EnBW AG establishes a holistic Data Governance Process in SAP S/4HANA landscape

14 Jun 2022 –

EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG relies on the integrated Data Governance process from ISO Professional Services GmbH and increases the data quality of the business partner in its SAP landscape with the help of the integrated data quality management tools. At the same time, the company succeeded in setting up a comprehensive Data Governance process.

Initial situation: manual Data Governance Process

In its previously used SAP R/3 system, EnBW used SAP standard transactions as well as its developments to enter and maintain accounts receivable and accounts payable without the further technical support of quality and plausibility checks. With the introduction of the integrated business partner during a change to SAP S/4HANA at EnBW, there was a need and opportunity to raise the master data process of the integrated business partner to a new level of efficiency and data quality.

The next logical step: a suitable duplicate check was to be implemented for the SAP landscape. ISO Professional Services defined various processes to systematically increase data quality — both when creating and maintaining master data. "Systematic" is the relevant keyword here since there had not been a system in the company until now that automatically checked the business partners' data for plausibility and correctness.

"Of course, in this context, an isolated solution for debtors and creditors was not productive for us. Rather, we wanted to set up a holistic Data Governance process for our integrated business partners," explained Heinrich Dold, Senior Manager, EnBW.

Searching for a Data Quality Management service provider

EnBW has specifically probed the market for suitable S4/HANA-compatible solutions to support the master data processes of the integrated business partner. The ISO Professional Services portfolio convinced EnBW - the decision was made in favor of the governance process with the integrated data quality tools: Marlin Duplicate Check, Marlin Address Validation, and Marlin Compliance Screening. Other weighty arguments in favor of ISO were the short implementation time of only four months and positive reference discussions with ISO customers, such as TÜV Rheinland.

"The Marlin Governance Process is the most attractive package for us for the functions we require. Many points were considered in the evaluation, including the scope of functions, technical architecture, reference experience, price, and, last but not least, the relatively low implementation effort," Heinrich Dold elaborates. Furthermore, those responsible are pleased with the sophisticated system with which ISO Professional Services set up the tools and the support during operation.

Requirements for the implementation of the Data Governance project

The solutions offered by the ISO Professional Services work "out of the box". Thus, the Nuremberg software company was able to fulfill another criterion, namely, to make the products used available at short notice. In addition, important process and solution settings could be clarified in workshops before the start of the implementation in accordance with EnBW's requirements, which further shortened the implementation time.

Smooth integration of Data Quality Management in SAP S/4HANA landscape

The implementation of the Marlin Suite individual solutions, Data Governance Business Partner, Duplicate Check, and Address Validation was carried out smoothly according to the best practice principle. Accordingly, the basic customizing was completed after just a few weeks. This was followed by various integration tests and key user training. In addition, the ISO managers were able to implement several customer-specific requirements together with the clients. For example, EnBW is now able to correctly assign certain attributes to the business partner via the "classification" function.

The actual implementation, even for a client of this size, was mastered by ISO Professional Services with mastery. The process definitions resulting from the many projects the company has competently completed helped EnBW implement the ISO solutions successfully.

Initial experience with the new Data Governance process

Although the ISO solutions had only been in use at EnBW for a short time, it was quickly apparent that the original requirement, which was to create error-free business partner data using automated processes and checks, worked flawlessly with Marlin Duplicate Check at EnBW. Duplicates in the system were now prevented in an automated manner to the greatest possible extent. The dual control principle of the data governance process ensures that master data is created reliably and comprehensibly.

The automatic VAT-ID check ensures that the business partner data is now correctly created. The SAP standard only checks the form of the VAT-ID number here, but not its validity. This is now performed by the Marlin UST-ID check at EnBW, and the Marlin address validation prevents incorrect data entries. Heinrich Dold sums up accordingly: "Marlin products enable us to take our integrated business partner master data quality to a new level in our new S/4HANA system."

Very satisfied with the new Data Quality Management

Joachim Fies and Heinrich Dold, responsible for the project at EnBW, summarized, "We are very satisfied with the first joint steps to introduce the ISO Professional Services products. Thanks to detailed installation manuals and competent consulting, we were able to integrate the add-ons quickly into our SAP S/4HANA system.

In a collaborative workshop to record our process requirements, these were largely implemented directly in the system by an ISO employee. The initial creation and maintenance processes that the add-ons support thus became tangible and palpable in our development system very quickly."

Customer

EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG

Large German energy supplier based in Karlsruhe, Germany
Supplies 5.5 million customers with electricity, gas, and water and energy-related services, E-mobility
32.15 billion EUR turnover in 2021
Subsidiaries and partner projects in England, France, Sweden, Denmark, Turkey, and Taiwan
26,064 employees (2021)