Australian-owned, Sydney-based niche consulting player Silfen specialises in SAP-related services and solutions, including SuccessFactors, and is particularly sought after for its HCM expertise. Not afraid to roll up their sleeves and tackle difficult technical areas, Silfen consultants have a reputation for bringing deep knowledge and a focus on value-add to the table.
We caught up with Silfen directors Matt Perks (pictured right) and Reinoud van Oosterhout (left) to find out how they go beyond the call of duty to bring peace of mind to both their customers and their employees.
ISAP: Silfen has been working in the SAP market for many years, but you have kept a low profile up until now. Tell us what Silfen is all about.
Matt Perks: We’re a bunch of hard-working people who get things done! We’ve been focusing on working closely with our existing customers, listening to their needs and making sure we are agile enough to meet their business demands as and when required.
Reinoud Van Oosterhout: As experienced SAP-focused consultants, we have a ‘no nonsense – high quality, on time, and on budget’ approach. These formulate and reflect our company values, so we apply this across the board – it’s good for our customers, good for our team of consultants and good for Silfen.
ISAP: As a consultancy, what is Silfen’s point of difference, and what are your capabilities?
MP: After many years in senior roles working for other people, Reinoud and I wanted to start our own consultancy – one that was very consultant-centric. We have a real desire to look after people, who actually ‘are’ the company. This is the pillar of our culture, and means offering them the opportunity to keep up to date, train, and feel like they are a part of something rather than just a number. Our philosophy is ‘treat the employee well, and exemplary work follows’.
The central mantra of our culture is ‘Peace of Mind’, which is true for both our personal and professional lives. Everything we do is aimed at realising this core value. This means happy customers, happy partners, and happy employees.
RVO: When we started Silfen, we wanted self-determination and the ability to remain agile, which can sometimes be difficult in a larger organisation. Our consultants now have between eight and 26 years of experience with SAP solutions, both on-premise and cloud, including all integration points such as Basis and development, and where we see a gap in what SAP provides and it’s a pain point for our customers, we even purpose-build our own solutions.
We also have deep experience across a wide range of industries including retail, manufacturing, state and federal government, pharmaceutical, financial services, engineering and mining.
ISAP: During your time as consultants in the SAP arena, what have been the common issues you see your customers struggling with?
MP: One area many of our customers were not satisfied with is the limitations of the SAP standard leave provision solution, and it was difficult to ‘push the limits’ of the standard offering to try to ‘twist’ it into shape. In particular, companies with high volumes of employee movements between teams were not adequately costing their provision movements, and were struggling with very limited clarity as to the components of leave liability; for example, accrual versus leave taken versus pay rise-related changes. This type of information is often freely available in other financial systems, which are perceived as lower end than SAP.
RVO: Companies who rely heavily on payroll costing are struggling with the timing and costing options that are available through standard SAP Leave Provision solutions. These SAP customers see credits going to the wrong cost centre, and they are not easily able to report on things such as new leave accrual per period. These Finance or Cost Centre Managers cannot gain any insight against the single leave provision debit/credit each period represents. They simply can’t run a report that will demonstrate the leave provisions explaining the movement in leave liability.
ISAP: What problems does this create for the customer?
MP: Cost centre managers are copping expenses for people who didn’t work for them! This makes it extremely difficult for them to accurately budget, or work to a budget … in an environment where workplaces are increasingly driven by accountability.
RVO: The limitation poses a real problem for companies that are trying to align their weekly invoicing cycle with payroll costs, as well as customers who do frequent profitability reporting – for example, weekly reporting. Typically they experience a disconnect as the leave provision in standard SAP is only processed on a monthly basis. Costs will go to the incorrect cost centre and this raises questions to cost centre managers about accuracy.
ISAP: So what solution do you provide for your customers?
MP: Silfen’s Leave Provision Insights and Costing solution (LPIC) aligns leave accrual and other leave provision movements to the period or partial period where the expense actually occurred. This makes sure the leave provisions are aligned from a costing and liability point of view.
RVO: LPIC is a purpose-built software solution that is robust yet flexible by design, so that it can support leave liability calculation for multiple industries, countries and even customer-specific requirements. Despite this broad capability, we have deliberately made it simple to install out of the box, with minimal configuration required, so it is a very cost-effective ‘plug and play’ enhancement. With slightly more configuration, we can tweak LPIC to be fit to purpose, depending on the client’s requirements.
ISAP: How does LPIC achieve this?
RVO: At a high level, LPIC is an add-on to the payroll driver, which stores payroll results, so payroll postings are correctly allocated. LPIC performs all the leave provision calculations, with a separate reporting capability, which allows you to report on employee leave movements such as impacts on provision as a result of leave taken, leave accruals, rate increases and so on. This reporting can be done via a new dedicated reporting transaction – which has been custom-built as part of LPIC, or via SpinifexIT’s EasyReporter.
ISAP: What kind of response have you seen from your customers to LPIC?
MP: We went live with the solution earlier in the year, and have had a very positive response and excellent feedback from our customers.
RVO: One of the advantages for customers is they can choose the level of granularity to which they wish to report. One of our customers, who has complex seasonal workforce requirements, has been able to align the real costs for the first time.
This article is sponsored by Silfen, and first appeared in Inside SAP Winter 2014. For more information and a demonstration of LPIC, email LPIC@silfen.com.au or contact Silfen Sales Operations Manager, Sarah Cunningham on 0424 531 345. For a brochure on LPIC, please visit Silfen’s website at www.silfen.com.au.
