SAP application service for ESKA radio and “Super Express”

ZPR Media Group is a rapidly growing media group. It brings together local and nationwide radio stations, publishes a daily newspaper and several thematic magazines, owns dozens of Internet services, operates a publishing house and music labels, provides services for business, and manages a casino chain.

Each of these business lines is characterized by the use of systems and domain applications that support typical processes, such as managing editorial, airtime, as well as selling radio advertising, advertising space in newspapers and portals, and other services in the group’s portfolio.

The solution that ties together the company’s rich IT landscape is the SAP system, which is a coherent transactional and reporting platform that gathers data from other systems and gives control over the company’s finances. The SAP system in the ZPR Media Group covers the areas of finance and controlling, fixed asset management and human resources and payroll.

In companies with a dispersed structure and corporate groups, it is a common business practice to centralize processes, especially in finance and HR, in a shared service center. This makes it possible to achieve savings from simplifying the organizational structure and unifying processes, as well as introducing uniform standards across the group. ZPR Media Group has also taken a similar path, establishing AZB Sp. z o.o. – which is a shared services center for accounting and finance, card and payroll, and SAP system maintenance, serving dozens of entities – from Radio ESKA, Radio Supernova (formerly Radio Wawa), Super Express, to Totalbet betting.

In total, there are nearly 60 entities and about 5,000 employees, both full-time and contracted.

SAP’s own competence

A SAP system, where hundreds of invoices are posted every day, is required to be available and trouble-free at all times. In addition, both finance and HR are areas that have to deal with constant changes in tax laws, new reporting requirements from the Ministry of Finance or changes in HR administration and payroll. ZPR Media Group has its own strong SAP competence team, which is responsible for user support and administration of the Basis area. Key users in specific functional areas themselves handle many end-user requests related to problems in daily work with the system.

SAP competence for hire – AMS

SAP’s own support and development team largely meets day-to-day user support and system maintenance needs. Nevertheless, mature organizations secure another line of support in the form of the services of a specialized service organization (SAP Application Management Service).

ZPR Media Group has been using this type of service for years. At the end of 2020, it decided to change its partner, entrusting SAP application service for FI/CO and HR to SNP Poland (currently All for One Poland) from January 2021. Also SAP administration support is provided by our consultants.

SNP’s SAP application service consists of more than 30 dedicated service consultants, divided into specialized competence teams, which guarantee the constant availability of experienced specialists to complete requests according to the response time guaranteed in the SLA contract.

The applicable global standards for IT security and service management are certified (ISO 27001 and ISO 20000). In practical terms, one of the implementations of these standards is the ticket application All for One Service Desk, which provides a single point of contact for consultants and system users, while also serving as a convenient communication and billing platform and knowledge base. The service is provided remotely. Also, the transfer of knowledge about the client’s system and terms of service – due to the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic – was carried out remotely.

Anna Krzemień, SAP Support and Development Director at AZB Sp. z o. o. and Board Representative for the SAP information system at Time SA.

For finance

In the area of financial management, the start of the SNP service coincided with the group’s obligation to prepare a report on payment practices – by the end of January 2021. ZPR Media Group opted for a turnkey solution All for One Payment Backlogs in SAP which allowed it to adapt the system in a short period of time to automate the data processing necessary to generate data for the annual report.

Another solution from the All for One SAP Add-Ons, which ZPR Media Group has decided to go for, is All for One JPK – Single Control File in SAP. This solution allows you to prepare your SAP system to generate tax and accounting data in JPK format that complies with current regulations. The All for One JPK package is being developed and continuously adapted to the changing law. And customers – based on maintenance terms – benefit from updates and new versions at no extra charge.

These are not the only new developments. After the smooth transfer of knowledge and the smooth takeover by SNP (now All for One Poland) of maintenance services from the previous service provider, ZPR Media Group decided to outsource minor development work to our consultants, falling within the AMS service area.

The commissioned work focused on preparing adjustments for WB (bank statements) and FA (invoices) structures in JPK, as well as changes to custom reports already existing in the client’s system. Pending developments include the development of a mechanism to generate debit notes and the development of a solution to handle billing tolerances for minor differences.

These are examples of tasks that can be outsourced to SNP’s FI consultants. Most of their time, however, is spent supporting users in the financial-control record-keeping processes for the group’s various business lines.

For human resources and payroll

In the area of human resources and payroll, most of the service support tasks revolve around support for system notes and updates and payroll calculation. The media industry, in which ZPR Media Group operates, is characterized by the fact that some employees are employed on the basis of civil law contracts, and the remuneration consists of many additional components, depending on various conditions and parameters (e.g. bonuses, bonuses, commissions). This, in turn, means that a lot of additional payrolls (so-called A-lists) are settled monthly in the group’s shared service center. In addition, one employee may appear on several additional lists per month. This rather complex “payroll grid" for dozens of business units, implemented in SAP HR, requires frequent support from service consultants from SNP Poland (currently All for One Poland).

SAP administration support

Complementing the SAP application service for FI/CO and HR modules is the Basis support service. Remotely support for SAP administrators clients is also provided by dedicated teams of consultants, operating under a fixed contract and SLA provisions (including response time).

At the time the systems were taken over for remote administration, the operating systems running the customer’s SAP systems were updated. Keeping the OS and database up to date is particularly important for the security and performance of the systems. SNP consultants ensure that updates are implemented periodically throughout the client’s landscaping. This is assisted by the Zabbix monitoring system, which, in addition to keeping a watchful eye on the timeliness of the systems, monitors the availability of SAP services, load and resource occupancy. This monitoring makes it possible to respond quickly to alerts as they arise.

In addition to maintaining up-to-date OS versions, Basis support also takes care of updating SAP components on the system, including SAP_HR, EA-HR, ST-PI components, etc. Keeping HR components up-to-date is particularly important in the daily work of the HR and payroll team, for which it is extremely important that work runs smoothly, based on the latest developments in labor law, for example. On the other hand, updates to components such as ST-PI or ST-A/PI allow the systems to be monitored on an ongoing basis in SAP Solution Manager.

ZPR Media Group benefits from competence outsourcing SAP Basis to a rather limited extent, as it has its own SAP Support and Development Team.