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SPIE Accelerates SAP Development and Gains Greater Control with Custom Fiori Apps

About SPIE

SPIE is the largest multi-technical services provider in the Netherlands. The organization is part of the French SPIE Group, which operates across Europe with more than 55,000 employees. SPIE Building Solutions, a division with approximately 2,500 employees, focuses on building installations and maintenance.

Within SPIE Building Solutions, application management is divided between two teams: one team focuses on software development and integrations, while SAP management is handled by Giel Peeters’s team, consisting of seven colleagues.

An interview with Giel Peeters, IT Team Lead:

Hiring Specialized Expertise with a Clear Vision

SPIE deliberately chooses a partner strategy by area of expertise. Giel explains: “We don’t outsource on a massive scale, but we do it smartly — precisely where it adds value.” Since 2011, SPIE has collaborated with Ideo The partnership began with refining the SAP Plant Maintenance and Customer Service modules. Since then, Ideo has consistently proven itself as a strong partner for service and maintenance processes within SAP. According to Giel, this is no coincidence: “We’ve worked with multiple vendors, including for Fiori, but Ideo kept proving to be the best fit. Not only in terms of expertise, but also mentality. Pragmatic, transparent, and easy to work with.”

A Flexibly Organized Collaboration

The collaboration is flexibly organized, tailored to the type of support required. For Fiori development, SPIE works with a fixed weekly schedule: “We’ve set aside one day per week with Sander from Ideo This allows us to build steadily and maintain continuity in the development process,” Giel explains. For other assignment, such as functional support or ABAP development, the work is based on estimates and actuals: “We create a purchase order for a certain number of days and jointly determine who does what. Whether it’s done remotely or on-site, we coordinate it pragmatically. Whatever works best, we do.”

Practical Fiori Apps: From Insight to Action

Previously, only 300 of the 2,500 employees worked directly in SAP. Today, SPIE uses dozens of Fiori apps (“tiles”) to make SAP accessible, transparent, and user-friendly. “SAP was too complex, which is why we built many external applications. But with Fiori, we were able to truly make SAP workable for a broader user group,” Giel says.

Together with Ideo, SPIE developed a wide range of Fiori apps across different roles and departments. Many of the apps focus on monitoring, process control, and efficiency. For example, SPIE developed real-time monitoring tiles for open contract issues, missing partner roles, or employees still listed in SAP after leaving the company. Giel demonstrates the dashboard and explains: “What used to take hours in Excel now happens in a single click. Everything is real-time and clearly structured. Internally, it’s almost become a form of ‘gamification’ to get the tiles down to zero.”

On the financial side, dashboards were developed for revenue, order intake, and IR gaps per customer. “We use a centralized graphical library that ensures consistent colors, layouts, and filters. That makes maintenance much easier. If something needs to be adjusted, we do it in one place.”

Another strong example is the self-scheduling app for field technicians, allowing work orders to be assigned through a Fiori app without planner intervention. “That need came directly from the technicians themselves, and it works extremely well. We’re now rolling it out to additional teams.”

Close Collaboration Between IT and Business

The apps are developed in close collaboration with the business. “Each region has business analysts who act as sounding boards, but good ideas also come directly from technicians or team leaders. We collaborate very directly. Our IT department is approachable, engaged, and visible. Without these apps, we would need significantly more staff to keep everything running.”

Internal Impact: Time Savings, Collaboration, and a Strong IT Position

The impact of the collaboration is felt throughout the organization. “We save a tremendous amount of time and have full control over our processes. Everything is real-time. In the past, we sometimes discovered errors or missing data weeks too late. Now we correct them immediately, which saves a lot of rework and frustration,” Giel explains.

The way of working also aligns seamlessly with SPIE’s culture. “Ideo thinks pragmatically. They have a clear understanding of what works in practice without making things unnecessarily complex. And they’re simply great people to work with. They speak up if something isn’t feasible, but they always think in solutions. We value that greatly.” He emphasizes that Ideo always provides realistic estimates and never deliberately underquotes.

The trust built over the years continues to be reinforced in daily collaboration. “We know exactly what to expect from each other. That makes the partnership not only more efficient, but also enjoyable,” Giel says.

Future Plans: Clean Core and BTP

In 2019, SPIE successfully migrated from ECC to S/4HANA. The upgrade to the latest S/4HANA release in 2023 was partly carried out by Jacco from Ideo. “We consciously keep our system as clean as possible, but we are currently exploring SAP RISE and private cloud options,” Giel explains.

In the coming years, SPIE aims to move further toward a Clean Core architecture and explore what SAP BTP can offer in terms of extensions, integration, and flexibility. At present, BTP primarily serves as a development platform, with apps being developed using SAP Business Application Studio (BAS) on SAP BTP.

Giel concludes: “We’re looking at broader use of BTP, but it’s complex. A candy store where you don’t immediately know where to begin. It’s quite possible that Ideo will play an even larger role in the future, because the collaboration has been excellent.”