With over 100 locations in 31 countries, Austria’s Greiner Group is a leading global provider of plastic and foam solutions. The central HR department is introducing Centric Document Builder to standardize document creation from SAP SuccessFactors across the group.

When introducing SAP SuccessFactors, Greiner’s project managers had a clear goal in mind: They wanted more digitalization to make the day-to-day working lives of HR departments throughout the group easier. Standardization and automation, they hoped, would make routine tasks faster, more secure, and easier, giving HR experts more scope to focus on strategic tasks.

Harmonization of all HR documents with Centric Document Builder for 30+ countries

One key starting point was document creation. The group has structured its business into three divisions and has a presence in over 30 countries. This means that a large number of HR documents – such as contracts, certificates, and contract amendment or supplement letters – are created every day within the group. The designs are uniform and the phrases are standardized, but there are different variants and some minor deviations for specific divisions and countries. In Austria alone, the HR team uses around 40 document templates for just one division – and this number can be multiplied accordingly across the global group.

Benefits of integrating Document Builder into SAP SuccessFactors

Manual document creation was too time-consuming and error-prone. The central HR department had long recognized the need for change, but all the tools it had encountered were too technically complicated. Centric Document Builder impressed them right away with its complete integration into SAP. The advantages of this, such as the direct use of master data and usage authorizations from SAP and intuitive usability of the SAP look and feel, were decisive plus points for the Greiner project team. The project manager, Mitchell Routs, has also emphasized the security aspect:

“With Document Builder, we work directly on SAP SuccessFactors without any intermediate technological steps, thus ensuring maximum data protection.”

“With Document Builder, we work directly on SAP SuccessFactors without any intermediate technological steps, thus ensuring maximum data protection.”

Mitchell Routs, Expert IT Business Applications Business Support Functions Greiner AG

In addition to increased efficiency, Greiner saw compliance as a key advantage of close SAP integration: No system breaks and local temporary storage mean security, transparency, and control over sensitive HR data based on SAP technology.

From pilot project to global rollout

The solution was initially introduced in a pilot project in Austria. Technically, all Centric tools are designed for rapid implementation in SAP environments.

“Centric Document Builder was one of the easiest implementations I've ever undertaken.”

Mitchell Routs, Expert IT Business Applications Business Support Functions Greiner AG

However, the careful technical preparation carried out in parallel by the central HR team and the commitment of the cross-divisional team were also essential to the success of the project. The main focus here was on designing and harmonizing all the necessary document templates, including defining business areas’ and regions’ specific needs.

From setting up a test system to rollout and operation in Austria, the project took five months to complete. Around 15 HR employees now use Document Builder to create the documents needed for over 2,000 employees in Austria. Based on this experience, Greiner is now gradually introducing the solution in 30 other national subsidiaries, using specifically tailored templates. Maria Beham, the digitalization expert responsible for introducing SuccessFactors, sees the implementation as an essential step toward group-wide standardization.

“With Centric Document Builder, we can harmonize our HR documents across the group in a short project time.”

Maria Beham, Lead Expert HR Digitalization & Processes Greiner AG

Internal teams can adjust the solution

The Greiner team doesn’t need external help with the global rollout. The company has its own specialists and resources to implement the solution and train the HR departments. In the pilot project, Centric’s consultants trained Greiner staff, meaning that an in-house team is now capable of handling the operation, rollout, and adjustment process. Centric Support is available to answer any questions that arise and provide quick assistance. Mitchel Routs praises the cooperative relationship between Greiner and Centric’s solution-oriented consultants and emphasizes the simple administration of the Centric tools.

Increased efficiency, quality, and compliance with Document Builder

The feedback from HR users in Austria has been consistently positive. They’re delighted with the easy-to-use interface and say that it saves them “effort and stress” when creating documents. Instead of working with locally stored copies, they now use centrally available document templates that are customized for their area. The HR departments can also make their own adjustments, enabling them to work efficiently and independently.

The master data automatically retrieved from SuccessFactors also makes the work much easier. For Project Manager Mitchell Routs, the high compliance and quality standards are also a major benefit: Users work with live data from SAP SuccessFactors, eliminating the risks associated with local caches or manual input errors. His conclusion:

“The investment has paid off. Centric Document Builder is intuitive to use, and technically it's a dream to work with.”

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