SIRVA Global Mobility Case Study - SAP

The Power of Partnership: SAP and SIRVA Collaborate to Tackle Global Mobility Challenges

SAP is one of the largest software companies in the world. Based in Germany, the company is the leader in enterprise resource planning and management systems that support business operations and customer relations. The mobility programme at SAP is active in the Americas, EMEA and APAC. The company employs over 70,000 people worldwide and conducts 2,000 international relocations every year, with that figure increasing approximately 30% year on year.

Given the global nature of its business, SAP must be able to move its employees anywhere in the world, and approximately 50% of SAP’s moves consist of one-time relocations to emerging locations.

Global Companies Face Global Challenges

Like many global businesses, SAP’s mobility team is responsible for managing international relocations and critical business travel that support the company’s business strategy. Mobility team members serve as HR experts, recruiters, immigration administrators, household goods moving consultants and project managers and must possess a deep understanding of the mobility process.

These increasing responsibilities became overwhelming, so SAP turned to its reliable relocation partner, SIRVA Worldwide Relocation & Moving, to help expand its global reach and provide capabilities that both align with and broaden its internal competencies.

SAP selected SIRVA as its mobility partner because it is a global company that understands global mobility challenges and because it has the ability to deliver consistently high quality outcomes.

Combined Efforts Reveal Variety of Benefits

The SIRVA and SAP partnership has enabled SAP to easily scale its mobility programme without having to build internal capabilities, which can require significant investment and be difficult to deploy across fluctuating volumes and geographies. It has also delivered a variety of additional benefits. As a result of the collaboration, SAP has:

• Identified greater efficiencies: SAP increased the speed of their relocations and recognised opportunities for greater efficiencies in mobility spend, timelines, vendor management and policy administration. Effective and innovative technology, accurate estimating tools and tracking and reporting capabilities enables SAP to continually fine-tune processes, improve programme management and identify greater cost-efficiencies.
• Delivered a better mobility experience to employees: SAP’s mobility teams now spend less time on administrative tasks, so they have extra time to spend directly counselling employees on their move. By working with SIRVA’s trusted partners, SAP ensures a quality relocation experience for its employees along every part of the relocation supply chain.
• Created accurate estimates and reduced mobility costs: SAP can create immediate and accurate assignment cost estimates, control employee costs and reduce exceptions, which reduces total relocation costs. SAP can also compare relocation estimates to actual costs, which enables its mobility team to make more informed decisions on whether a relocation is cost effective, prior to authorising the move.
• Expedited relocations: SAP administrators gain faster approvals by routing authorisations automatically. The routing system lets all team members monitor requests, track approvals and maintain budgets without any additional manual work. With quicker approvals, employees can get to their new location and begin their new roles sooner than ever before.
• Stayed focused on the big picture: Since they are not spending as much time on administrative tasks, SAP’s internal teams can stay focused on larger, more strategic matters, such as achieving their business objectives.

A Truly Collaborative and Strategic Partnership

The partnership requires a strong and collaborative relationship between SAP and SIRVA to ensure SIRVA performs not as an RMC, but as an extension of SAP’s global mobility team.

SIRVA worked collaboratively with SAP to help scale its mobility programme, ensure compliance for business travellers, identify efficiencies, reduce costs and provide quality assignment and travel experiences to their employees. SAP accomplished this by:

• Leveraging local expertise: Using local expertise, SAP can determine how to provide effective on-the-ground support for employees, such as when to sign commitments during the global mobility process or how to accelerate service delivery.
• Understanding compliance requirements: SAP’s mobility team understands the frequently-changing compliance requirements of countries where it plans to relocate employees.
• Sharing mobility responsibilities: While SAP’s internal team is responsible for initiating the relocation, SIRVA is also involved in determining the most suitable relocation package, addressing compliance issues and understanding and obtaining cost approvals.
• Using on-site specialists: On-site specialists work hand-in-hand with SAP mobility teams to provide in-depth expertise to ensure the company takes the correct actions during every step of a relocation.
• Developing innovative IT solutions: SAP collaborated with SIRVA to create a customised self-service management platform. This platform simplifies estimating assignment costs, initiating authorisations, routing authorisations for approvals and generating relocation agreements.

To learn more about SIRVA’s global mobility services, call 800.341.5648/ +44.1793.619.555/ +852.2104.6668 or visit www.sirva.com