Sasol Research and Technology is a subsidiary company and strategic business partner to other business units within the Sasol group. Sasol Technology manages the research and development, technology innovation and management, engineering services and project management portfolios. This business unit helps the fuel and chemical businesses to maintain growth and competitive advantage through appropriate technology solutions and services.

Sasol’s Research and Technology area, in conjunction with its Energy section, went out on tender in the beginning of 2014 to find a project and portfolio management tool like Project Portfolio Office (PPO). After a rigorous tender process, PPO was awarded the deal and was implemented for 300 users, across these two departments.

Sasol’s main aim for implementing PPO was to:

• Improve visibility of the projects portfolio. The departments had no single list of all the projects being run and once a list was compiled, there were a number of duplicate projects and projects that had already been completed. PPO has allowed the departments to see their entire portfolio at a glance and to accurately show how many and which types of projects they are currently running.
• Gain visibility of their resource allocations. As in most organisations, the employees at R&T are severely over-allocated and over-worked. The PMO needed a holistic view of which employees were dedicated to which projects for what amount of time. This also includes future resource allocations to ensure employees aren’t given more than they can handle. PPO has set up a resource allocations entity as well as several reports to perform this function for them.
• Set up an Approval of Ideas system. Anyone in Sasol can register new and innovative ideas for the R&T area. These ideas are now recorded, reviewed and approved on PPO using automated approvals. This allows Sasol to see how many ideas were registered during the year, how many were declined and how many went ahead to become successful projects.

Project Portfolio Office is proud to provide Sasol Research and Technology with an innovative and easy to use online project management solution and we look forward in assisting them in retaining their competitive advantage and maintaining growth.