New media, new system, new opportunities

Why SAP in the media?

At Onet Group, we use domain systems, the most important of which are systems that support sales and advertising publishing, activities related to the operation of our core business. When choosing an ERP system, we were looking for a tool that would provide us with integrated management of the company’s processes and their optimization.

We decided on SAP for several reasons. SAP is successfully used in companies with a similar business profile to ours. Also important was the recommendation of people who had previously learned the system, worked with it and were able to point out to us the significant advantages of the solution.

Of fundamental importance to us was the fact that companies in our capital group have already been using SAP’s financial results consolidation solution for several years. After analyzing Onet’s needs and the context of reporting at the corporate level, we came to the conclusion that SAP would be the best choice.

There were other arguments in favor of SAP as well. Our requirement was that the system, which clips the core financial functions, should be easy to integrate with other applications we use in operations, and should provide the expected efficiency associated with the collection and processing of a huge amount of information.

We realize that improving business systems is a continuous process. Therefore, in addition to the technical aspects, related to the functioning of the system, we also took into account the availability of appropriate competencies on the market, so that we could develop and adapt the solution to changing needs at any time. Already now, shortly after the start of the SAP ERP system, we are proceeding to the next stage – the implementation of the SAP BW data warehouse. As CFO, it is with Business Intelligence tools that I attach the greatest expectations. What I have in mind above all is a definite improvement in the quality of management reporting and access to key data virtually online. Currently, we have to settle for largely periodic reporting. I am convinced that a data warehouse will definitely change this time perspective and satisfy our expectations for the reporting layer.

What I can already conclude is that SAP has introduced a major change in the operational work of finance departments. There has been a significant simplification and, above all, standardization of business processes. I have confidence that the data on which I make decisions comes from a single, reliable and up-to-date source. Financial information is available on demand, linked in the right way. The system is efficient, allowing us to gather a lot of information from different sources in one place. This, in turn, allows us to prepare analyses with a wider cross-section more quickly and efficiently, and to access data from multiple levels.

At the end of the day, we achieve greater efficiency in the operational layer and thus cost optimization.

Renata Morlewska-Sipior, Finance Director, Onet.pl Group

Controlling in the media – no ready-made recipe

Onet’s activities are aimed at two groups of customers – clients, i.e. mainly advertisers, and Internet users, i.e. users of our services. This is a characteristic feature of media companies. From this comes the need to look at the same information from two different perspectives, in different cross sections.

With regard to customers, we focus on analyzing the profitability of our advertising products, customer groups or sales channels. As for the portal side, the orbit of controlling interest is the profitability of Onet’s websites or other services aimed at users. We perform analyses of our market position, compare ourselves to the competition, and observe clients’ advertising expenditures. We also perform budget analyses, ongoing forecasting, planning, budget execution deviation analyses, etc. With such a multidirectional understanding of analytics, therefore, comes the need to collect a very large amount of data about customers, about our services, about advertising products, and also the need to annotate this data with many additional controlling features and attributes that enable multidimensional analyses.

The advertising market is very volatile. We need to observe it closely and respond quickly to trends emerging “news", customer expectations, use the latest technologies. Also, the tastes of Internet users are changing, so products for users also need to be adapted to new trends and technological solutions at all times.

Managers’ expectations of the information we provide them are also changing. There are new reporting perspectives, other points of view. When we created controlling at OneT, there were no ready-made templates for “new media" companies on how to analyze profitability, what controlling approach to use. We had to work out the rules ourselves, how best to price the service, how to make the appropriate allocation of costs and revenues. We perfected a complete and consistent controlling approach. The next challenge was to implement the tools that would handle this approach.

Until recently, we have been using tools largely of our own making in controlling, tailored to our specific information and reporting needs. We now have a tool that is part of a larger standard, the SAP ERP system, which we will be able to develop. Our expectations of SAP’s functionalities are very high, and I have to admit that some compromises on our part were necessary during the conceptual work, as the logic of the system does not always match the customer’s expectations, especially when it comes to such a broad context of information as we expect. On the other hand, one of the expectations from the SAP system was to introduce more discipline when it comes to maintaining the implemented procedures and defined processes. With so much variability in reporting needs, we need a tool that imposes certain frameworks and good practices.

We use quite sophisticated record-keeping systems to monitor and analyze viewership, operational parameters and display of ads on the sites. This data then goes through interfaces to SAP, where we can analyze profitability, count revenues and costs for individual business lines. SAP allows us to allocate all costs in great detail and precision, so we can analyze the company’s result by service and services provided.

