GZS, a German-based company that processes high volumes of cashless, card-based payments, has implemented a range of SAP solutions in a bid to strengthen its market-leading position. And whatever the project – installation and integration of new applications, or migration to new platforms – the company relies on the tried-and-trusted advice of REALTECH. The Walldorf-based consultants employ a variety of tools and skills to ensure that projects run smoothly and successfully: from project management, to feasibility studies, to project planning. Such is the confidence of GZS in REALTECH they now also call on the service provider to administer their SAP systems and solutions when short-staffed.
Adam Molenda, Head of ERP & Application Services at GZS
"REALTECH delivers comprehensive expertise for all SAP-related projects. Their first-hand experience and in-depth expertise are the basis of their success. They consistently complete projects on time and within budget. And their vendor-independent status is crucial when examining the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of solutions proposed by hardware and software manufacturers.“
Teaming up with GZS
GZS is one of Europe's leading processors of cashless, card-based payments, serving over 2,300 financial institutions. Headquartered in Bad Vilbel, near Frankfurt, Germany, the company's 1,063 employees handled 327.4 million transactions with a total value of 35 billion euros in 2001. GZS also manages around 7.6 million transactions annually for Eurocard/Mastercard and Visa.
High-performance, high-availability IT systems are essential. A number of years ago, GZS operated exclusively customdeveloped mainframe systems. Nowadays, the company also uses SAP solutions, "Our software landscape is far from static. The rapid growth of GZS, coupled with the pace of innovation and fierce competition encountered in financial services, force us to continually expand and upgrade our systems and migrate to new platforms." explains Rüdiger Raddatz, Head of Open Systems within the Technical Services unit at GZS.
Vendor-independent expertise
GZS has its own highly skilled IT teams. But when it comes to planning and executing large-scale projects, the company calls on the assistance of external technology consultants. GZS particularly values the advice and support of vendorindependent consulting firms with indepth expertise, and real-life experience of complex SAP projects.
REALTECH first started working with GZS in spring 2001, "And we have been expanding the scope of collaboration ever since - because they deliver the expertise, dedication and commitment to deadlines and budgets that we need." states Adam Molenda, Head of ERP & Application Services at GZS. In fact, REALTECH has provided technology consulting for all recent and current largescale IT projects at GZS. For example, the IT experts supervised a project to implement billing processes at GZS for the prepaid phone cards operated by a major German telecoms player. As project managers, REALTECH's key task was to coordinate the activities of various participating companies in integrating mainframe systems.
REALTECH is also playing an important role in a GZS project designed to enable master data for 350,000 customers and partners to be managed from within its SAP environment. Central building of GZS in Bad Vilbel Building upon a feasibility study, REALTECH consultants drew up a detailed project plan for all participants. REALTECH also specified the requirements for hardware and software, architecture and integration, and defined budgets and training plans.
"REALTECH's neutrality and expertise were crucial to making an informed analysis of the capacity requirement projections submitted by our hardware vendors, and in assessing proposals for the introduction of SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW)," explains Adam Molenda.
A comprehensiverange of services
In addition to project-related advice and assistance, GZS also makes use of REALTECH's SAP support services. Twice REALTECH has been called upon to deploy its own specialists to help manage the GZS's SAP R/3 environment when in-house human resources were stretched. On both occasions, REALTECH consultants were seconded at short notice for a period of three months, until GZS was able to recruit the necessary permanent staff itself. Here as well, REALTECH played a key role in getting the new members of the team up to speed by providing on-site training over a number of weeks.
REALTECH leverages stateof-the-art methodologies to streamline companies’ IT and business processes. Effective knowledge transfer is a key focus, empowering in-house IT departments to manage their projects successfully. This approach is the foundation for REALTECH’s core consulting offering, which comprises consolidation and upgrade concepts within the scope of System Landscape Optimization (SLO), as well as management of business processes and IT based on the ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) standard.
