Summary
Global IT consulting giant Capgemini needed a single, compliant time tracking solution to replace 17 separate applications and Excel tools worldwide. They selected Deltek Replicon for its unified project time tracking and time-off management capabilities across multiple labor law environments. A creative internal campaign drove adoption to nearly 100% in the first test market, delivering real-time global visibility, fewer timesheet errors, and a significantly lower total cost of ownership.
Project Success
- Improved Productivity Gains: Fewer timesheet errors because of built-in validations that reduced costs.
- User-First Approach: A user-centric approach enabled quicker adoption to more than 300,000 global employees.
- Convergence to a Single System: A single project time tracking system improved global visibility and reduced the total cost of ownership.
Capgemini is a global IT consulting firm with 420,000 employees across more than 50 countries. As a leading advisor and transformation partner to companies around the world, they have leveraged technology to enable business transformation for almost 60 years.
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The Challenge of Time
Like most consulting firms, time is at the heart of Capgemini's services. Accurate time tracking is a practical necessity and a strategic tool for success, allowing consultancies to build trust with clients through transparent billing. "Time management is critical for Capgemini because our business is time. It's our product," said Sudhir Reddy, Group CIO.
As a large firm operating across several countries, Capgemini has to comply with the many different labor laws and regulations that govern time tracking across regions. Sudhir explained, “If we look at the big picture, there are different aspects to time. You have the time you spend working for clients, time spent at the office, and you have time off (vacation, short-term leave, etc.) It is quite challenging to manage, as these aspects are governed differently across various countries.”
A Single System That is Simple and Compliant Across the Globe
“At Capgemini, we wanted to address the ‘time’ problem in a comprehensive manner. We also wanted to ensure it was easy for our employees,” said Sudhir Reddy, Group CIO. Capgemini evaluated several different solutions to address their time-tracking needs, including building an in-house solution. They utilized distinct time-tracking systems for monitoring billable hours and handling employee time-off requests.
Additionally, managing various leave types, accruals, and balances across multiple countries while ensuring labor compliance posed challenges.
Ultimately, they selected Deltek Replicon, in large part because Replicon has a unified platform for project time tracking and time-off management and a strong global presence. Replicon is an award-winning platform that provides solutions for use cases around time management, including project time tracking, time-off management and workforce management. "Leave management is one of the most complex things to implement globally with any large company. A differentiator of Replicon is the combined Time-Off functionality which provides synergies for employee experience and back-office processes," said Erin Railton, VP Global Applications.
Simplification Brings Efficiencies for Capgemini
Converging to a single system was a significant driver of this transformation initiative.
"Replicon replaces approximately 17 applications around the world as well as many internal Excel based tools," said Sudhir Reddy, Group CIO. This simplification led to a reduction in the total cost of ownership for Capgemini.
A User-Centric Approach Ensures Adoption
Sudhir and Erin understood that large-scale digital transformation is not just about implementation but also process simplification and behavioral change. Even with a clean user experience, “It’s not just as easy as saying, “Hey, we are more efficient as a company if you enter your timesheets more accurately,” explained Sudhir. So, to encourage the new rituals, Erin and Sudhir created an entire internal branding campaign called: "One Minute. Once a Week."
"The overall entry process is fairly simple. In fact, we timed it, and it was less than one minute," said Sudhir. The campaign was intended to help change the culture of the company encourage weekly timesheet entry instead of monthly.
And it worked. By encouraging their employees to spend one minute, once a week, user adoption skyrocketed, hitting close to 100% in the first test market with almost zero follow-up.
Better Visibility Allows Capgemini to Pivot Quickly
A key benefit Capgemini has seen involves global visibility, which comes with the ability to make decisions and pivot much faster. "Global visibility is the number one benefit for me," said Erin Railton. "I have a team across the world, and now I won't need to rely on a monthly closing report, where I will need to make adjustments after the fact. Now I can see my teams in real-time and the big benefits come from making decisions quicker."
In addition to the visibility for team and practice leaders, the ability of users to quickly see hours allows them to be more proactive in planning and requesting projects for themselves.
Fewer Errors Leads to Productivity Gains
Sudhir also commented that due to the upstream controls implemented they were seeing fewer errors on the timesheets themselves. As a result, Capgemini has to spend much less time and allocate fewer resources to fixing things downstream.
"A big benefit involves the timesheet error rate. We are seeing a lot fewer errors on the timesheets because of inbuilt validations. Your time of presence, your time entry, your leave of absence, all of those correlate," said Sudhir. "What we are doing now is making everything frictionless and smooth."
As a result, Capgemini is freeing up resources to focus on tasks that bring more value to the company.
Replicon has a reputation as a reliable and collaborative partner. We know because we used it for a long time in the US with very few complaints compared to other tools.
A Partnership to Grow With
The two-year roll out program has now successfully completed, with 335,000 employees and 39 countries live on the global platform. It was a massive project that required more than just a system that works; it required a close partnership.
"Replicon was one of the biggest digital transformation projects we've ever undertaken, and it had a very aggressive timeline," Sudhir explained. Capgemini's case proves that the right technology, processes, and partnership can lead to long-term success during large-scale digital transformation projects.
