Severn Trent taps into SAP ERP

Severn Trentwill begin a phased go-live of its newly-implemented SAP enterprise resource planning system next month.

The move comes as the company said it was “on track” to deliver £22.2 million cost savings for the year by improving business processes, introducing a lean management structure and moving to a central office in Coventry.

Severn Trent today reported pre-tax profits up 51 percent to £208 million for the six months to 30 September.

As part of a business reorganisation, Severn Trent realigned its IT department around service delivery, development and strategy, as well as core business areas.

Goals were set for IT to help the business deliver a continuous supply of water, deal effectively with waste water, improve green credentials, respond better to customer needs and complaints, lower charges, comply with regulation, improve investor confidence and set the right skills.

In 2008, the company was fined a total of £38 million by regulator Ofwat over false compliance data, poor customer service and covering up leakage data.

A business plan published earlier this year detailed Severn Trent’s continued attempts to improve compliance and make its business more effective.

“The key objective is to ensure that IT supports our business as effectively as possible,” it wrote. “To this end, we are investing in technology to improve key processes that enable us to work better together and improve our performance in water, waste water, customer relations and our finance, HR and procurement functions.”

The SAP rollout is a “key element” of this change, it said, combined with plans to use technology to support a “far more flexible and mobile workforce and set of working practices”.

Sir John Egan, chairman of the company, told investors today that Severn Trent had “remained focused on delivering further improvements in efficiency, processes and standards”.