Background

With the aim of professionalizing its customer relations management services, the Grupo Sogecable launched a Telephone Assistance Center (CATsa) in 1990. This enterprise pursues two lines of business: direct marketing and information systems, both using technology based on:

• customer care service through multimedia platforms;
• comprehensive database management;
• website hosting;
• application development service;
• integral security. 

CATsa’s technological evolution led its management to consider the development of a technological system as a fundamental support for the organization on several levels: customer billing, ABC cost model, production control system and management information system.

Development of the project

The duration of the project was five months. CATsa’s information needs lay in the following parameters:

• access, from a single point, to key information coming from different sources;
• high quality information;
• sophisticated support for decision-making;
• alignment with all CATsa’s business processes. 

The SAP solutions implemented at the Back Office level (SAP R/3) were:

• the Controlling module with two parallel, integrated cost models: cost control by project and cost control by process;
• the Sales (SD) module for customer management and billing;
• the Projects (PS) module for operations control. 

At the Business Intelligence area level:

• SAP SEM: Corporate Performance Monitor (CPM), Business Planning and Simulation (BPS) and the Business Information Collection (BIC) module. SEM (Strategic Enterprise Management) supports the company’s planning and budgeting model, as well as CATsa’s Balanced Scorecard, with the associated indicators.
• SAP Business Information Warehouse as a management information system. 

DMR Consulting has been the SAP Partner that has accomplished the implementation in the management control, sales and business area, and in CATsa with the following short-term benefits:

• improvement of the quality and management of information;
• avoidance of manual data processing;
• integration of the entire organization into the key business processes;
• implementation of a Balanced Scorecard monitoring tool;
• integration of all CATsa’s departments into the planning and budgeting process. 

Among the long-term benefits, the following stand out:

• alignment of the entire organization behind CATsa’s strategic objectives;
• homogenization of criteria and processes;
• reduction of information handling costs;
• alignment of top management with the compensation by objectives system;
• induction of change in CATsa’s corporate culture. 

This new management model in SAP has changed the way many things are done at CATsa.