Achieving SAP Operational Excellence Through Strategic Change Leadership
Project Overview
Our global oil and gas client embarked on a mission to harmonize maintenance operations and deploy a unified SAP template across four international sites. The organizational compass pointed clearly toward SAP operational excellence, cost optimization and zero-incident performance. To enable proactive asset stewardship and deliver safe, reliable operations, the Maintenance Work Management (MWM) process became the foundation – ensuring the right work gets executed at the right time, in the right location, with the right personnel, equipped with the right tools, procedures and materials, achieving the right quality standards at optimal cost.
Afiniti joined this journey as trusted guides, delivering change management capabilities as part of the global SAP MWM program team across operations in Denmark, Kazakhstan, Qatar and the United Kingdom. Our engagement encompassed both design and deployment phases, reaching over 3000 individuals throughout the organization. We embedded a structured process and system framework designed to establish governance over work execution – systematically identifying, prioritizing, planning, scheduling and completing maintenance activities while cultivating seamless collaboration across functional boundaries.
Our Solution
- We facilitated global design sessions that empowered stakeholders with practical deliverables to bring back to their respective sites, fostering alignment and enabling informed decisions on detailed business and SAP process configurations
- We crafted and deployed a holistic change strategy customized for each location, addressing varying levels of maintenance maturity, distinct organizational frameworks and different degrees of readiness for the target operating model
- We conducted comprehensive impact analyses for each site to map transformation across functional domains, ensuring tailored communication and learning strategies for every role
- We built a compelling visual identity for the program and launched an innovative campaign to tell the transformation story, cultivate employee commitment and prepare the organization for system cutover
- We guided production of process documentation and learning resources to support deployment and establish a sustainable global framework for ongoing success
- We partnered with executive sponsors and key stakeholders to shape engagement initiatives and business readiness activities, along with future performance indicators and user reinforcement mechanisms
The Differences We Made
- We contributed to successful deployment of the MWM process that delivered measurable gains in productivity, risk management and cross-functional collaboration – advancing operational excellence objectives
- Our engagement elevated organizational understanding of effective work management on SAP, with these principles subsequently adopted across additional functional areas
- Our proactive business preparation initiatives resulted in the SAP MWM cutover achieving the lowest volume of technical incidents and support tickets for any major program deployment in the client’s history
- We helped establish a thriving global MWM community that championed continuous improvement as a core element of daily operations
- Based on demonstrated value, our mandate expanded to encompass change management across all SAP programs, enabling us to amplify momentum, sharpen focus on user adoption and begin building internal change leadership capacity
Through collaborative partnership, people-centered strategy, and a continuous learning mindset, this SAP operational excellence initiative transformed how the organization approaches work management – not simply implementing new technology, but creating adaptive capabilities that delivered measurable improvements in productivity and risk management while establishing a foundation for sustained operational excellence across the enterprise.
