Picture Credit Shutterstock/Volodymyr Burdiak. Used with permission. Kennametal: Building Competitive Advantage and Brand Awareness with SAP SuccessFactors Solutions Amid a global business transformation, Kennametal Inc., a global industrial technology leader serving customers in the aerospace, earthworks, energy, general engineering, and transportation markets, needed a better way to provide HR solutions that are more efficient and effective and deliver greater impact to customers. SAP SuccessFactors solutions are the answer.
Company Kennametal Inc. Headquarters Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Industry Engineering, construction, and operations Products and Services Materials, tooling, wearresistant solutions, and metal and earth-cutting tools Employees 11,000 Revenue US$2.1 billion Web Site www.kennametal.com BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION Objectives Gain more flexible HR solutions to enable quick reactions to organizational changes Support better, more efficient services from new centralized service centers Provide more intuitive solutions, with mobile capabilities, for customer ease of use Replaced the core on-premise human capital management system from SAP with the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central solution in more than 40 countries Improved the candidate and hiring manager experience with the SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting solution Introduced a fast, flexible reward system with the SAP SuccessFactors Compensation solution Built a foundation to track attrition, diversity, and headcount with the SAP SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics solution Benefits Ability to identify up-and-coming internal talent, link to diversity objectives, and track careers Ability to streamline the recruiting process Potential to link compensation, business objectives, and performance ratings Read more 50% Faster adjustment of annual variable pay 7 months To introduce the core HR system in >40 countries More efficient Services offered with solutions that customers find to be easier to use The growing digitalization of production requires different skills in the future. The SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting solution will help us find the leaders of tomorrow so we stay competitive. Andreas Bäuerlein, Supervisor of Global Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS), Kennametal Inc. 2 / 6
Going from a static to a dynamic HR system Organizational change is a fact of life in business. To keep up with changing customer and technology requirements and deliver the business strategy, the flexibility of a company s HR solution is imperative. The success of organizational change usually depends on people: will they accept or block the change? But sometimes software can get in the way, as Kennametal Inc., a producer of tools and components used in numerous industries, discovered. Kennametal had many on-premise systems and modules that created a static IT environment and made it hard to adapt its HR data to new developments. Our organizational structure is continually evolving to adapt to shifts in markets and customer needs we have to keep our IT systems aligned with our sales structure and other customer interfaces, explains Andreas Bäuerlein, supervisor of global human resources information systems (HRIS) with Kennametal. With our on-premise systems, that was an ongoing challenge. Talent development is an important component of Kennametal s strategy to create value for customers and shareholders. And herein lies another challenge: Kennametal talent management processes weren t supported by an integrated system. The company stored performance ratings, but this information wasn t connected to anything else. We have both local and globally-distributed teams and it s key to have the best talent in the right place, explains Bäuerlein. But it was a manual effort for us to identify potential candidates in the company and find successors for certain roles. Kennametal wanted one place to store core HR data, manage talent, and follow them throughout their careers. 3 / 6
Gaining insight into the trends that matter Kennametal knew that going to the cloud was the best way to create a flexible and dynamic HR IT landscape. So the only question was: which cloud technology? The choice was sealed by SAP SuccessFactors solutions strong reputation in this field. SAP SuccessFactors solutions for talent management and succession planning are well known in the industry, and these were exactly the areas we wanted to improve, says Bäuerlein. Kennametal decoupled its payroll activities from its on-premise SAP ERP Human Capital Management solution and outsourced payroll for its four biggest countries. It then introduced the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central solution as the new core HR system for nearly 11,000 employees, including external staff. This solution went live in more than 40 countries in just seven months. With HR data no longer mixed up with payroll, Kennametal could now work freely with the data and structure it required for its global needs. The solutions are so flexible; you can just adjust your structure and processes to what is needed on the customer side, Bäuerlein explains. The company also implemented other solutions: SAP SuccessFactors Compensation supports annual salary adjustments, a long-term incentive plan, and a short-term bonus plan for middle managers. SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Management is being used to underpin a new global recruitment process and build a global candidate database. SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding serves as the first stop for feeding data into SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central. Finally, with the SAP SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics solution, Kennametal is gaining deeper insight into attrition, the proportion of diversity in management, headcounts per country and job level, the employee-to-manager ratio, and more. 4 / 6
Protecting the bottom line by knowing your talent At Kennametal, the desire to have a diverse workforce is not just talk. The company will lose many skilled and experienced team members to retirement in the next few years, and this could have an impact on the business. Predictive analytics are greatly needed to aid us in better managing projected shifts for our workforce, as we do anticipate future retirements in some key job categories that could have significant impacts if we are not able to proactively plan for these shifts and respond appropriately, says Bäuerlein. Previously, HR had analyzed and reported manually on the anticipated impact of future attrition. But with SAP SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics, HR is able to dig deeper and perform faster analysis. And it will have the means to develop strategies that mitigate the impact by identifying the next generation that has, or can develop, the required expertise. Due to the digital transformation of manufacturing, production processes are also becoming more automated. The new HR system will enable Kennametal to more easily find people with modern digital skills from its global pool of talents. But the biggest benefit of the new cloud solutions is greater organizational agility. In the past, once the compensation process started, little could be changed in the system if there were changes such as a promotion or the discovery of an error. Any alteration had to wait until the next fiscal year. With SAP SuccessFactors solutions, you just update it it s so easy, Bäuerlein explains. 5 / 6
Kennametal Creating an employer brand name that wins talent If you had never heard of Kennametal before reading this story, you re not alone. It s a problem the company encounters regularly when talking to candidates. Studio SAP 51379 (17/05) Therefore, Kennametal has made increasing its name recognition a key priority, and the SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting Marketing solution will help. Together with our recruiting process outsourcing partner, we want to have a much bigger visibility in the talent community, on the main job boards and social networks, says Bäuerlein. There are also plans to introduce the SAP SuccessFactors Succession & Development solution to identify people for key roles who might not be in the direct reporting line. If you have a great leader in HR, that person can be a great leader in finance too, even if you might have to develop some skills for the new role, Bäuerlein explains. Kennametal will also soon link compensation with business objectives using the SAP SuccessFactors Performance & Goals solution to introduce a pay-forperformance culture. 6 / 6 Picture Credit Shutterstock/Volodymyr Burdiak. Used with permission.
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