SRO AG
SAP hosting in the sensitive hospital sector

The challenge

SRO is using SAP as a service: IS-H, the SAP industry solution, is being run as the core system on an externally hosted SAP Basis infrastructure. The pharmacy and the central warehouse are also managed using SAP, as are the accounting and HR processes. The hospital centre used expiring contracts as an opportunity to review the existing service agreement. Jürg Pauli (Head of Applications and Projects at SRO), commented: ‘We wanted greater flexibility with regard to the maintenance windows and basically less scheduled downtime and higher availability, not to mention more favourable conditions. As a medium-sized healthcare organisation, we’re permanently under cost pressure.’ SRO AG contacted itesys with these functional specifications too. ‘The exchange was very interesting and pleasant from the outset, and the itesys team’s high level of professionalism and in-depth hospital expertise were noticeable right away,’ recalled the project manager. He added: ‘We are a small IT team and don’t have our own SAP Basis specialists. That’s why it’s all the more important for us to have a partner who is familiar with the hospital business and can bring experience acquired from other projects to the table.’

Our solution

SAP migration and hosting with 24/7 monitoring

We won over SRO AG’s IT managers during the briefings, so the change of provider to itesys was finally decided and initiated.

We make things easy for our clients – with professional project organisation

‘We were also impressed by itesys’ highly professional project organisation. Information was exchanged and tasks were distributed in a structured and efficient manner using a web-based project management tool. itesys acquired all the information it needed from the old provider without our intervention – which was an enormous relief,’ affirmed Mr Pauli, full of praise for itesys. The itesys team also made various suggestions for improvement with regard to the likes of the filing structure.

A smooth process thanks to sound hospital expertise

The development, test and productive systems were converted in a staggered manner over three weekends. Fallback scenarios were run through beforehand, but everything went smoothly during the migration process and Plan B was ultimately left on the shelf. Once tests had been carried out by the specialist departments, the systems went live very quickly.

The client is raving about…

‘Even through I often referred to it to myself as heart surgery, our SAP migration went surprisingly smoothly. Only a very small number of end users noticed the changeover,’ explained Mr Pauli.

Shorter maintenance windows noticeably increase availability

The project goals were achieved in full. Fewer and shorter maintenance windows meant we could significantly increase the systems’ availability. itesys’ Service Operations team, which is spread across several continents, is monitoring SRO’s SAP systems around the clock with the help of powerful monitoring tools and intervenes immediately if and when problems occur.

Data storage in our own certified Swiss data centre

Data security and data protection are guaranteed in full thanks to redundant data storage in our own certified Swiss data centre. ‘The best thing is that we don’t even pay for all these improvements anymore,’ smiled the project manager.

Heart surgery 100% successful

He summed up: ‘Our heart surgery was 100% successful thanks to itesys’ outstanding specialist and industry expertise – and within the set timeframe and budget to boot. We felt very well looked after throughout the entire project. I wouldn’t hesitate at all to recommend itesys as an SAP provider.’