Redesigning T&E End-User Support

Challenge

The U.S. division of the organization had just implemented SAP Concur Expense for its first set of users. As with any new system, first-time users had many questions and issues about both system navigation and business processes. The end-user support structure at the time was ineffective because issues were not being routed appropriately and the support team was not fully trained. As a result, unresolved inquiries and issues were piling up quickly. The organization needed to improve its T&E support structure rapidly and prepare for the imminent SAP Concur Expense rollouts to its remaining users.

Approach: Think + Do

First, we learned the group roles, responsibilities, and capabilities in the current support structure. After redesigning the issue-routing to better fit each group’s capabilities, we identified the back office as the most logical and most capable place to route all escalated inquiries and issues. Our analysis of resources and workload revealed that the back office was understaffed. We then further analyzed the back office processes so that we could offer recommendations and process enhancement suggestions for continuous improvement and efficiency.

Results

For immediate interim relief, we provided supplemental production support for end-user inquiries and issues and helped with the knowledge transition to additional resources. For long-term support, we identified certain back office processes that required re-engineering and helped streamline their efficiency. The primary areas of focus were finance reconciliation, audit, and end-user support. We conducted a root-cause analysis to troubleshoot the recurring implementation issues. As a result, we enhanced the T&E support structure by ramping up the back office and equipping it with the necessary training and knowledge to support T&E systems and processes.