case studies

Maisadour client arago sap success factors

Maïsadour: centralising HR administration across a multi-site group with SAP SuccessFactors

Project objective

Maïsadour chose SAP SuccessFactors to build a single SIRH for the entire group. The first step: implementing Core HR with SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, integrated by Arago.

The aim: centralise HR administration, harmonise practices across business lines and countries, and lay solid foundations for future HR processes.

“We expected our integrator to bring product expertise, a genuine advisory role and a certain frankness. Arago’s teams rose to the challenge at every stage of the project.”

Maïsadour

Nicolas Tasseel, Solutions Director

Client context

A “galaxy of SMEs” with no consolidated HR administration

Maïsadour is an agricultural cooperative in south-west France, historically based in the Landes. It is owned by its farmer and livestock breeder members, who are at once partners, customers and suppliers.

The group has 4,300 employees and 204 sites in France. A significant share of its workforce is seasonal.

Its activities are organised into three divisions:

Services to farmers, the cooperative’s historical core business (for example, maize drying).
Seeds, developed for regional crops and sold internationally.
Gastronomy, including the foie gras brand Delpeyrat.

As its Solutions Director, Nicolas Tasseel, puts it: “Maïsadour operates more like a galaxy of SMEs than a highly integrated group.”

Challenges

Why did Maïsadour need a single source of HR data?

Before the project, the HR department and the DSI faced several challenges:

No consolidated HR administration: French payroll, running on SAP HCM, was in effect serving as the reference system for employee data.
HR data scattered across international sites, on disparate tools not covered by French payroll.
Inconsistent HR processes, centralised in some business lines and decentralised in others.
Numerous interfaces to maintain between payroll, the SAP ERP and the recruitment tool.
HR teams stretched by day-to-day operations, with regulatory deadlines and HR campaigns to deliver during the project.
Low adoption of an earlier SAP SuccessFactors module: the annual review module, already in place, was poorly rated by users.

Key issues

What were the objectives for Maïsadour’s group Core HR?

From the scoping phase, the HR department and the DSI identified several strategic and operational priorities:

Centralise employee data in a single repository, the source of truth for other systems, including payroll.
Harmonise HR practices across the group with a unified tool.
Make HR data more reliable, especially internationally.
Integrate SAP SuccessFactors into an SAP-based information system.
Stay as close as possible to the SAP standard, to make maintenance and upgrades easier.
Secure adoption by everyone: HR, managers and employees.
Prepare for life after the project and the autonomy of internal teams.

Solution

How did Maïsadour deploy SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central with Arago?

Supported by Arago’s teams, Maïsadour deployed and integrated SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central.

One key principle guided the whole project: making Employee Central the system of record for employee data, with SAP HCM payroll now fed by this module. A real shift for teams used to managing this data in payroll.

The project stages:

Scoping: analysis of the group’s real constraints (disparate payrolls, interfaces, team availability, HR and regulatory cycles) and a clear split of roles between HR, the DSI and Arago.
Designing the common HR model: defining which data is managed in Employee Central and at what level of detail, sticking to the initial principle to keep the project focused.
Data migration and cleansing: collecting and cleaning international data, with many local contacts.
Integrations: connecting Employee Central to SAP HCM payroll and the SAP ERP through SAP Integration Suite, which replaced the previous integration tool.
Document management: for drafting employment contracts, the standard would have required maintaining a very large number of templates. Maïsadour chose Arago Document Manager, an SAP-certified Arago application.
Phased go-live in three stages, one month apart: central HR first, to observe and fine-tune; then managers, in line with appraisal campaigns; and finally all employees.
Preparing for life after the project: knowledge transfer to internal administrators and TMA set up with Arago.

The Arago methodology

To secure the project, Arago relied on a proven method built around four principles:

Clear roles: HR owns the requirements, the DSI ensures consistency with the information system, and Arago brings product expertise.
Candid advice: being clear about what the solution can do, and what it should not be asked to do, to stay within the standard.
Built-in change management, with the system opened up gradually to each population.
An upskilling programme, so that teams can run the solution independently.

Four challenges overcome

As with any large-scale SIRH project, implementing Employee Central involved several challenges, tackled jointly by Maïsadour and Arago:

Business team availability, managed day to day in close contact with managers.
The quality of international data, a prerequisite for the project’s success.
Interfaces, which do not simply plug in, even within the SAP environment.
The limits of the standard, addressed with a certified extension rather than custom development.

Results

What benefits has Maïsadour gained since implementing Employee Central?

By the end of the Core HR phase, Maïsadour was already seeing tangible results:

A single source of HR data: Employee Central is the reference for employee data, in France and internationally.
An SIRH adopted by everyone: the system is open to all employees, following three well-managed stages.
A foundation ready to evolve: a solution close to the SAP standard, ready for the next HR processes.
Self-service requests: an employee who moves house updates their address in the tool. The request is time-stamped and then approved by HR, instead of being sent by email.
Better visibility of positions for managers, thanks to reworked position management.
Group HR administration finally digitalised, where it previously relied on French payroll.
A secure post-project phase: trained internal teams and right-sized Arago TMA for one-off questions and peaks in activity.
A clear roadmap: onboarding and offboarding, succession and talent, compensation.

Maïsadour’s six tips for a successful Core HR project

Set clear objectives: start from real uses and needs, not from a feature catalogue.
Make sure everyone sticks to their role, from start to finish.
Don’t neglect data quality: no system performs well without reliable data.
Anticipate interfaces, which require attention and skills.
Prepare for life after the project: documentation, knowledge transfer, and the role of process owners and key users.
Secure business team availability at the right time.
“Demanding on the standard, pragmatic about everything else.” Nicolas Tasseel, Solutions Director, Maïsadour

Going further with Arago

Why choose Arago to build the Core HR of your group SIRH?

Arago has been an SAP Gold Partner since 2010 and has supported SAP SuccessFactors projects for over 15 years. With more than 1,000 digital transformations delivered, our team knows how to make sense of the standard and identify where your systems can be improved.

An approach tailored to your context: depending on your challenges, organisation and maturity, we either build a bespoke solution or draw on proven models. We help you choose the most relevant option.
Preconfigured forms based on market best practice, which can speed up your project when this option is chosen.
SAP-certified Arago applications, to go beyond the standard.
Upskilling for your teams, so they can add a field, a rule, a country or a company without depending on us.
Support sized to your needs, and analysis of new SAP SuccessFactors releases against your configuration.

Selected solutions

To address these challenges, Maïsadour relied on the following solutions, integrated and developed by Arago:

SAP SuccessFactors

Digitise, standardise and manage your HR processes on a global scale.

SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central

This cloud-based HR management system provides you with a central repository for employee data, streamlines your HR processes and allows you to manage your workforce more efficiently.

Arago Document Manager

ADM automates HR document generation, e-signature and archiving directly from SAP SuccessFactors, streamlining HR document management with faster, more reliable and compliant processes.