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AyalaLand

AyalaLand Upgrades Data Migration, Improves Operational Processes

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The company 

AyalaLand Inc (ALI), one of the Philippines’ largest and most respected real estate and property development firms, currently operates 173 active companies, caters to the needs of 100,000 plus business partners and carries 1000+ properties & buildings, 140,000+ rental objects and more than 4.5 million accounts receivable/payable open items. To help them manage their multifaceted business processes, they have been long time users of the SAP® Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution.

Project Background

ALI was in the midst of a major migration from SAP ERP Version 4.6C to SAP ECC 6.0. ALI’s existing SAP solution was specially customised because they chose not to perform a standard technical upgrade. Moreover, ALI wanted to implement new functionalities such as Flexible Real Estate Management (RE-FX). During the project, ALI recognised that they could add considerable value to their investment if they took the opportunity to migrate the underlying data to conform to the more exacting requirements of the newer SAP ERP solution.

To help them achieve their goals within a tight timeframe, as well as to guarantee an upgrade without business interruption, ALI reached out to the data specialists at Syniti to manage the data track of the project.

Syniti specializes in large, complex data migration and governance projects and has developed a proven “Load Early, Load Often” methodology to facilitate the process. This methodology enables Syniti to deliver outstanding results on virtually every project.

“

Once we took Syniti suggestion of applying their data migration methodology, we were able to cut the upload duration by almost 80%. This was a huge gain that helped us achieve our cutover milestones. In fact, our only complaint was that Syniti should have joined us earlier.”

Dinna Ramos
Information Systems Manager, Ayalaland

Implementation Highlights

At the outset of the system upgrade project, ALI had anticipated performing all of the data conversion tasks in-house. However, as the project unfolded, they realised that the data extraction and upload to the target SAP ERP system using traditional methods was becoming a bottleneck especially given their huge volumes. The risk of missing the target ‘go-live’ date was looming large.
“We have particular expertise in delta loads,” notes Hoehl. “Coming into the project in the midst of the process, our data migration and governance methodologies were key to getting the project back on track.” One of the first tasks was to train key players in the use of Syniti’s best practice processes.

One of the benefits that Syniti brings to a project is that they are strong believers in knowledge transfer and empower their clients to take ownership of the project and become efficient in the application of Syniti’s solutions.
“Failure was not an option,” said Annie Alipao, CIO, Business Information Systems & Processing Division (BISPD) at ALI. “We had to go-live on the appointed day since the consequences for the many companies impacted would have been too significant.”
“We were contacted by the ALI team while their project was already on and just before the data migration process became critical,” says Alex Hoehl, Director of Operations and Sales Support at Syniti.

“They were aware of our reputation for delivering successful outcomes on complex data migration projects and appreciated the fact that we had particular expertise in the real estate sector. We were able to provide immediate assistance with their project by applying our data migration skills, processes and deep SAP knowhow as part of our methodology. When you bring Syniti into your project, managers have one area less to worry about as Syniti takes data out from the critical path of the project.“

Syniti assigned a team of experts — both onsite and offshore — to support the project. ALI required a ‘progressive migration’ in which selected data sets would be migrated in succession as part of delta loads.

 

 

“

Syniti’s presence made it possible to migrate such a large amount of complex real estate data over such a short period of time. Syniti also showed us how to extract and migrate complex long text from our Sales Contracts database. This had been a significant challenge from the beginning and could have been problematic. However, thanks to Syniti it was a non-issue.”

Milton Villafuerte
Information Systems Manager, BISPD, Ayalaland

Why Syniti was Selected

“We found Syniti’s data migration software quite intuitive and really easy-to-use,” says Milton Villafuerte, Information Systems Manager, BISPD. “Once the business mapping rules were in place, we could effortlessly generate files for our mock loads and repeat the “process during the delta loads and as the migration progressed,” Villfuerte continues.
“Syniti’s presence made it possible to migrate such a large amount of complex real estate data over such a short period of time. Syniti also showed us how to extract and migrate complex long text from our Sales Contracts database. This had been a significant challenge from the beginning and could have been problematic. However, thanks to Syniti it was a non-issue.
“

The Syniti team integrated with our company’s workforce seamlessly. I am confident that significant manual effort reduction was possible due to Syniti being there. This, in turn, was key to the overall success of the data migration and the upgrade."

Annie Alipao,
CIO, Business Information Systems & Processing Division (BISPD), ALI

Implementation Process

The team at Syniti had an immediate positive impact. “The Finance & Logistics Transaction data loading using traditional methods was a nightmare from the start,” said Dinna Ramos, Information Systems Manager, BISPD. “Once we took Syniti’s suggestion of applying their data migration methodology, we were able to cut the upload duration by almost 80%. This was a huge gain that helped us achieve our cutover mile- stones. In fact, our only complaint was that Syniti should have joined us earlier.”

Results

As a result of Syniti’s engagement, ALI was able to complete the project successfully. In total, Syniti’s engagement lasted a little over four months. This allowed ALI to meet their tight timeframe and transfer all 173 active companies with 340 business entities and more than 4.5 million records to their new SAP ERP platform in a single ‘big bang’ upgrade. The SAP migration has enabled ALI to avoid hardware and software obsolescence and mitigate the risk of hardware breakdown while simultaneously reducing expenditures due to maintenance extensions. Additionally, SAP 6.0 has enabled them to implement new functionalities and support tighter interoperability between SAP and newer Windows operating systems and database technologies.


But none of this would have been possible without the injection of expertise by Syniti as the project developed.

“The Syniti team integrated with our company’s workforce seamlessly,” concludes Alipao. “I am confident that significant manual effort reduction was possible due to Syniti being there. This, in turn, was key to the overall success of the data migration and the upgrade.