Client:
A high-growth international oil and gas company with a global workforce across nine countries. This client is an early adopter of Workday and recently completed an SAP implementation at the end of 2024, with a strategic focus on mergers and acquisitions.
Challenge
Our client, a global leader in the energy sector, faced a significant challenge in integrating its critical HR (Workday) and financial/operational (SAP) systems. Their existing integrations, described as “temporary, band-aid solutions,” relied on outdated SFTP-based file transfers and unencrypted data, posing severe security and data quality risks. Key issues included:
- Data Inaccuracies
- Lack of Control & Visibility
- Operational Inefficiency
- Security Vulnerabilities
- Limited Scalability:
- Contractor Management & Active Directory Issues
These challenges collectively impacted the client’s ability to achieve efficiency, maintain data integrity, ensure security, and prepare for future growth and acquisitions.
Solution
A DEEP Dive into Integration Transformation
Leveraging our proprietary DEEP Methodology (Define, Evaluate, Engage, Plan), Dispatch partnered with the client to systematically address their complex integration challenges.
- Define: We began by understanding the client’s strategic objectives, particularly their need for improved efficiency, security, data quality, control, and growth readiness. We identified critical KPIs, such as reducing manual interventions, eliminating unencrypted data transfers, and improving data accuracy, to measure the success of the transformation. Their vision for the future state was a robust, real-time, and scalable integration framework that would support their M&A strategy.
- Evaluate: A comprehensive assessment of their current Workday and SAP landscape revealed the critical gaps in their systems, processes, and organizational structure. This diagnostic highlighted the “noisiest integrations” and pinpointed the root causes of data quality, security, and efficiency issues.
- Engage: Through collaborative workshops, we engaged key internal stakeholders across IT, HR, and Finance, as well as potential vendors, to explore potential options to address the identified issues and assess the strengths of each alternative. From this, we prepared recommendations that would meet budget, timeline, total cost of ownership, and functional and non-functional requirements.
- Plan: Based on the recommended approach, we developed a detailed plan to transition from SFTP to more secure and scalable API-based integrations that have robust access controls, automated error detection, and unique identifiers between systems to improve data quality.
Value Delivered
The client moved from tactical “band-aid” solutions to a strategic workflow automation roadmap by adopting the Dispatch Integration DEEP methodology and implementing a more sophisticated integration strategy. Critical business processes need reliable and scalable integrations between their two core systems – Workday and SAP, and this new approach gave them confidence in the connectivity between these systems. In particular, the solution provided the following benefits:
- Enhanced Stability: Transitioning to API-based, real-time integrations improves data processing stability, reducing delays and failures experienced with SFTP integrations.
- Superior Security: Eliminating SFTP and implementing encryption protocols for all data transfers satisfies data security concerns and protects sensitive employee and financial information. Robust access controls and real-time security monitoring further mitigate risks.
- Increased Control & Oversight: The client gains complete control over their integration processes, allowing for proactive error detection, troubleshooting, and future changes, reducing dependency on external parties.
- Improved Efficiency: Optimizing data transfers to include only delta (change) data, coupled with real-time processing and automated error resolution, significantly reduces processing times, enhances productivity, and supports faster decision-making.
- Improved Data Quality: Establishing unique identifiers, automating data mapping, and standardizing naming conventions reduces data duplication and inconsistencies, ensuring accurate financial reporting, payroll, and project tracking.
- Streamlined Contractor Management: Centralizing contractor data and automating onboarding/offboarding processes reduces manual errors, improves compliance, and increases operational efficiency for their large contingent workforce.
- Modernized Active Directory Integration: Replacing unreliable legacy scripts with a secure, API-based solution improves data accuracy, enhances security, and ensures timely provisioning and de-provisioning of access.
Summary
Through a strategic application of our DEEP methodology, Dispatch has empowered this global energy leader to transform its critical HR and financial integrations. This initiative moves them from a reactive, high-risk, and inefficient state to a future-proof, secure, and highly efficient environment. This case study demonstrates how a targeted digital transformation, guided by expert methodology, can deliver tangible and lasting value across IT, HR, and Finance functions, directly supporting the C-Suite’s strategic objectives.
