CdE CEMEX layout
The Context
According to the Index of Digital Competitiveness 2020, a report prepared by the Switzerland based International Institute for Management Development, the ability of Latin American nations to compete technologically with other countries is lagging. However, in the midst of this moribund panorama, Chile stands out as the Latin American economy with the best digital competitiveness score, with 61.5 points out of a possible 100.
This positive scenario has shown the need for different sectors to make efforts towards a true digital transformation and to continue advancing on the path of competitiveness. In the case of universities in particular, such institutions face significant challenges, especially when technology evolves rapidly.
As they attempt to adapt to changes and market needs, higher education institutions have sought to offer more efficient experiences. Along these lines, Universidad Diego Portales (UDP), a private higher education institution located in the country’s capital Santiago de Chile and internationally recognized for its excellence serving as a benchmark in the training of professionals and in promoting innovation, launched a strategic plan to enhance its digitalization process and adoption of new technologies to improve the university community’s quality of life.
The Challenge
After carrying out small-scale technological projects, UDP decided it was time to take a major leap that would allow it to lay the foundations to drive innovation, incorporating the use of new tools and technologies. Currently, the University is executing the digital transformation strategy, a process that NEORIS has been supporting from the beginning with key services such as the assessment of the migration to S/4 HANA where the roadmap for the strategy was defined.
The University undertook this ambitious digital transformation plan in an effort to overcome the challenges imposed by the market and to further strengthen its already high position in the educational field in Chile.
The new project was initiated to:
- Offer solutions for different areas and processes within the University so that they are more agile, effective and efficient.
- Develop new portals, more intuitive processes with greater ease and provide faster response times for the old portal available to support students, teachers and administrators of the University.
- Generate a new web environment that would allow the institution to carry out initiatives that, due to platform technology issues, were complex or unfeasible. Implementing this would offer a significant improvement in the user experience, in addition to creating a modern and scalable platform with SAP support.
Our Proposal
Given the company’s Technical/Functional specialization in technological solutions such as SAP Campus and SAP FICA, Universidad Diego Portales trusted NEORIS with the integration of these technologies to the institution's Service Portal, an important access system where various users interact throughout their entire university career.
NEORIS' proposal consisted of executing a project that included the conversion of SAP ECC (current) to the most up-to-date version of the product, S/4 HANA. Additionally, the proposal considered the technological modernization of the UDP portal, which is used by the students and other members of the university community.
The project considered the strategy of migrating from SAP Portal to SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), a technological platform that brings together data and analytics, Artificial Intelligence, application development along with automation and integration into a single unified environment.
The team in charge of the project raised the requirements through the design and documentation in user stories and then, in a subsequent stage, carried out the migrations and development of some of the portals (Enrollment, Student Record). In addition, improvements were made in processes placing emphasis on the experience of teachers and students, including for the Toma de Ramos, a unique requirement for First-Year university students in Chile.
The Solution
The 14-month long implementation of this project required a multidisciplinary team of 32 professionals, including functional consultants, Full Stack developers, Scrum Masters, SAP Fiori developers and specialists in education processes, among others. All of them, located in Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Argentina, were strategically assigned to form work cells that would make it possible to achieve the project objectives.
To carry the plan out, the team applied the SAP Activate methodology in all work cells. The project involved 5 stages:
- Preparation: Initial project planning, development of the Gantt Chart and kick-off meeting with the entire team involved in the project.
- Exploration: Stage during which the designs of what was expected were raised.
- Realization: The conversion and migration were carried out, as well as the new developments requested. In addition, all the tests that allowed the University to ensure that the platform met expectations were carried out.
- Final Preparation: The cutover or go-live plan was designed and executed, along with training for end users.
- Go-Live & Support: Go Live, giving the University operational support and continuity.
The Results
The improvements implemented in the applications that support the Enrollment processes have had a direct and significant impact, not only in increasing operational efficiency, but in substantially improving the experience of the educational community. Among the many results achieved, the following stand out:
- 18,000 students were impacted, with 3,500 of them new students.
- The process involved a high level of involvement from various areas and users to validate the new system through different tests. In total, 3,700 unit tests were successfully tested in the different business areas of the University, with incident indicators that did not exceed 5%, which is far below the 10% incident threshold agreed to with the client.
- 1,000 comprehensive tests were carried out (3,800 steps) that allowed the team to cover all university processes supported by the platform. A 5% incident or error indicator was achieved, a very low result for a project of this type.
Testimonials
“The challenges of the educational industry in its digital transformation and acceptance of the new digitalized society - accelerated by the pandemic - posed challenges to UDP for its leadership level and all throughout the organization, including its teaching staff, students and its technological partners. In particular, the vertical of the UDP Digital Plan regarding ERP and S/4 HANA Implementation has been key. Of course, it is not possible to reach such a high level without a quality technological partner, and the strategic alliance between UDP and NEORIS is and will continue to be a very relevant factor in the success of this type of project. It was felt at all times we worked together as a single unified team, successfully completing the changes. This puts the UDP at the forefront of the educational industry.”
Gonzalo Larraín – GENERAL DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS, DIEGO PORTALES UNIVERSITY“I would like to highlight the professionalism and commitment of the team that worked on this project, as they put flexibility before problems and partnership with the client. It was a team that worked together to face obstacles in the best way possible.”
Sebastián Ramacciotti - SAR South Regional Manager (Argentina and Chile) for NEORIS“As the leader for the area responsible for the SAP project strategy, I would like to highlight the importance of the technologies used in this project, from the conversion to S/4 HANA to the development framework in SAP BTP. Without a doubt, this is a case that will lay the foundations for continuing to promote new projects.”
Cristian Medina - SAR Foundational Solution Leader for NEORIS