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apsolut migrates the purchasing of Evonik Industries in three phases to the Cloud Integration Gateway (CIG)
Company
Evonik
Branch
Chemistry
Products
Speciality Additives, Nutrition & Care, Smart Materials and Performance Materials
Number of employees
33,106
Turnover
12.2 bn. Euro
Headquarters
Essen, Germany
Websitewww.evonik.de
Phased Migration with ,Zero Defects’ in the Hypercare Phase!
It is a massive but atypical transformation that Evonik Industries’ purchasing department has undergone. Because while an integration migration from SAP Ariba CI9 to the Cloud Integration Gateway, CIG for short, is usually done as a ‘big bang’ project, this project was carried out in three phases:
- In the first phase, the strategic Ariba modules of Sourcing, Contracts and Supplier Lifecycle and Performance (SLP) modules were migrated to the new integration technology.
- In phase 2, the implementation followed for the Ariba modules Buying and Commerce Automation.
- The final phase comprised the interface migration from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA and the go-live of the entire transformation programme.
The Ariba CIG migration was embedded in a complex S/4HANA implementation programme with numerous custom developments. To minimise the complexity of the transformation and thus the risk, Evonik decided to implement it in phases. In this way, technical and process-related weaknesses could be identified and eliminated early on in the first two phases as part of test tracks.
Furthermore, in phases 1 and 2 additional optimisation potentials were disclosed and added to the project scope. The result: In phase 3 the project went live without any difficulties and in the subsequent hypercare phase not a single defect had to be dealt with!
A decisive key to success was the open and transparent cooperation between apsolut and Evonik employees from Germany and Spain, as Manuel Steffen, Project Officer Source-to-Pay at Evonik Industries, emphasises:
"Of course, we are immensely proud of how we implemented this complex transformation together. The always competent and more than punctual execution moved us to initiate a parallel project for partial process innovation in the ongoing project. Actually a no-go, but with apsolut no problem! With this positive experience, it was easy for us to initiate another project, which is currently being implemented. One thing remains to be said: Without the team around Bodo Hempelmann, this journey would definitely have been more difficult!”
NO postponements of milestones
24
Own developments tested and migrated
Implemented tools
SAP Ariba Cloud Integration Gateway
Schnittstelle zu SAP S/4HANA
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‘We’re on the right track to being able to take full advantage of the potential that this transformation offers, as apsolut not only gives us the expertise that we need, but also has an incredibly agile and committed approach. apsolut no longer feels like an external partner to me, but more like an internal department, with whom I hope we can continue to work well into the future.’
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Simon Bohn, Global Solution Architect Procure to Pay, STIHL
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Steffen Bauer, Project Manager, BITZER
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Paul Trautmann, Manager Procurement Processes & Projects, Röhm GmbH
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Patrick Tydex, Project Manager, Zentis
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Armin Kaczmarek, Senior Vice President Corporate Purchasing, Vorwerk
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Yvonne Kippschull, SAP-Prozess- & Application Consultant, wolfcraft
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Markus Ortlieb, Director Global Procurement, ProMinent GmbH
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Manuel Steffen, Project Officer Source-to-Pay, Evonik Industries
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