Quicker access to information, consistent data storage, and increased efficiency at Spairliners thanks to Dynamics 365 Human Resources

The challenge: Initial processes and documentation stretched to their limits

In 2005, Lufthansa Technik and Air France Industries founded Spairliners as a relatively small and flexible enterprise. The joint venture was set up to take care of maintenance and repair work for the Airbus A380. Spairliners commenced operations the same year the A380 was first put into service, relying largely on employees from the parent companies at first. But the enterprise quickly established itself and assembled its own team. What began as a headcount of five has since grown into a staff of around 60 employees. Its area of activity has also expanded: Spairliners now organizes replacement parts and maintenance work not only for the Airbus A380, but also for aircraft from the E-Jet family produced by Brazilian manufacturer Embraer—all around the globe. This means the company has to be open for business 24/7. 

“We’ve been operating our own customer service hotline since 2017,” says Jonathan Mayer, Head of Innovation, Data and Quality at Spairliners. “On launching the hotline, we also had to introduce a timekeeping solution to meet the respective legal requirements and document compliance. We drew on an external cloud-based service here.” Over time, the various human resources tasks became increasingly complex. From recruiting and onboarding new employees to taking care of leave requests, appraisal interviews, personnel development, salary systems, bonuses, extra pay, shift schedules, and more—HR was faced with mounting responsibilities. “Back in the early days, the company’s different HR processes were documented in Excel tables on SharePoint,” Mayer says. “But as we grew, it became more and more difficult to maintain this system. It no longer met the demands of modern HR management.” So the company went in search of a solution that would cater for greater efficiency and ensure legal compliance.

The solution: Cloud-based HR services to relieve administrative effort

Spairliners found what it was looking for at Microsoft. “Dynamics 365 Human Resources fits brilliantly with our strategy of harnessing the cloud as much as possible,” Mayer says. “We want to keep the administrative effort at the company as low as possible so we can focus on our core work. Dynamics 365 makes this possible.” Mayer also appreciates the practicalities of the solution: “Dynamics is really well integrated into Microsoft 365. It has the same look and feel, which makes navigating the new software a breeze. And we don’t have to manage any additional user profiles.”

The platform has certainly elevated the work done by HR in terms of productivity and reliability. “Our HR activities are now consolidated in one place, which makes reporting easier. And we can provide our employees with self-service applications that give them quicker access to information and take the pressure off our HR professionals,” Mayer says. HR processes at Spairliners have also benefited enormously from consistent data storage. Important information used to be saved to individual Excel tables, but managing access to this information also grew increasingly complex. “Our data is stored consistently in Dynamics 365 Human Resources. Access management is straightforward and transparent. This also makes it easier for us to satisfy data protection requirements,” he says.

Mayer is especially pleased that Dynamics 365 enables the integration of key functions. Spairliners no longer has to use an external timekeeping service. And thanks to the solution’s excellent integration into Microsoft 365, the company was able to add useful functions, for example to help manage leave requests. “Working closely together with the responsible program manager at Microsoft, we’ve developed a process that automatically generates Outlook entries. When an employee’s request for leave is authorized, the absence is noted directly in their Outlook calendar and their respective managers are informed accordingly,” Mayer says. Spairliners has also made this solution available to other Microsoft customers. “We’re a young and dynamic company. We need to build connections and work openly and pragmatically with others,” Mayer says with confidence. This is why knowledge sharing—even with regard to software expertise, as seen here—is a matter of course for the Spairliners team.

Mayer doesn’t put a number on the productivity that has been gained, since the company’s HR team is too small for that. “Our main goal is to see qualitative improvements on the back of Dynamics 365, and these have been impressive,” he says. 

Mayer wants to maintain this momentum. He plans to develop the platform and expand it to cover new functions in the company. “What we really want to do is incorporate the topic of goal setting into the system so we can integrate it better into our everyday work,” he says. He also sees huge process potential in the interaction between Dynamics 365 and the SAP solution deployed at Spairliners. This could be harnessed in particular to boost data provision and analysis. “Power BI is our most important business intelligence tool. We see an enormous amount of potential here to gain new insights from our data and thus further improve the way in which we work,” Mayer says. “The services provided by Microsoft Azure will propel us forward in a number of areas. With its high-performance cloud solutions, we are now on the right track.”