Stabilo International: Writing the future with S/4 Hana

In over 180 countries around the world, "Stabilo" conjures up the image of an unmistakable fineliner or brightly colored highlighter. The pen manufacturer Stabilo International can now look back on 168 years of company history and is still family-owned. During this time, the company, based in Heroldsberg near Nuremberg, has developed into a group with an international network of production sites and branches and has relied on SAP as its ERP system for most of its production and sales structures for over two decades.

Stabilo is therefore decidedly "SAP-minded", although the use of SAP ECC 6.0 has led to distinct processes, complex structures and numerous individual developments over the past 20 years. In the course of studies carried out by Christian Stücke, IT Director at Stabilo International, from 2015 onwards, this led to a clear assessment: Stabilo, a company with a long tradition, was confronted with the complexity of its ERP system, which should no longer be used as it was, but rather fundamentally revised.

Decision for the Big Bang

From this point onwards, Stabilo discussed the idea of a comprehensive transformation of the ERP landscape. On the one hand, in order to optimally map and coordinate the complex and international structures in production and sales in an ERP system and to avoid further individual developments. On the other hand, Stabilo was also aware of the economic importance of a modern, integrated system. With the market launch of S/4 Hana by SAP, there was also the prospect of switching to S/4 Hana one day anyway.

Greenfield or brownfield?

This left Stabilo with the question of the optimal approach for the transformation from ECC 6.0 to S/4: greenfield or brownfield? The decision was ultimately made in favor of a holistic approach to combine the structural transformation with the technical migration to S/4. This led to a consolidation of the organizational effects and the creation of new structures on a greenfield site: Streamlining, standardization, streamlining and simplification. The actual implementation of the "B4CKBONE" project took a total of three and a half years, with the big bang successfully taking place simultaneously in 13 countries in February 2023.

Transformation project in detail

For the implementation of the "B4CKBONE" transformation project, Stabilo chose the SAP consulting company NTT DataBusiness Solutions - then still Itelligence - as part of a tender. "We opted for a consultant who could demonstrate process expertise and industry knowledge," says IT Director Christian Stücke from Stabilo International.

NTT DataBusiness Solutions supported the transformation project in the areas of project management, process analysis, consulting, definition, implementation, development, data migration and go-live implementation. The project involved reengineering the core processes (greenfield) and largely mapping them to the SAP standard (fit-to-standard approach). The aim was to increase agility and speed in the organization through more manageable processes.

"B4CKBONE" was much more than just an S/4 transformation for Stabilo. It encompassed the entire core business as well as a redesign of the core processes in the areas of planning, sales, logistics, purchasing, production, accounting and controlling. Two new solutions, SAP IBP and SAP EWM, were also implemented.

Around 80 Stabilo International employees were also actively involved in the transformation, including around 20 internal SAP specialists and 60 representatives from the specialist departments, who supported the project with process definitions, testing and as key users.

Consulting is and remains a two-sided people business. In many of the sub-projects, there was a viable basis between internal and external expertise right from the start, while in others it took a little longer for the experts from Stabilo and NTT DataBusiness Solutions to agree on a common denominator and align expectations. "Over the last twelve months, everyone was focused on the goal and knew what needed to be done," summarizes Christian Stücke. Together with Stabilo's professional team and the SAP consultant's experienced team, it was possible to achieve a sustainable improvement in the process landscape.

Human success factor

In addition to all the technical and methodological aspects, people are the most important success factor for business process initiatives. At Stabilo, this required in particular the willingness of employees from all departments to embrace the change in the ERP landscape and, above all, the greenfield approach. This meant saying goodbye to individual solutions, some of which had been developed in-house and used for decades, in favor of an overall solution.

The fact that the sub-project managers of the transformation project made decisions collectively proved to be particularly valuable, resulting in a greater understanding between the individual departments. "The transformation cost us time and energy, but also brought significant changes," is how Christian Stücke succinctly summarizes the transformation project. Specifically, the introduction of SAP S/4 Hana has already brought the first visible improvements, for example in the area of analytics.

Although the efficiency gains are gradual, they are already noticeable: specialist departments can access data more quickly. Planning runs that used to take twelve hours have been reduced to just over two hours. The new usability thanks to Fiori is also rated positively.

Ready for the business of the future

The transformation from SAP ECC 6.0 to S/4 Hana at Stabilo International is forward-looking - it has not only renewed the ERP system, but also fundamentally improved organizational flexibility. Last but not least, Stabilo International has now mapped the majority of requirements via standards, which offers more scope for market-relevant and future adaptations. With the greenfield approach and the new usability through Fiori based on the modern SAP platform, Stabilo can now optimally support the business of the future. The path to more standard, more flexibility and more future was successfully mastered as part of the transformation project thanks to internal and external expertise.

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