Customer Solution Case Study
ServiceGruppen Looks After Its Employees with Microsoft Business Solutions–Axapta Human Resource Management
Overview
Country or Region: Denmark
Industry: IT
Customer Profile
Established in 1985, ServiceGruppen is a 100 percent Danish-owned IT service company offering repair and service of computer equipment, as well as IT consultancy. The headquarters are in Hedehusene, Denmark and there are three other locations across Denmark.
Business Situation
Running an old Microsoft® MS-DOS®–based system, with limited HR functionality, ServiceGruppen wanted a true HRM solution to replace its manual processes and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its human resource strategies.
Solution
Implementing Microsoft Business Solutions—Axapta® improved the way that ServiceGruppen handles its most important asset –employees. Now the company can better manage applicants in the recruitment processes as well as have an overview of vital employee information.
Benefits
n Up-to-date employee information
n Improved recruitment processes
n Retaining employees
n Easy to use
n Faster Processing / “With Microsoft Axapta Human Resource Management, the system can warn us that certificates are due to expire and we can review employees' qualifications and experience. This ensures that we use the right person for the job.”
Kristine Fog-Morrissette, IT Development Manager, ServiceGruppen
ServiceGruppen sees its employees as its most important resource. As an IT service company, offering mainly repair and servicing of computer equipment, the quality of the service that the company offers depends largely on its employees. To be competitive and offer the best service, the company needs to attract and retain the best employees.
With Microsoft Business Solutions–Axapta Human Resource Management, ServiceGruppen now has a flexible tool that allows an insight into the status of individual employees as well as an overview of the resources in the whole company. Microsoft Axapta supports its company values and helps to manage the company's most valuable asset more efficiently.
Situation
ServiceGruppen is one of Denmark's largest IT service partners. The company offers repair and servicing of computer equipment as well as total planning, design, and implementation of IT services. ServiceGruppen has 125 employees (including 42 service technicians and 11 consultants) based in four locations across Denmark.
ServiceGruppen's focus is on delivering high quality service, gaining a long term relationship with its customers and on customer satisfaction. The company believes in offering its customers the best service within the industry and to do this ServiceGruppen needs to attract and retain the best employees.
ServiceGruppen wanted to optimize and automate its manual human resource processes. The company was running an old Microsoft® MS-DOS®–based system that, as Kristine Fog-Morrissette, IT Development Manager explains, was "almost as old as the company" and had limited HR functionality. "With our old system, we could only handle the basic employee data and we couldn't handle salary information."
ServiceGruppen wanted to improve its overview of employees but the company lacked the tools to be able to easily review, for example, employees' qualifications and check to see that all their certifications were up to date. ServiceGruppen wanted to have all work processes in one integrated system and at the same time needed a system that would be flexible enough to grow as needs changed in the future.
ServiceGruppen's core company values are responsibility, drive, respect, and honesty and the company wanted to ensure that it could continue to recruit and retain the best people for the job with a Human Resource Management (HRM) solution that supported these values.
Solution
ServiceGruppen chose Microsoft Business Solutions–Axapta® because of its broad functionality. The company evaluated two other products, but felt that Microsoft Axapta best fulfilled its needs. "We decided on Microsoft Axapta because it is a system that we can grow into and because it has many features that we need that come as standard," explains Kristine. "We really like the user interface and the fact that it is easy to use. We have been satisfied with the whole implementation."
The modules implemented include: HRM 1 and 2 and Employee Self Service, General Ledger, Account Receivables, Account Payables, and Fixed Assets.
"We were very satisfied with the excellent working relationship we have with HOB Business Solutions, the Microsoft Business partner who implemented our solution. They really understood our business needs and provided excellent training," adds Kristine.
The solution that ServiceGruppen has chosen means that it now has a centralized place for all employee information that can easily be updated and maintained. Microsoft Axapta Human Resource Management ensures that ServiceGruppen can implement effective recruitment campaigns and easily keep track of applicants.
"We're happy with the overall solution and with the way that the Human Resource module integrates with the salary information," explains Kristine.
Benefits
Up-to-date Employee Information
ServiceGruppen now has a solution that gives access to centralized and dynamic employee information that each employee can view and update as appropriate. ServiceGruppen can also maintain employee certification and qualification information and easily extract from the system a list of employees whose certificates need updating.
"In our industry it is vital that our employees are always certified in the right products at the right time", explains Kristine. "With Microsoft Axapta Human Resource Management, the system can warn us that certificates are due to expire and we can review employees' qualifications and experience. This ensures that we use the right person for the job."
ServiceGruppen can now also easily access personal employee information. "We also like that we can see birthday lists and special occasions, such as 25 years employment,” adds Kristine.
Improved Recruitment Processes
ServiceGruppen's employees are the key to the high-quality service offered and with Microsoft Axapta Human Resource Management the company has gained a tool to help manage the recruitment process and ensure that the right people are attracted for the jobs.
Using Microsoft Axapta, the company can create applicant profiles that contain candidates' qualifications and experience as well as contact details. This information can be stored and easily retrieved. In addition, ServiceGruppen can keep track of all correspondence, phone calls, and interviews with applicants.
"We are pleased with the recruitment system that we now have in place. Before, recruitment was handled manually and was quite time consuming. Now we can ensure that we always have a clear picture of our applicants. They are all entered into the system and the information can easily be retrieved and transferred if the applicant actually gets hired," explains Kristine Fog-Morrissette. "The solution helps us to hire the right people."
Retaining Employees
With the focus on employees, ServiceGruppen can stay ahead of the competition. Microsoft Axapta Human Resource Management gives the company a better overview of human resource issues. The system enables ServiceGruppen to keep track of individual employees – their qualifications, areas of responsibility, and accomplishments.
"We plan to grow into this system and use more of the functionality to help us with employee development. We can plan training and future goals with each employee and these can be registered in the system. We will be able to see who has had a development meeting and the agreements made," explains Kristine.
With employee satisfaction high, ServiceGruppen can ensure that its skilled and experienced workforce is retained.
Easy to Use
"The training we received from HOB was excellent. We had hands-on training for the HRM modules, which we found to be very helpful," explains Kristine.
"We were pleased with the fast and easy implementation and we found the system easy to learn. In particular we liked the user interface."
"Implementing the Human Resource modules was a big change for ServiceGruppen," concludes Kristine. “It was a large implementation and we are still in the process of using all the available functionality. The solution solved lots of problems for us and we are satisfied with it. We plan to continue to benefit from Microsoft Axapta in the future."
Microsoft Business Solutions
Microsoft Business Solutions offer integrated business applications and services that allow small and midsize organizations and divisions of large enterprises to connect employees, customers, and suppliers for improved efficiency. The financial management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, and analytics applications work with other Microsoft software, including the Microsoft Office System and the Windows operating system, to streamline processes across an entire organization. This gives businesses insight to respond rapidly, plan strategically, and execute quickly. Microsoft Business Solutions are delivered through a worldwide network of channel partners that provide specialized services and local support tailored to a company’s needs.
For more information about Microsoft Business Solutions, go to:
www.microsoft.com/businesssolutions