The SAP controlling tools we are currently using are a powerful transactional and inventory platform. We expect to take full advantage of the potential of the information available in the system after the second phase of implementation, in which the SAP CO tools will be expanded and we will launch the SAP BW data warehouse. We expect that the warehouse will enable us to collect data from various sources, collate them with each other and obtain aggregate, cross-sectional analyses. We expect in-depth profitability analyses. We also plan to use existing solutions, such as the SAP BusinessObjects reporting platform, to present this data to a wider audience.

Paweł Wojciechowski, Deputy Financial Director, SAP CO working team leader, Onet.pl Group

SAP in accounting. Development “out of the box"

A new financial and accounting system is a big change in the life of the accounting department. On the one hand, the new tool provides us with new opportunities, gives us easy access to information and source data, automates many processes, on the other hand, the change requires us to abandon the beaten paths and adopt new methods of work. I am referring here not only to the look and navigation of the system, but also to a change in its logic and sometimes the need to correct the course of business processes.

The previous system, after many years of development and work with it, was well adapted to the requirements of our accounting, but it did not offer the possibility of wider use of financial information, such as for controlling purposes. For us, in turn, a major impediment was the lack of easy access to data from other areas. SAP, as an integrated system, gives us the possibility to access source data from different areas, e.g. from the FI level we can have an insight into sales documents, orders, framework agreements, which, for example, when posting invoices, allows us to check the amounts with the order or agreement. The previous division of tasks has changed. According to SAP logic, it is accounting that enters controlling elements into the system, e.g. MPK, controlling order number, PSP element, or functional area. This, of course, means more work for us and lengthens the record-keeping process in accounting, but in turn makes it possible to automatically create controlling documents.

The implementation of SAP, on the other hand, has accelerated the posting of documents with multiple postings, which are entered into SAP and posted in a single operation using an LSMW file. This is a big facilitation, as in our accounting practice we deal with documents having even several hundred items. These files were prepared for our needs by BCC consultants. We also use them for posting provisions. Integration of SAP with the system for electronic document circulation enables automatic reading of headings and gross amounts from purchase invoices, which significantly reduces the risk of errors.

I consider it a major success that we have created a mechanism to automatically account for prepaid service revenues over time. International financial reporting standards require us to recognize this type of revenue in parallel with the service period. The mechanism realized in SAP allows us to correctly recognize revenue over time, without the need for additional calculations in spreadsheets.

Another big plus change is the automatic accounting of both payments and receipts from contractors when posting bank statements. This is a big change from the previous system, which only settled payments. If posting is done in foreign currencies, exchange rates are suggested automatically (provided they are entered in the exchange rate table). The system allows the use of the exchange rate from the last business day preceding the day of invoicing. A certain difficulty, however, is that when posting bank statements in foreign currencies, SAP does not give you the option to use the FIFO method, which we use in recording foreign currency accounts.

SAP also introduces some improvements in tax settlements. And so we have the ability to automatically reduce the amount of a transfer to a foreign counterparty by withholding tax, or to record non-deductible VAT resulting from the ratio of exempt to taxable sales already at the stage of posting individual documents.

As a company that provides advertising services, including advertising of low alcoholic beverages, we are required to pay the so-called beer tax – a special fee on alcohol advertising. SAP allows automatic posting of this tax when posting sales invoices. We didn’t have such a possibility in the previous system; we had to pull this information manually, guided by the contents of the invoice document, which was quite cumbersome.

The system also facilitates control of settlements arising from master agreements. In SAP MM, we monitor the degree of execution of such an agreement on an ongoing basis and receive a notification if its parameters, such as the value of the agreement, are exceeded.

The integration of SAP with the company’s asset management application operated at Onet was very important. This allowed automating the process of creating a file of fixed assets located in the machinery and equipment group. The main benefit is that the process of calculating depreciation has been significantly shortened. Previously, with a large number of fixed assets in the Onet Group, the calculation took more than 3.5 hours. Currently, the system takes up to two minutes to do so. An automatic update of the location of fixed assets and MPKs is also carried out periodically, which allows correct allocation of depreciation costs and reduces the risk of errors.

In addition, SAP gives us the ability to segregate the margin contained in tangible and intangible assets purchased from subsidiaries as a subcomponent, which allows us to obtain data for consolidation adjustments.

As a company belonging to the TVN Group, we are required to prepare monthly consolidated financial statements, i.e. the balance sheet and income statement of the Onet.pl Group, in order to report the company’s financial results to the owner. This is a specific report, in a strictly defined layout. During the implementation, BCC prepared dedicated mechanisms and reports for our needs, which make it possible to prepare consolidation reports in a format accepted by the owner’s application practically in a few minutes. This ability to generate it quickly is a great convenience for us.

