Global FMCG company

How a global FMCG achieved full ROI in one year with SAP test automation

Company overview

One of the leading global FMCG companies – with over 25 billion Euros of revenue and a rich 100+ year history – relies on SAP to manage business critical operations across 120 world markets. SAP is integral to almost every part of the business, from finance and sales to materials management and production.

They recognize keeping their SAP ECC systems updated ahead of the S/4HANA transition is critical to their ability to deliver with precision and stay ahead of market demands.

With a largely manual testing process, considerable effort was required to perform thorough testing for the several SAP releases they wanted to adopt each year. Each release required multiple weeks of planning and burdened high-value domain experts with repetitive tasks. In addition, they worried that their exceptional quality standards might be impacted by the potential for human error in the condensed and often rushed time period allotted for testing.

The testing organization for SAP knew it was time to innovate their processes — introducing test automation so they could deliver quality at speed.

  • Testing for SAP was completely manual
  • Testing bogged down high-value domain experts with repetitive tasks
  • No room to be flexible in testing because of release timelines
  • Concerns over accuracy of testing given human error
  • Tests could not be run more than once because of time constraints

The organization performed an internal market study to compare different aspects of automation tools for scalability, compatibility, and support. Tricentis Tosca quickly emerged as a frontrunner. After a proof of concept, the team re-affirmed confidence in their decision, and began the process of automating complex SAP tests with Tricentis.

The team has focused on an “automate first” mentality with each SAP release. Before a release is tested, new functionality is automated prior to beginning multiple rounds of test execution from the existing test case library. The organization has reduced execution time by 90% due to high levels of automation. They are able to reuse over 80% of their test cases (without modification) across the steady stream of SAP releases.

Test data is populated automatically alongside the automated test cases, further reducing testing time. Previously, time was wasted finding the right resource to create realistic test data for testing each release. Now, parameterized test cases can be re-run across different test environments.

“We have many different SAP environments. Using Tricentis test case design as well as synthetic test data generation allows the team to automate the test case once and replicate for different environments in our landscape, without expanding the automation effort from scratch,” says the company’s test automation lead.

Because test execution is now so fast, they can re-run test cases multiple times through the course of the release. This increases confidence in the accuracy of results and allows domain experts additional flexibility to focus on other areas. Moreover, shifting the focus from repetitive tasks fosters their culture of innovation — providing domain experts the time and flexibility to work on advances that transform the user experience.

The team realized a 100% return on their investment in Tricentis Tosca within the first year. They are now focused on extending their automation skills to different technologies across the organization.

  • 100% ROI in 1 year
  • 90% reduction in manual testing
  • 80% reusability from one release to the next
  • Automation of complex SAP scenarios that can be run multiple times for a single release
  • Test data automatically generated with test cases
  • Ability to test multiple scenarios during the testing period
  • Fewer repetitive tasks for SAP domain experts; more focus on testing innovation
  • Increased confidence in testing outcomes