Adcorp beats COVID challenge to reap benefits of new integrated system.

Adcorp selects Workday to spearhead integration strategy, driving new levels of efficiency and ownership across previously fragmented systems landscape.

Adcorp reduces number of HCM systems from 4 to just one.

Cutting leave rules from 95 to two saves millions of Rand.

80% of desired features in place before design customised.

When in 2019 Adcorp decided to implement a technology refresh replace it’s separate HR, finance and operational systems across the Group, it was determined to deploy the clear best-in-class solution for the respective areas.

According to HR Executive: People Enablement Zameer Ahmed, “All our research indicated that Workday was that solution for our HR team, with no one else delivering the same level of functionality and integration. In particular, incorporating the different HCM modules meant our data intelligence would be at a far higher level.”

Then, with the decision made and the company poised to implement Workday, COVID-19 struck. South Africa went into complete shut-down. As Ahmed says, “The first week of implementation was horrendous. But because Workday is a SaaS solution, we could be flexible and innovative. We initiated a new plan, which mitigated COVID’s impact on the team and enabled us to implement Workday on time and within budget.”

The way Workday is configured means you are continually evolving and get the best available solutions to support our people objectives.

HR Executive: People Enablement

New simplicity drives time and cost savings.

When Ahmed joined Adcorp to oversee the Workday implementation, he found an enormously complex IT landscape in which the Group’s 16 constituent companies had differing approaches.

“For example,” he says, “We had in place 95 leave (absence) rules, far too many for a single system to manage and the cause of much chaos. But going into Workday meant we could entirely redesign our approach, and now we have just two rules.

“This not only makes everything far easier: it’s also saving the company millions of Rand because people can manage their own leave and are more aware if they are at risk of forfeiting their leave, dramatically reducing our leave liability and ensuring our employees well-being is being taken care off. That’s just one example of many such instances across the Group.”

Configurable to your precise business needs.

Ahmed has been impressed over the last two years by just how easy it is to tweak Workday’s design to meet precise requirements.

“To start with, there is a great base to work from,” he says. “We’ve found the easiest thing can be to take a Workday process, implement it, and then figure out what you want to change. We have sat in design sessions to agree exactly what we want, and then found that we actually only need to change around 20% of what’s already in place.

“That’s really empowering, because it means you don’t need to go to your consultant for help all the time. You are fully enabled to run and manage your system.”

Ownership and support across the Group.

Above all, Ahmed has found that leveraging Workday functionality is creating a better working environment across the business.

“You can really manage your people well,” he says. “When you are able to integrate your talent, your performance, your pay, your equity and your diversity, you can tell a better overall company story. Workday is truly holistic, giving you everything you need in one system, one place.”

Support for Workday is enthusiastic across the group, Ahmed continues, with a strong sense of ownership. “Our people are increasingly using Workday as a verb – they say ‘I’ll just Workday that!’ – and refer to it as ‘our’ system. I think that’s great. It shows our integration strategy has really worked at every level.”


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