PG Group

Magda Allan, SAP Business Solutions manager at PG Group explained further, “As we were using so much space, a lot of transactions were running increasingly slower. Every time we added a new project to SAP, we had to purchase additional expensive storage capacity. We decided to implement OpenText™ Data Archiving for SAP® Solutions to enable us to archive historic data, reduce the size of the SAP database and improve performance.”

Implementing the OpenText solution has allowed PG Group to remove nearly 1 TB of data from its SAP database to date, which was then compressed to around 111 GB by SAP and stored in the OpenText Archive Center.

“By removing historic, infrequently used data from SAP to more cost-effective storage, we’ve been able to provide the business with a responsive and efficient system. No data has been sacrificed though, it is all still available to us from within the SAP user interface. OpenText makes it seamless to the user,” said Allan.

PG Group worked closely with OpenText partner EOH to implement the solution. EOH’s consultants identified how the SAP system could be better configured to support better performance and cost reduction. Having implemented the changes to SAP itself and having archived many years of data to the OpenText solution, users immediately saw the benefits.

Some reports that took more than a day now run in just hours and others are almost instant. The range of reports covers purchase orders, logistics, profitability, production, sales orders and much more, affecting all parts of the business.

“Previously, we had to keep extending the runtime window for reporting, to the point where the reports were effectively out of date as soon as they were complete. Our users have been amazed by the speed of the SAP system since implementing OpenText. Some queries are now completed instantly. We’ve not only reduced the cost of storage, reports are produced in a timely manner enabling the business to operate efficiently—users can now better direct their time, rather than waiting for the system to respond,” stated Allan.

As part of the implementation EOH identified opportunities to improve the performance of SAP. This included configuration changes such as correctly updating production order statuses to ‘complete’, ensuring completed orders were correctly archived to OpenText Data Archiving for SAP.

As PG Group plans to move to SAP S/4HANA, this valuable knowledge will be reused. PG Group is also looking into other areas where OpenText can help them streamline operations to improve efficiencies and reduce costs, including OpenText™ Vendor Invoice Management for SAP® Solutions. This will provide automation in the handling of vendor invoices and shipping notices.

“The OpenText solution has met expectations and even exceeded them. In some areas, the speed improvements have been greater than we had expected. We can now provide the service the business needs, saving time and money by involving fewer people with less administrative overhead. Even our master data is now better managed—SAP upgrades are faster as there is less data held in SAP and backup and recovery are faster. Overall this has been a very successful project,” concluded Allan.