Thanks to all these changes and automations, the role of the accountant in our organization has also been modified – the main emphasis has shifted from entering data into the financial and accounting system to checking the accuracy of the data collected in the system. This is a significant change from the situation before the implementation and a development opportunity for the employees of my department.

Barbara Ćmak, Chief Accountant, SAP FI work team leader, Onet.pl Group

Przemythoughtful shopping

Even before the start of the SAP implementation, we decided to implement an electronic workflow system. The optimization of the invoice acceptance process in the area of purchasing for IT, which we achieved in a short period of time, convinced us to take the integration of the electronic document workflow system and SAP in the area of cost commitments as one of the most important assumptions when creating the concept of the SAP solution.

As a service company, we do not have extensive purchasing processes, nor does a centralized purchasing department function within our structures. So, at the beginning of the work on the SAP MM implementation concept, it was necessary to identify all purchasing areas, operating in different departments of the company. In addition to purchases in the IT area, i.e. computers and technical equipment for the server room, we also have administrative purchases, marketing purchases, purchases of content for the portal or outsourcing services.

With such a diverse basket, it was quite a challenge to unify the purchasing processes as much as possible and agree on a list of functional requirements for SAP MM. We handled the approval of the purchasing process in parallel with the implementation of the SAP system based on the electronic document workflow system in operation at Onecie. Purchasing for IT was the first to be covered by the solution – the system was launched on January 1, 2011. The developed solution systematizes purchasing processes throughout the company and provides a tool for cost control over purchases. Other purchasing areas are waiting in line, which we are currently working on launching.

Currently, the submission of a requisition and approval of purchases is done in the electronic workflow system. The accepted demand then goes to SAP. In reference to this document, an invoice from the supplier is registered, settled in SAP, of course. Each month, the Onet Group receives more than a thousand purchase invoices. It is the responsibility of the office staff to register them in the document flow system and direct them to the appropriate substantive persons and acceptors. The original document in paper form goes directly to accounting, while the document in electronic form, after being accepted by all required persons through the interface, goes – depending on the type – to SAP FI or SAP MM.

Thanks to electronic circulation, documents do not get lost under piles of papers on the desks of acceptors, which sometimes happened in the traditional circulation based on passing the document “from hand to hand." Currently, at any time we can find the selected document in the system and check its status. The integration of the two systems has ensured a two-way exchange of data, so that once stored information is used again and again.

Linking purchase invoices resulting from purchase orders to purchase order documents allowed us to introduce the principle of single approval – an invoice in reference to an approved purchase order no longer requires another approval, but only verification by a substantive person. This shortens the document circulation path and saves us a lot of time.

The entire process – from order to invoice acceptance – is unified. Employees responsible for purchasing or direct contacts with contractors have gained greater independence – they can check at any time what stage the approval process is at, or check whether an invoice has already arrived for a given order, without involving employees from the accounting department.

We work with many customers on the basis of long-term framework agreements and purchase orders, so we decided to post most invoices in MM tools rather than directly to FI. A consequence of this decision was the need to create an automatic multiple-entry posting tool for purchase invoices in SAP MM. Currently, multi-item invoices, with up to a thousand items each, are posted within seconds.

At SAP MM, we also manage a warehouse for marketing and promotional materials. It’s not a large warehouse, but because there is a lot of traffic – we have a lot of releases for contests and promotional activities – we wanted to have this area under control as well.

SAP MM tools constitute a “virtual purchasing department" for us – in one place we have information and control over all types of purchases – from servers, outsourcing services, to office supplies. The most important benefits of integrating SAP MM with the electronic document flow system are greater control over documents, shortening the approval path, as well as a common purchasing knowledge base and optimization of purchasing processes in the Onet Group.

Paulina Jarosz, Project Manager, SAP MM working team leader, Onet.pl Group

Why a Product Manager in an SAP project

When planning the SAP implementation project at Onet Group, we knew from the beginning that it would be a major challenge both in terms of the business and organizational changes to be introduced. The task was all the more difficult because the project was planned on a tight time schedule.

The project teams included people with high competence in particular areas and who know the company well. However, in order to provide additional substantive support to project participants, especially at the interface of different functional areas, we decided to create the role of SAP Product Manager in the project. The Product Manager’s tasks were clearly defined: as the implementation’s subject matter supervisor, he was primarily responsible for the business efficiency of the processes carried out in SAP and the consistency between the functional areas of the system and domain systems.

At the outset, my task was to define the functional requirements by interviewing future key users and agreeing on common expectations of the system. Later, at the implementation stage, the most important thing was to make sure that this jointly developed vision was implemented, creating added value from the implementation.

