SAP Innovation Award 2018 for ETH Zurich
ETH Zurich has received the SAP Innovation Award 2018 for its “refine” IT project.
The technology company SAP awarded the SAP Innovation Award 2018 to ETH Zurich on 27 June 2019 in Bern. The university was recognised for its “refine” project (next-generation resource and finance platform for ETH Zurich). The award was accepted on behalf of ETH Zurich by project leader Markus Knaus, head of the Controlling department. The award also recognises the efforts of ETH Zurich to achieve excellence in the realm of digital infrastructure.
In the course of the “refine” project, ETH Zurich has completely restructured and expanded its resource and finance platform, as well as its financial management model. The goal is to be adequately prepared for future challenges and to meet the expectations of internal and external stakeholders.
The Innovation Award is the second prize “refine” has won this year: at the 18th eGovernment competition 2019 in Germany, ETH Zurich received second place for its resource and finance platform in the category “Best Modernisation Project”.
Total renewal as a foundation for the future
The solution was implemented using the new SAP S/4HANA Business Suite. As part of this sweeping upgrade, ETH Zurich will reduce the complexity of current processes and systems, and at the same time establish new process and system standards. The project encompasses a redesign of SAP solutions for personnel management and logistics, and the latest SAP technology for planning and reporting. By defining the new system architecture, ETH Zurich has laid the foundation for its future. “The prize is a nice reward for all 90 employees, who have been working on this IT project since 2014,” says Knaus with pleasure.
On 9 January 2019, four years after the launch of the “refine” project, the ETH Information and Support portal ETHIS was switched over to the SAP software S/4 HANA. The transition is not fully complete with the roll-out of ETHIS 2019. For ETHIS users, it is now a matter of becoming familiar with partially altered rules and the new financial and personnel reports, which are being made available incrementally. The “refine” project team will remain active until 2020.