Reference Story Parador GmbH
Parador GmbH
Parador GmbH from Coesfeld bei Münster, Germany was founded in 1977. Since that time, the company has developed into an extremely successful manufacturer of premium products for flooring and wall design and today employs 550 people. They produce parquet, laminate and rubber flooring as well as decorative panels for ceilings and walls at their home location and in Güssing (Austria). The ownership structure has recently changed, as the previous owner, Nord Holding Unternehmensbeteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, sold Parador to strategic investor HIL Limited. HIL Limited is one of the leading producers of building materials and components in India. This sale had no impact on the company’s IT infrastructure. Two years ago, though, it was a different story.
Developing an internal IT infrastructure
In October 2016, Parador was separated from the Hüls Group and sold to Nord Holding, a transaction that had far-reaching consequences for the company’s IT landscape and required extensive changes. Until then, Parador had been integrated into the SAP world of the Hüls Group. As an independent company, it now had to set up its own SAP system landscape. This project was successfully implemented under intense time and budget pressure using the special software cbs Enterprise Transformer.
Email archiving
Prodckt
550
Employees
Manufacturer
Industry
The Decision for d.velop
As part of the carve-out, the decision was made to adopt a new ECM system that met the latest technological standards. At that time, Parador was using version 7.2.2 of d.velop’s document management system. Although d.velop software had already been in use at Parador since 1999, a thorough evaluation was conducted to determine which solution best met the company’s current requirements. In 2016, the DMS — now in version 8.1 — once again proved convincing. Key factors in the decision included the system’s wide range of features and its exemplary integration capabilities with SAP ERP systems. As a solution developed specifically for SAP within its own namespace, the software supports a variety of SAP archiving and document management scenarios. Other decisive factors in favour of d.velop were the low cost per user and the system’s superior user-friendliness.
Introduction of the new solution
The introduction of the new version of d.3ecm went off without a hitch. Only four months passed from the decision to purchase to the go-live. The actual setup at the two Parador locations took only three and a half months. There was no need for training, as the company had worked with a previous version in the past. After installation was complete, data and documents were transferred from the previous version. For legal reasons, it is important during such a transfer that data from the old system be transferred one-to-one to the new system—which is always the case with d.velop anyway. The migration was supported by a d.velop SAP competence team consisting of experienced SAP consultants and developers.
The ECM system is currently being used to archive documents (including scanned documents) from the SAP modules Accounting, Sales, and Purchasing. It can also be used to archive external documents from Sales and Logistics.
Revised interfaces require minimal maintenance
During the changeover, particular focus was placed on revising the interfaces to SAP. The goal was to implement an optimized, streamlined transfer of documents to the ECM system. In the old solution, calls were used for data transfer. These were replaced by an API interface, allowing documents to be transferred directly into the ECM. This made the intermediate storage required in the old solution obsolete. This much leaner approach resulted in a considerable reduction in maintenance costs, which has put Parador in a position to maintain its ECM system on its own.
Since the data is transferred directly from SAP to the ECM system in the new scenario, the two systems had to be able to work simultaneously. This, too, was not a problem for d.velop. d.3ecm is now one of the main IT platforms at Parador GmbH, together with the Microsoft Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange, the Windows and Office worlds, and the three SAP systems ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), LE (Logistic Execution) and BW (Business Warehouse). “We are constantly working on digitizing our company. And d.velop is an important pillar in that strategy,” emphasizes Günter Winkler, head of IT at Parador GmbH.
Invoice processing lowers costs, improves the provision of information and ultimately leads to faster closing, since invoices are processed more quickly.
Günter Winkler
IT manager
Parador GmbH
Comprehensive expansion of d.velop documents
Because of their positive experiences with d.velop documents, the company has made firm plans to further expand the solution. The next upcoming project is document archiving, which is to take place directly from CRM and PIM (Product Information Management). Other planned projects include e-mail archiving from Exchange, the introduction of workflow-based digital invoice processing and contract management.
Invoice processing is a very complex procedure, which is why d.velop offers a solution for invoice processing that is also available in a special variant for SAP. Users benefit from clear and significantly improved workflows that enable the automatic posting, verification and approval of invoices. And these workflows are directly and seamlessly connected to SAP, including the ordering and financial accounting modules. “Invoice processing lowers costs, improves the provision of information and ultimately leads to faster closing, since invoices are processed more quickly,” says Günter Winkler, in explaining his reasons for deciding to introduce the workflow. Regarding contract management he further explains: “Contract management will become the central point for controlling contract-related activities in our company. It will provide every authorized department with transparent access to existing contracts at all times.”
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