Fujitsu Consolidates Systems into Microsoft PPM, Leverages Sensei Integration-as-a-Service to Connect SAP
Fujitsu is the world’s fifth-largest IT services provider. The Oceania division of Fujitsu, a $4.7 trillion yen (US$41 billion) company wanted to consolidate several multi-national groups using various systems including CA Clarity and Excel, move everything to the cloud, and integrate with SAP — all in a few months because their Clarity licenses were soon up for renewal.
The company decided to unify their systems, teams and regions with Sensei Jumpstart™ – a pre-configured Microsoft PPM environment aligned with Gartner and PMI (Project Management Institute) best practices. The integration with SAP would be accomplished with the Sensei Integration Hub™. Hosted in Microsoft Azure, it would allow Fujitsu to move data in and out of Microsoft PPM for integration with SAP so they automatically sync and continuously communicate with one another in real-time.
“We looked for a partner that had the agility as well as the ability to meet our very, very tight time schedule as well as bring the out of the box best practices but aligned to our business. We did an evaluation of partners and we felt that Sensei was the right partner to help us achieve our goals.”
Nick Brown, Chief Information Officer – Fujitsu Oceania
Key statistics:
- Reduction in operational costs
- Comprehensive bidirectional integration with SAP
- Automated reporting creates meaningful insights
- Optimization of resources at the global level
Situation
Building Sytems From a Global Perspective
Fujitsu’s immediate challenge was threefold; decommissioning two on premise legacy systems; Australia’s CA PPM Clarity version 13.3 that was long out of support and New Zealand’s Project Server 2010. A longer term goal for Fujitsu was rolling out a single system PPM across it’s four other regions – Americas, Japan, Asia and EMEIA. Sharon Steer, Regional IT Liaison at Fujitsu Oceania explains ”Anything global is a challenge because there are so many regions and so many things to consider.”
Fujitsu had another challenge; the company’s PPM and financial systems didn’t talk to each other. This meant the project managers and the financial team were spending time manually exporting data into spreadsheets and doubling up on work. Whatever Fujitsu decided, time was of the essence; Clarity licenses were up for renewal in a matter of months.
Solution
A Sensei-tional Switch to Single System PPM
Fujitsu found a partner in Sensei that could help them streamline their business processes across the Oceania region and introduce a PPM tool where everything is collected and everyone can access that information and use the same data for reporting on. “We went through a very detailed review of alternative PPM solutions; we looked at the existing toolsets, new toolsets and what was available in the market. A strict scoring methodology was applied and Sensei’s PPM solution was selected” said Nick Brown, Chief Information Officer at Fujitsu Oceania.
Fujitsu also looked at the cost of making the switch to Microsoft PPM. “Project Online came is less than Clarity. We attribute our cost savings to greater user engagement, greater visibility and saving money through reduced running costs” said Sharon Steer, Regional IT Liaison at Fujitsu Oceania.
“We can get reporting with a push of the button; we get the information we require at the right levels from our project managers through to our executives.”
Nick Brown, Chief Information Officer – Fujitsu Oceania
Results
Speaking a Common Language Creates New Capabilities for ‘One Fujitsu’
Utilizing Sensei to unify disparate systems into a single view means the IT giant can now compare resources across geographies to build best-fit teams and capture the status of all projects to see if they are on track or not. “Sensei has helped us to manage our resources at the project level so we are now able to bring project resources in across geographies. That was a very onerous aspect for the project managers in the previous toolsets we’ve had.” Sensei’s Integration-as-a-Service has also made a big impact on Fujitsu: “It’s pivotal for our business. It’s two-way integration between Project Online and SAP ensures that our Project Managers have the right information at hand as well as executives having the visibility to track project progress within our financial system.”
The Fujitsu story is not over. Wagner explains another reason they chose Sensei: “Sensei is an international group – that means that down the track they would be able to support a global rollout.” And that’s exactly what is planned next. Wagner says, “The US is now going to follow Fujitsu Australia’s lead.” Stay tuned.
Download the full case study in PDF here.
