Alaska Communications Systems Group (ACS) is the leading integrated communications provider in Alaska. In this ever competitive industry sector, ACS wants to maintain its leading position in the region. ACS decided that an upgrade of its enterprise resource system to mySAP would help support core functions for FCC reporting, accounting and project management. However, the company needed to accomplish the upgrade without disruption to business. ACS had selected Atos Origin for SAP services in 2000 and again turned to us as a proven service provider that could meet the requirements for a smooth upgrade.
Alaska Communications Systems Group, Inc. (ACS) is the leading integrated communications provider in Alaska, offering local telephone service, wireless, Internet, long distance and television to business and residential customers throughout Alaska. As a facilities-based provider, ACS serves customers’ needs at home, at work and while on the go.
ACS provides communications services to three-fourths of the state’s population, serving 74 communities, including the population centers of Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Kenai/Soldotna, Kodiak and Sitka.
The Business Challenges
In 2000, ACS found that its multiple back-end systems inherited from seven company acquisitions were causing duplicated effort, increased errors and added administrative time, and were not robust enough to handle increasing business volume. Atos Origin performed a reimplementation of SAP R/3 4.6 that consolidated the different back-end functionality onto a single ERP platform. We also customized system modules to meet the specific business needs of ACS, especially around FCC compliance.
In 2006, ACS decided that an upgrade of its enterprise resource system to mySAP would further help support core functions for FCC reporting, accounting and project management. However, the company needed to accomplish the upgrade without disruption to business.
Our Approach
Atos Origin followed the SAP Upgrade Roadmap, which includes the Blueprint, Realization, Final Preparation, and Go-live phases, to perform the system upgrade from SAP 4.6b to mySAP ERP 2005 (ECC 6.0).
We accomplished this within eight weeks and met the challenges of extensive custom development that had been made in 4.6b to meet FCC accounting and reporting requirements and the extensive use of the Project System module handling more than 20,000 projects per year.
The Results
Atos Origin managed the transition to the new platform with the absolute minimum downtime and without unnecessary disruption to business — and it was one of the first upgrades of an SAP telecom customer to mySAP ERP 2005 since the software was generally released at the end of May 2006. We reduced user profiles from 1,300 to 50, thus strengthening security and improving compliance requirements for further efficiency gains.
“We selected Atos Origin because of the wealth of previous experience that the company is able to draw upon,” said David Wilson, senior vice president and chief financial officer of ACS. “Their team understands the importance of migrating current functionality and customized features, especially those around FCC compliance, while enabling future functionality to support our business. Atos Origin is straightforward, easy to work with and conscientious — we experienced that the first time we worked with them and are having the same positive experience this time.”
In addition to the upgrade, ACS has signed an outsourcing agreement with Atos Origin. As part of the expanded relationship, Atos Origin is transitioning SAP support for ACS to the Atos Origin Application Value Management service delivered from its office in Toronto. Atos Origin will also provide Basis support from its Dallas location.