20 Apr InfoTech enables one of Saudi Arabia’s largest conglomerates to automate the core HR function

Obeikan Investment Group is a large conglomerate headquartered in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They started from a printing press in 1982 and diversified into manufacturing interests in glass, packaging, paper & board and plastics across the GCC. They are also the leader in the Education segment on both the academic and retail side and are dedicated to the mission of spreading knowledge across the region via a combination of digital assets and over thirty retail outlets.

The extremely diverse group has thousands of people and sales offices of different nationalities working for it across the GCC. Furthermore the group has a combination of service, manufacturing and retail businesses across multiple industry verticals. With such a complex ecosystem, the HR function was challenged with meeting key deliverable timelines. Even though an ERP catering to HR was in place, it did not meet pressing needs like employee self-service. Simple requests like salary changes took months to process. Different HR needs were catered by different products, which were not integrated. This led to challenges in finding the right data and getting it within a time frame that would enable decision making on outstanding issues.

Obeikan prided itself as an employee oriented group that believed its employees were at the heart of its success. As such it wanted a solution that could help it enable an employee group relationship that enabled both to grow.

InfoTech consultants moved quickly. They first classified the group companies according to regional and holding company clusters. Then they defined those policies according to clusters. This was done keeping in mind software capabilities so that consulting work would seamlessly translate into automation. Then the consulting team spent a considerable amount of time getting basic raw data correct and deduplicated. Once the integrity of the data was secure InfoTech implemented the best in class HR automation solution Oracle HCM across the group. The HCM solution was then integrated with active directory for single sign on. Lastly InfoTech integrated sophisticated biometrics with the HCM solution.

The effect of HCM implementation done in a systematic manner by InfoTech to ensure maximum success was transformational. Key metrics improved immediately. Payroll processing time was cut by 50%. Raw data cleaning and access had a profound effect. The entire HR organization moved into a sphere of trust with the executive management of the group. Now that every HR manager across the group and their CEO’s could actually trust HR data, they started using it in decision making.

An incredibly robust self-service portal empowered employees. Self-service and automation allowed for HR to spend more time on engaging with employees allowing for HR departments across the group to move the needle from reactive to proactive. Multilateral compliance requirements are now met and governance and transparency now allow for fair and equitable transactions across the HR ecosystem.

Above all the greatest feedback has been that actual HR capability as enabled by Human Capital Management automation has allowed for genuinely better employee relations.

InfoTech was awarded this project because it was able to provide executive group management the vision of an organization that put employees at its center and a plan for achieving that vision. Obeikan also appreciated InfoTech’s deep expertise in Oracle and complex project delivery. Of special interest to Obeikan was the fact that InfoTech had deployed projects across countries in emerging markets.