Implement Roll-Out Of SAP ERP System

Worked at Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria to successfully support the roll out of the SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for the first time in 2005. In implementing the change, the organization developed and deployed subject matter experts (SMEs) for each function and they became the only source of getting guidance for implementing any aspect of the roll-out.

The Corporate Budget Team, where I was the Deputy Head, had the responsibility of leading the implementation of the investment module in SAP with control over budget, expenditure, plan builds and corporate budget performance reporting to the entire organization and joint venture partners.

Challenges: The major challenge that faced the team was ensuring the right dataset and data integrity as improper migration of data from the year of roll out into the new year was going to lead to a near irreversible impact on business continuity and data legacy, especially considering that the organization had a large contractor base and being a leader in the oil industry.

Managing this change across the entire organisation as exceptionally challenging as the team’s implementation and migration plan have to be reconciled with other functional subject matter experts. Engaging in cross-functional collaboration, we were able to secure senior leadership support for the team’s roll out plan.

Successful Delivery: The roll out of the SAP Enterprise Resource Planning system a success. The team implemented the roll-out and migration of the new SAP ERP system leveraging extensive experience of budgeting process, and understanding of the needs of the joint venture partners. The roll out received SPDC management commendation and the Joint Venture Partners. This work is of great value to companies implementing and rolling out SAP ERP system – Detailing management and joint venture partners’ expectation, data design and conversion, data input, user acceptance tests, reporting and after action review.

Meet Dr Leesi Gborogbosi (2005 – Deputy Head, Corporate Budgeting, and Reporting, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria)