Gasunie grows rapidly. Into new markets and into new services. As a consequence closure processes have become more complex and required more visibility and control. As a result processes and tools needed to be changed. Both Statutory and Corporate Management information needed to be reported in a smooth way.
Also financial closure process for their entities in Europe needed to be monitored more closely. Microsoft’s Excel was used to consolidate, monitor and report. Gasunie Management recognised the need to improve both transparency and quality.
Gasunie runs SAP. Although other products should be looked at, the policy is a clear ‘SAP unless’ philosophy. SAP-Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) was chosen for the consolidation and reporting and SAP Financial Closing Cockpit (FCC) for monitoring the closure activities. With decision making early 2010, the objective was to implement by the end of 2010, allowing the year-end 2010 closure to fully run on the new processes and tools.
Early 2010 Voorne Partners was approached to help plan the project and to assist Gasunie with the delivery. Very soon after this, the solution partner selection started. Whilst Gasunie themselves signed up for the SAP FCC part, FPM Solutions was asked to deliver the SAP BPC solution.
The Approach
Both FPM Solutions and Voorne Partners are strong believers in a strong and detailed Blueprint process. Together with the Gasunie finance organisation existing processes were renewed, new closing calendars made and translation to SAP BPC and SAP FCC discussed. Also changes in responsibilities of the various tooling and input data were discussed and agreed in detail.
At the same time the requirement to report on a monthly basis rather than quarterly was accommodated by the processes and tools. Whilst FPM Solutions took care of the build for SAP-BPC and Gasunie for SAP-FCC, Voorne Partners started to prepare all what was needed for the training, testing and change management.
Involving a large majority of the Finance department dealing with reporting and consolidation, Voorne Partners conducted the testing. An intensive but highly productive period. Gasunie took up the challenge of spending quite some time in this phase of the project and brought the total to a success. Lessons learned were shared and discussed afterwards.
The Result
The project was delivered on time and in full, whilst process improvements are further defined and sharpened. The year-end closure process was run with the renewed processes and tools. The improved processes proved to be of good value. The team worked hard on data, documentation and detailed procedures.
As Erik Elzinga, Concern Controller and Project Director said: Our goal was to bring Gasunie’s consolidation process up to standard through the implementation of SAP BPC. The project should deliver a transparent and auditable consolidation process supported by a professional, SAP-integrated tool. Thanks to the commitment of all team-members (Gasunie staff, FPM Solutions and Voorne Partners) we were able to succeed within budget and on-time.
Gasunie is one of Europe’s biggest gas infrastructure companies. The network transports approximately 125 billion cubic metres of natural gas a year, nearly a quarter of the total volume consumed in Europe. Gasunie is the first European gas transport company with a cross-border network, consisting of more than 15,000 kilometres of pipeline in the Netherlands and Germany, connections to national and international pipeline systems and hundreds of installations, including an LNG facility (peak shaver) and approximately 1,300 custody transfer stations. Additional major extensions are under construction. Gasunie aims for the highest standards in safety, reliability, efficiency and sustainability. They serve public interests in the markets in which they are active and are committed to creating value for our stakeholders.