When conceptualizing the solution, we had to take into account the domain systems already in place at Onecie and establish consistent rules for the flow of information between them and SAP. When planning the mapping of processes in SAP, we had in mind their flow, for example, in the system for electronic document circulation, as well as how processes run in sales systems. Also, inter-module integration in SAP is a wide range of issues. Among other things, it involves defining overarching elements in the system, such as organizational structures, the scope of master data used by different modules, and the concept of user rights. Proper integration also means an efficient and internally consistent flow of information between modules – from business event dates, financial values to controlling features.

Although the scope of the changes made to business processes was quite substantial, most were dictated by cleaning them up and making them more consistent. We didn’t want to make a revolution in our operations, but only to gain a tool that would allow us as a company to work better.

The basic premise of the implementation project was that the information in the system should be created in an efficient way, using the data resources already gathered in other applications and the automations available in SAP. From an operational perspective, the automation of many processes and the optimization of the way information is obtained is a major added value of the implementation.

Monika Jankowicz, Investment Projects Manager; SAP Product Manager, Onet.pl Group.

Need for speed: the most important integration and good organization

Onet is a rapidly growing company with large IT needs. Although most people associate us with the media, we are also a large technology company. Employment in the IT department reaches 250 people, who take care of the stable work and development of more than 200 thematic websites and vortals, hosted on more than 2,000 active devices in two modern data centers.

Onet’s IT also manages a rich portfolio of IT systems that support the company’s work in the broader backoffice area. As the company’s scale grows, these numbers are steadily increasing.

The backoffice IT systems previously in use at OneT supported individual, separate business areas, operating on an “island" basis. Cooperation between these systems largely took place through manual work by operators, while communication and data exchange between systems was carried out on a small scale and generally in those areas where their absence was most noticeable due to the efficiency of business processes or the high risk of operator errors.

Onet began taking steps several years ago to reorganize its business processes and chain them together, using the latest available technologies and best practices in Business Intelligence. One example is the recent implementation of the SAP BusinessObjects reporting platform, which has been supporting both operational staff and Onet’s middle and senior managers in their daily work since 2009.

The decision to implement SAP in the Onet Group was tantamount to the Board’s agreement to reorganize business processes in such a way that these processes would work optimally and make maximum use of the data collected in existing systems, in particular eliminating the need to “rewrite data" from system A to system B.

From the project management perspective, therefore, it was undoubtedly a major challenge to model internal processes at Onet from scratch and to integrate the SAP ERP system with the IT systems currently in use at the Onet Group. The modeling of business processes under the guidance of the Project Manager and myself was handled by the project team on the Onet side even before the official start of the SAP implementation project. This work also resulted in the concept of automation in terms of IT systems.

Together with consultants from BCC (now All for One Poland), we designed and developed more than a dozen interfaces between SAP and domain systems. From a business perspective, our most important domain systems are sales support systems for both B2B and B2C, adapted to the specifics of the Internet market and the products and services sold.

Thanks to the use of SAP NetWeaver Process Integration (SAP PI) as a communication platform between domain systems and SAP ERP in the sales area, the exchange of information about customers, sales orders, contracts and invoices has been virtually 100% automated. No less important is the integration of IT systems in the area of supplier relationship management: thanks to the automation of communication between the electronic document workflow system (ESOD) operated at Onecie with SAP FI and SAP MM, we have accelerated the process of accepting orders and the process of posting payables.

Integration with the human resources system in terms of exchanging data on employees and their salaries, as well as the automation of communication with banks where Onet has cash accounts, has made it possible to significantly improve the work of the Accounting Department and reduce the number of errors that can arise as a result of a mistake by an operator entering data into the system. All this will form the basis for further activities: in the near future, Onet plans to launch a SAP data warehouse, which will support the Business Intelligence systems already operating at Onet.

Given the complexity of the subject matter and the need to adapt existing or build new programming interfaces to communicate with SAP also on the side of Onet’s IT systems, the project was definitely not one of the typical SAP implementations. Add to this the need to test this automation – both in terms of content and performance – and the tight schedule of the entire project, and a unique challenge arises for the project manager.

A challenge in which for success, in addition to a thoughtful substantive concept and efficient consultants of the implementation company, committed resources of the client from both the IT and the business side are required, as well as incredible precision and coordination of activities. Six months is an insanely ambitious deadline, in which there is no time for mistakes and sloppiness.

This makes it all the more gratifying that, thanks to the enormous commitment and effort of the entire project team, it was possible to launch more efficient business processes and prepare a working system that will form the basis of the company’s operations for years to come. By the way, we also succeeded in breaking another SAP myth: that implementing a SAP system “from scratch" in a large, complex organization in six months is impossible. We succeeded in doing just that. This is a beautiful gift for the company’s 15th birthday.

Anna Prokop, Project Manager, SAP project manager, Onet.pl Group