IT transformation at fenaco

Success story

Customer

Industry	agricultural cooperative
Location	Swiss
Employees	10’000
Service	SAP Solution Manager and Focused Build
Customer since	2020

Fenaco is a Switzerland-based agricultural cooperative with its headquarters in Bern. Operating under the well-known Landi brand, it unites 153 agricultural organizations and supports a wide-reaching network of female and male farmers, as well as producers across the country.

The fenaco cooperative, founded in 1993, is the largest agricultural cooperative in Switzerland. With 41,000 members and 23,000 farmers, it has developed into one of the central players in the agricultural and food sector. fenaco’s business areas include agriculture, the food industry, retail and energy.

fenaco’s best-known brands include the animal feed manufacturer UFA, the fertilizer dealer LANDOR, the beverage manufacturer RAMSEIER Suisse, the Provins winery, the meat processor Ernst Sutter, the retailers Volg and LANDI and the

About the finaco project

The finaco project is a major IT project for fenaco. It is a multi-million project that will run from 2020 to 2027 and involve numerous implementation partners. The aim is to create a central financial platform that integrates financial data from the business units and a variety of ERP and POS solutions. The challenge is to harmonize this data and implement a central SAP S/4HANA Central Finance solution.

“With the finaco project, we are embarking on fenaco’s biggest IT transformation. We therefore wanted to have a neutral body at our side with whom we could keep the quality as high as possible.”

Thomas Aeschlimann, Head of SAP, fenaco

Challenges and solutions

The biggest challenge was integrating a large number of different ERP systems into a single Central Finance platform. This meant that not only technical hurdles had to be overcome, but also organizational ones. The complexity of this project required a well-thought-out structure and a flexible approach, on which several implementation partners and internal departments worked.

Our role in the project was to ensure quality and take responsibility for test management. For us, however, test management does not begin just before the test is carried out, but rather in the early project phase. Even during the fit-to-standard workshops, we supported the collection and documentation of requirements as methodology coaches. The strict Q-gates ensured that functional documentation was available before any development in order to avoid errors and delays later on.

At the same time, we supported the creation of test cases and accompanied the test phases – from the system function test to the business acceptance test through to the later regression tests. We also evaluated the possibilities of test automation in order to implement these efficiently in phase 2 of the project.

“The collaboration with blue.works helped us to integrate testing precisely into the project structure at an early stage. This enabled us to ensure that every step was checked down to the smallest detail.”

Carla Lingg, Releasemanagement, fenaco

Success

Close collaboration and an early focus on quality and test management enabled us to keep the project on track and achieve important milestones within the time tolerances. Our systematic approach ensured that all phases – from requirements elicitation to implementation – were closely monitored, documented and transparently displayed so that the quality status of the project was visible at all times.

“Thanks to the structured planning and the clear focus on a structured project approach, we mastered the complexity of the project well. The collaboration with blue.works enabled us to successfully achieve the milestones.”

Patrick Schärli, Project Manager finaco

Advantages of our service for the project

Our early involvement in the requirements and our coaching approach ensured that the test management could be carried out seamlessly and as efficiently as possible. Our service relieved the burden on the project organization and implementation partners. By implementing Q-gates, regular reporting and close coordination with the project team, we ensured that everyone involved in the project was always up to date. Our expertise in SAP Solution Manager and Focused Build proved crucial in managing the complex project.
The methodology we introduced laid the foundation for test automation to be implemented in phase 2 of the project. This will significantly increase the efficiency of the test processes in the future.

“blue.works’ expertise in test management and their structured approach played a major role in ensuring that we were always certain that the project was on the right track and that we would have as few problems as possible during operation.”

Thomas Aeschlimann, Head of SAP, fenaco

Takeaway

The finaco project shows how crucial it is to start a large-scale IT project early on with a strong focus on quality and test management. Through our methodology coaching role and the structured use of best practices, we were able to ensure that the project was solidly positioned from the outset. The close collaboration, trust and transparency between the fenaco teams and us were the key to success.