Engen is recognised in Africa as a major player in the local automotive fuels and lubricants sector. The company has a head office in Cape Town and 100 depots across southern Africa through which it distributes petrol to the region.

The Challenge: Increasing Productivity through Fast Access to SAP

Engen previously had a mainframe installed from which the 100 depots accessed information. However, the company wanted to modernise its IT architecture and provide its employees fast access to key applications in order to increase productivity and efficiency. Engen also sought to reduce its support costs substantially and facilitate quick deployment of new software upgrades. The company needed a robust platform from which the whole company could access SAP as well as other productivity applications. At the same time, the company wanted to achieve hardware cost savings and to increase ROI.

Implementing a Citrix Solution for Application Deployment

The petroleum company called in Dimension Data, a Gold-level Citrix® Solution Advisor in Cape Town, to assist with its move to an enterprise access infrastructure.  Engen implemented Citrix MetaFrame® Presentation Server with Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Servers. Now, 340 Engen employees in 100 locations access the new SAP 3 GUI, as well as Microsoft Outlook and other business applications, from the MetaFrame XP Presentation Servers centralised in Cape Town, Namibia and Botswana. Engen also purchased 200 Wyse thin-client terminals, which it installed at its depots alongside existing HP workstations, to extend application access at low cost.

Reduced Application Upgrade Time and Support Cost Savings

Using Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server, Enterprise Edition, Engen has reached its objective of reducing time to deploy upgrades and new applications. IT staff can now install applications on the central servers and make them immediately available to all staff – thereby increasing productivity and competitive advantage.

“The upgrade to SAP R/3 from SAP R/2 could not have been done as quickly without Citrix,” said Andries van der Vyver, e-business manager at Engen. “It would have taken weeks to roll out the new SAP GUI to all the depots. However, with Citrix software, it literally took hours, not days or weeks.”

The support costs for Engen’s remote sites have been reduced to approximately one third using the Citrix solution, compared to the cost to maintain and support a user in a traditional PC environment. The company has also seen significant hardware savings. With a Citrix environment, all application processing is done on the central server, enabling Engen to use its existing PCs and inexpensive thin clients.

“Citrix MetaFrame XP Presentation Server has enabled us to extend the active life of our older desktop computers,” commented van der Vyver.  “We have managed to reduce hardware costs by 67 percent by using our existing desktops instead of replacing them.”

Additional benefits that Engen has experienced include simplified training. SAP trainers now use the session shadowing function to guide employees remotely through the system. The company has also seen quicker response times when sorting out support issues.

“Citrix technology plays an important role in the infrastructure of the company and will continue to do so, as our business changes and grows,” concluded van der Vyver.

© 2003 Citrix Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Citrix® and MetaFrame® are registered trademarks or trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Microsoft®, Windows® and Windows NT® are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. UNIX® is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.