As a long-time SAP user, the Berlin-Brandenburg Medical Service (MD BB) had implemented SAP R/3 in finance and human resources with a hosting provider. The MD BB’s requirements for the SAP system have changed significantly over the years. Together with valantic, new ways and approaches were developed for the daily work. The old SAP R/3 was replaced and migrated to the new SAP platform S/4HANA.
Medizinischer Dienst Berlin-Brandenburg (MD BB) is a medical service that impartially assesses a wide range of socio-medical and care-related issues on behalf of the statutory healthcare and nursing insurance funds. Its work covers a broad spectrum of medical services, such as prevention, rehabilitation and care measures, the provision of remedies and aids, new examination and treatment techniques, and, in individual cases, the assessment of whether patients have received incorrect treatment. Other tasks include appraising the incapacity of insured persons to work and reviewing the billing and quality of hospital treatment and care facilities.
MD BB is committed to ensuring the provision of good and fair healthcare for those with statutory health insurance in the regional states of Berlin and Brandenburg and, in doing so, itis closely in touch with the individuals and their personal circumstances every day
Tim During
Team Leader in MDBB’s Accountsdepartment
”The valantic team’s outstanding technicalsupport made a seamless, disruption-freetransition from the R/3 system to S/4HANA possible.“
Tim During
Team Leader in MDBB’s Accountsdepartment
”Our project was completed on schedule and to the complete satisfaction of all project participants.“
Guido Czampiel
Managing Director, valantic ERP Consulting
”The SAP migration was followed by the startof a five-year system operatingphase during which we’ll continue the excellent cooperation, support MD BB with ongoing system operationsand implement SAP follow-up projects.“
The Challenges
Lack of Flexibility and Data Security – Migration to S/4HANA
As a long-standing SAP user, MD BB’s accounting and human resource processes were implemented in SAP R/3 at a hosting provider. The demands that MD BB placed on the SAP system had, however, changed considerably over the years. The former provider could not adequately implement the changes required to guarantee a sufficient level of data security or the flexibility needed in the health care sector, in particular due to its inability to offer hosting on a single-tenant system. Besides this, a migration to SAP’s future-proof S/4HANA platform was also planned.
Solutions & Results in Detail
With the migration to the new SAP S/4HANA platform, MD BB is now future-proof and has the flexibly it needs. valantic, as the hosting partner, fully complies with all the information security guidelines relevant for MD BB’s personal data which areclassified as “highly sensitive”.
SAP Migration at MD BB
Medizinischer Dienst Berlin-Brandenburg had been faced with a dual migration: The old SAP R/3 was to be replaced and the underlying system migrated to the new, future-proof SAP S/4HANA platform. At the same time, a change of hosting provider was also necessary since the previous provider was no longer able to satisfactorily meet the latest flexibility and data security requirements. MD BB was looking for a strong partner for this challenging dual project. Of all the potential providers, valantic was the most convincing as regards meeting all the cost and performance KPIs set out in MD BB’s criterion catalog.
MD BB and valantic tackled the project together from the very start. “At the beginning of the project, it wasn’t clear to us what exactly we’d be facing. We were up against a black box. As the project progressed, however, it became clear that our initial concerns were unfounded,” recalls Tim During, team leader in MD BB’s Accounts department. The first step was to overhaul the existing accounting and HR processes in the context of the latest SAP technologies, as well as to model the legacy, custom-designed processes in the new SAP standard. The second step was to perform an intra-year migration of the data, including document history, using valantic’s proprietary migration tools.
While this was taking place, valantic also developed a training concept for over 900 users, provided MD BB with the training content and communicated it using a multiplier approach. Day 1 readiness, go-live and the smooth transfer of responsibility to the support organization were ensured through comprehensive cut-over management.
Two Key Requirements Solved With Exemplary Competence
With the dual SAP migration, MD BB was able to solvetwo major problems at once. The hosting at a secure, certified valantic data center means that MD BB complies reliably with all the necessary guidelines. In particular, it was possible to satisfy the essential requirement of a dedicated, high-performance, single-tenant system – something that the previous provider was unable to offer.
The successful SAP migration to the new S/4HANA platform and the simultaneous launch of the Employee Self-Service Platform (ESS) have made MD BB future-proof. “With S/4HANA and ESS, we’re now up-to-date. All employees now receive their time and pay records online. Any type of absence can be accepted, approved and processed digitally,”says Dorrit Märthesheimer, Deputy Head of Human Resources and Social Affairs at MD BB.
“The valantic team’s outstanding technical support made a seamless, disruption-free transition from the R/3 system to S/4HANA possible.Today we can say that, as end users, we experienced this system switchover as a ‘natural’ process. Our project was completed on time, within budget and to the complete satisfaction of all project participants,” adds Tim During.
Joint SAP Follow-up Projects Already Started
Also noteworthy is that, since go-live, the new SAP system has remained below the originally planned budget. “The SAP migration was followed by the start of a five-year system operating phase during which we’ll continue the excellent co-operation, support MD BB with ongoing system operations and implement SAP follow-up projects,” says Guido Czampiel, Managing Director at valantic ERP Consulting, explaining their joint plans for the future. Among other things, MD BB wishes to upgrade the ESS to include travel expense accounting for its employees, and to extend the executive reporting services. Finally, a SAP solution for personnel planning and employee statistics is also in progress.
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Guido Czampiel
Managing Director
valantic ERP Consulting