ERP & HRIS Reinvention for a Prominent PE Firm

This private equity (PE) firm’s portfolio asset is a major multi-brand franchisee operation, spanning more than 300 locations around the country, with more than 7,000 employees.

As part of an enterprise-wide overhaul of their finance-and-accounting operation, Ensunet was brought in to scrutinize two critical systems: enterprise resource planning (ERP), and human resources information system (HRIS).

Both of these systems were being run by outside service providers, which robbed the client of desired control. What was worse was that as the company grew—that is, as it maintained its aggressive posture of acquiring new franchisees by the score—the ERP and HRIS vendors would only charge more money, year after year, to accommodate the growth.

Ensunet developed the technical architecture for, and stood up, two new organizations which the PE would be able to run internally: one for ERP, and the other for HRIS. The new architecture not only supported new efficiencies and functionality (such as Power BI reporting for leadership on franchise and operational status) but it also was designed to let the company add up to 500 more franchise locations without adding any new headcount. This is not exactly the way the previous vendors had wanted things to go!

In addition, Ensunet developed the business case, and weighted scorecards, for auditioning all-new vendors for each system. These multi-factor scorecards were used to evaluate three ERP vendors and four HRIS vendors, who were all invited to demonstrate their offerings.

Ensunet then scored each system based on the weighted criteria. And after that, we negotiated the best price from each vendor.

In short, we were able to save the client north of 15 percent on an annualized basis.

Ensunet supplied lead experts for this engagement, including the solution architect, an acting CIO and acting Chief HR Officer.

Over a period about seven weeks, the team developed the architecture and testing regimen, and then reviewed system demos and ranked and scored them, and also conducted the pricing negotiation.

During this engagement we worked hand-in-hand with the PE’s chosen firm for the broader finance-and-accounting reinvention, of which the ERP and HRIS were two vital components.