British American Tobacco (BAT) has deployed OpenText Extended ECM for SAP SuccessFactors as part of overhauling its HR processes and records management.

BAT employs more than 50 000 people in over 180 countries, growing rapidly both organically and through acquisition. The company's success has resulted in a fragmented HR function managing a large and increasingly mobile workforce.

As part of its global transformation initiative 'Programme Aurora', BAT selected OpenText Extended ECM for SAP SuccessFactors to integrate with its single, global instance of SuccessFactors. In accordance with its cloud-first strategy, BAT deployed the solution in the OpenText Cloud, principally in the European data zone.

"OpenText Extended ECM for SAP SuccessFactors was a natural choice for us. We can now manage employee files, letters, contracts and other documents in one place, providing global continuity as employees move around," said Andy Straw, IT program manager at BAT. "For the first time, we have a single source of truth."

The roll-out of Programme Aurora focuses on modernising its HR function modelled around HR shared service centres at strategic locations around the globe. This approach will produce an agile, integrated HR function and will allow BAT to realise cost savings and efficiency improvements for the whole organisation through standard, consistent HR processes, supported by powerful digital tools.

"A critical part of this project was improving our HR reporting. In the past, it could take three months to produce meaningful HR reports and analysis," said Straw. "Even the most common of tasks, such as providing an accurate global headcount, could take months, by which time it was out of date. Now, we can produce key business reports, whenever we want, at the click of a mouse."

The OpenText solution has also helped deliver additional workflow improvements, such as the automation of key employee HR communications and better privacy and security controls. BAT currently has more than 20 000 employee records in the system, and is in the process of expanding it to cover over 50 000 HR files across the organisation.