Two weeks after the German ARIS User Day in Darmstadt/Germany, Software AG’s International User Group (IUG) Conference took place in beautiful Barcelona/Spain.
ARIS users met for two intense days to discuss process improvement trends and the latest ARIS 9 release. A key element of the IUG conference is that ARIS users share their best practices with their peers. As usual, I chose one presentation to be covered in a blog post. This time, the presentation by Lotte Tange from Carlsberg caught my special attention.
About Carlsberg and the Business Standardization Program
Carlsberg is a global brand and I am sure that most of you know the products they are providing. 
The company was founded 1847 in Copenhagen/Denmark. Because Denmark is rather small, Carlsberg started early to export their beer to other nations. It is part of Carlsberg’s strategy to grow through acquisitions (Carlsberg is today the home of over 500 brands). Of course, with this comes complexity. Each acquired company has its own IT systems, data models, processes, etc. However, Carlsberg’s mission is to be the fastest growing global beer company. Complexity needs to be reduced to achieve this mission. To achieve this goal, Carlsberg launched a Business Standardization Program (BSP) as a key enabler in realizing the strategy. BSP is not only an IT system implementation, but a global business transformation program to achieve business objectives. The tool of choice for this program is ARIS from Software AG.
The BSP program drives the implementation of
One common business process model (to share best practices, exchange information, benchmark and drive continuous improvement)
One common IT platform (to respond to local market needs)
One integrated supply chain (to leverage functional capabilities and to leverage economies of scale through common ways of working)
To get an impression of the size of the BSP program
8 main business areas will be standardized
19 countries (including HQ) will implement it
450 people are working in the program right now
15,500 employees will be impacted
Because of its sheer size, the program will be rolled out in five waves covering different countries. It is no surprise that process governance is key. Governance processes have been designed to approve changes to the standard solution. There is a functional board which approves major change requests or new initiatives.
To ensure sustainability a permanent Business Process & Information (BP&I) management organization will be established to maintain consistency and standardization (achieve/maintain economies of scale), to drive end-to-end improvement (gain cross-functional process efficiency), and to enable and support a “glocal” approach (harvest global synergies in local markets). The BP&I resources are responsible for the process life cycle during and after BSP implementation.
Carlsberg’s process hierarchy
Let’s have a look at Carlsberg’s process model. The Carlsberg process hierarchy covers 5 levels. All levels are aligned SAP Solution Manager.
Level 1 – End-to-end processes: Span across functions, e.g. market-to-cash.
Level 2 – Main process areas: Typically function-specific, e.g. accounts receivables.
Level 3 – Sub-processes: Sequence of related activities, e.g. goods invoicing.
Level 4 – Activities: Key steps within sub-process, e.g. printing invoices.
Level 5 – Tasks: Specific user actions or system transactions, e.g. send invoice to print. A step contains a description of how to perform the task.
Carlsberg found it essential that the optimization project was focusing on end-to-end processes. The corporate culture should switch from a silo-oriented approach to an integrated end-to-end view. Process integration needed to be facilitated across functions. BPMN is the modeling notation Carlsberg was choosing for process documentation.
Processes have been categorized in main processes, describing Carlsberg’s competitive advantage.
Idea to proposition
Market to cash
Forecast to deploy
Source to pay
Supporting processes include all back office processes.
Hire to retire
Record to report
Master data management
Before the IT platform was designed, Carlsberg designed all process models. Business and IT were closely collaborating in doing so.
First step: Processes were identified in a process list, based on internal and external input.
Second step: The process list was validated by the core team, HQ and the countries.
Third step: Best practice countries were identified based on the validated list.
Forth step: As-is processes were designed together with the countries.
Fifth step: To-be processes were designed.
Sixth step: Workshops were held to finalize processes, master data and requirements.
In addition to processes, Carlsberg documented master data, KPIs and reports, IT architecture, internal controls and roles and authorizations. All of these elements are linked to business processes. I want to emphasize that KPIs are deployed in such a way that employees can see their work in a strategic context. This is clearly a best practice.
Lessons learned
Ms. Tange pointed out that people are more attracted by business process instructions rather than system instructions. She also mentioned that processes should be part of tests and training in all areas.
One central lesson learned was that you cannot isolate one area because everything is interconnected: Processes, master data, reporting, system, and organization. Especially when process improvement goes along with a system implementation you should not focus just on the system-supported processes/functions. Once the process landscape is documented it is a very strong tool for further initiatives.
Thank you, Ms. Tange for the interesting insides. This was the best presentation I have seen for quite some time. This also explains why this is also the longest post I have written for quite some time. That calls for a Carlsberg
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