How Greggs rapidly hired 100% of the SAP skills they needed in a challenging location (and saved £2.7m on recruitment costs)

The programme of work

Programme name: Sunrise
Purpose: Utilise SAP to centralise the business and become more responsive to customers’ needs
Transformation type: Greenfield
Value: £40 million
Timeframe: Rapid scale up over 1-6 months (with additional support for the full 4 year programme)
Hires required: 30+
bluewaveSELECT solution: Deliver, Exclusive

The challenge:

• Greggs selected a complex SAP solution to transform manufacturing, logistics, retail, finance, procurement, HR and payroll.
• This was a Greenfield programme – the business had no existing SAP skills in-house, so they needed a full team in place in 6 months to deliver the SAP programme and manage Greggs’ chosen SI.
• They needed to source and hire 30+ permanent and contract SAP professionals in the North East – a region of the UK where these skills are not easy to find.
• They needed a supplier that could deliver a high volume of local SAP hires, without sacrificing quality.

The solution

• Greggs opted to use bluewaveSELECT’s Exclusive solution to increase the speed and reduce the cost of hiring.
• bluewaveSELECT were engaged during project launch with a brief to build its in-house SAP capabilities of up to 40 people at pace across manufacturing, logistics, retail, finance, procurement, HR and payroll.
• Before sending any candidates through, bluewaveSELECT mapped out the local SAP community, meeting and assessing all potential candidates for their suitability.
• bluewaveSELECT shared a high quality shortlist of candidates – motivated to join the project and company, able to do the job, a track record in similar projects and a great cultural fit.

The Results

• With thanks to bluewaveSELECT’s SAP expertise, they successfully recruited more than 30 accurately matched SAP professionals across all phases of the 3 year programme.
• Due to bluewaveSELECT’s approach to sourcing candidates, Greggs’ leadership were able to sit back, relax and enjoy a hands-free journey – they weren’t expected to waste their time sifting through poor quality CVs.
• This reduced their time commitment by approximately 75%, and led to a 100% fill ratio across both contract and permanent.
• With a team of experienced SAP professionals in place, Greggs had the capabilities to represent itself on the direction of the programme, build with the future in mind and robustly question solutions put forward by its SI.
• By using the Exclusive solution, Greggs saved £672,906 per year (compared with hiring through a pay-as-you-go model).
• Given the success of this programme, bluewaveSELECT is continuing to work with Greggs, delivering the skills needed for their S/4HANA transformation. Greggs are now using the ICON solution to create further cost savings.