S/4 in One Year?

With more than 1600 employees at over 90 locations, the Elmer Group unites 13 different sales companies in the sanitary, heating and air conditioning sector. Since 2017, their professional, successful collaboration has been ensured by their cross-company ERP system - SAP ECC 6.0, which records different areas of the specialist wholesaler such as sales and purchasing, finance, controlling and logistics in one system.

When the end of life of SAP ERP ECC 6.0 was announced, there was a need for action for the HVAC wholesaler: „Even though we are convinced by the predecessor product, we still want a supportable environment in the future that is up to date on the software side,“ explains Frank Knitsch, Head of IT, Service and Projects at Elmer. „An early changeover to the new SAP S/4 Hana is in line with our aspiration to proactively introduce the most modern and latest technologies into the company. We didn't want to find ourselves in a predicament where we had to act, but wanted to benefit from the S/4 improvements as quickly as possible,“ emphasizes Knitsch.

Cloud-based = future-oriented

In addition to the modern look and feel, which ensures employee-friendly usability, the project managers were particularly impressed by the cloud capability of SAP S/4 Hana. „For us, the move to the cloud means a clear focus on the future,“ comments Knitsch. „For us, upgrading our previous ERP system to the new release with the help of our long-standing IT partner FIS was a logical, forward-looking development that we expect to bring us a number of benefits,“ says Knitsch.

Simpler merchandise management

„On the one hand, we want to significantly improve performance in the future and make loading and waiting times disappear into thin air,“ explains Knitsch. On the other hand, processes can be simplified and accelerated through automation and simplification. For example, the use of the new Fiori user interface in conjunction with the Launchpad is a direct improvement, as worklists are sometimes determined live and displayed directly on the employees' start page. The new FI and CO integrations also enable better data exchange between Controlling (CO) and Financial Accounting (FI).

The sales staff, purchasing and warehouse should also benefit from the S/4 Hana optimizations. The HVAC wholesaler therefore continues to rely on the market-leading FIS/wws NG merchandise management software from SAP service provider FIS Informationssysteme und Consulting GmbH, as it best maps the specific wholesale processes. With the SAP-based ERP software for technical wholesale, orders, for example, can be created, calculated and tracked easily and with reference to specific objects.

Prices are determined automatically on the basis of valid offers. Orders can be improved by suitable suggestions from the system or customized shopping lists. Industry-specific searches are also completed more quickly. In addition, integrated object management and smart bill of quantities editing and processing make daily processes easier for sales staff. „The fact that FIS/wws directly contains industry-specific standards such as GAEB also simplifies the exchange of article data for us,“ comments Knitsch.

Planned, labor-intensive, successful

Before all these improvements were made, the project team had a busy year ahead of them: after the introduction of the Hana database, the S/4 Hana transition began in May 2024, which included other topics in addition to the merchandise management system: FIS/mpm for master data management, FIS/edc and FIS/fci for invoice management, FIS/odx for digital data exchange between trade and wholesale and FIS/LastMile for mobile goods delivery.

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„The move to the cloud means a clear focus on the future for us.“

Frank Knitsch,
Head of IT,
Service and projects,
Elmer Group

In order to successfully convert all these areas, a total of 50 Elmer Group managers and colleagues from FIS worked hand in hand in various phases: While the Explore phase determined what exactly would change and what adjustments would be necessary, the first individual functions were tested and checked during the implementation phase.

Thus began an iterative process in which all functions and processes were gradually developed and improved so that all the processes created could be tested in the process test phase with over 10,000 integration tests. This was followed by a period of training, as a result of which the planned cut-over of the S/4 Hana transition took place over the Easter holidays in April 2025 without any downtime.

Optimal project progress

„Looking back, we were particularly impressed by the commitment and consistency of everyone involved, which meant that we never had to question our schedule. It was an extremely busy time for all colleagues to fully transform our ECC world into S/4.

In total, we had around 2,500 days of internal work. Thanks to our extensive experience and excellent cooperation, we were able to handle the associated complexity well and the project went just as we had hoped,“ explains Frank Knitsch. The successful collaboration with the SAP service provider from Lower Franconia since 2014 has been characterized above all by the partnership-based and personal exchange as well as the association network.

Exploring the potential of the cloud

Referring to the project, Sandra Cararo, Head of Sales based Customer at FIS, adds: „In particular, the mix of colleagues who have known each other for years and users who brought new input made this project team excellent and successful.“ After this successful joint project, the next steps were immediately planned: The new potential of the cloud is to be exploited in the short term and in the best possible way. The development of new apps is also already being planned. There are also plans to add additional FIS/mpm components so that the master data tool can be used even more extensively.

Conclusion: ERP upgrade in a sprint

Within a year, the Elmer Group successfully migrated its entire ERP system from SAP ECC to S/4 Hana. Equipped for the future, all areas of the HVAC wholesaler - from purchasing and sales to finance, controlling and logistics - now work in a modern environment. The various wholesale-specific solutions of the IT service provider FIS enable more flexible, simpler and faster processes in all departments, so that the necessary transformation is already bringing clear improvements and holds great potential for the future.

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