from all national companies that work with SAP.

MADAP is now used to check the master data records of around 10,000 employees every month. The heterogeneous organizational structures of the various country subsidiaries were also harmonized with the help of MADAP OM. As a source system for downstream systems, organizational management now ensures the uniform naming of organizational units and reliable data quality across countries and topics.

Flexible personnel controlling

HR controllers use the VBT tool to create the standard monthly reporting. Thanks to flexible ad-hoc analyses, they can also answer spontaneous questions from the corporate group at any time. Janine Thiele, who is responsible for HCM, sees the simple evaluation of various SAP data sources in one tool as a major advantage:

"Instead of using time-consuming SAP queries and Excel, our HR controllers can use VBT2 to link all SAP data at the click of a mouse and evaluate it in combination."

For example, employee and payroll data can be merged in VBT2 and analyzed and prepared together using stored formulas, predefined queries, and filters. The HR controllers use VBT2, for example, to simulate bonus calculations, to report international key figures for financial controlling, or to simulate the financial effects of contract changes on the forecast and the annual plan.

Real advantages in many areas

Through automation in payroll, reporting, and data maintenance, Fressnapf saves considerable time on routine tasks with the Centric tools. The error-prone manual processing of Excel lists has also been eliminated in many places. HR managers can now rely on the fact that the payrolls are correct and the data quality is right. Another important plus point is the reliable international reporting that results from the high data quality in organizational management and master data.

The IT department also appreciates the ease of use of Centric tools during both implementation and operations. Control and administration takes place completely internally, and Centric is available to answer any questions. Thanks to regular updates provided by Centric, the ICS at Fressnapf is always technically and professionally up to date.

“By importing the provided transport requests into our SAP systems, the Centric tools are easy to implement and can be used immediately. Since we were given the test versions ahead of time, we were able to put the applications through their paces in advance and specify our requirements for customizing the Centric Tools in detail.”

Janine Thiele Consultant SAP HCM Fressnapf Tiernahrungs GmbH