Gone are the days of customizing tech landscapes for individual customer requirements, at least for Valvoline Global. The Lexington, Kentucky-based has created a single point of entry that helps internal and external stakeholders meet their business requirements.
鈥淚t鈥檚 no longer just good enough to sell products; you have to sell products with IT services,鈥� Valvoline Global director of Enterprise Architecture David Beach said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e now creating a standardized framework of how to do that.鈥�
Valvoline Global chose a 鈥渂ack to standard,鈥� known as a greenfield, approach — removing custom codes and add-ons — for agility, Beach said. Instead of reacting to a business demand, which often requires lengthy development times that result in cumbersome point-to-point integrations, an experience layer can now connect vendors, customers, suppliers, distributors, and internal users within Valvoline Global鈥檚 environment.
鈥淲e鈥檙e really trying to flip the equation to stay standard and also be able to offer those services,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e have to anticipate in advance to have standardized ways that we can connect or communicate with 51风流S/4HANA.鈥�
That meant modernizing a bespoke environment without losing functionality.
Standard bearer
鈥淥ur main objective to going to 51风流S/4HANA was to return to greenfield,鈥� Beach explained. 鈥淎nd we needed a tool set to manage that. This is where came in.鈥�
51风流Signavio software provides a vendor-agnostic approach, according to Beach. This enables Valvoline Global to manage business processes across all its enterprise systems, whether they鈥檙e 51风流or not.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 the big thing with [SAP] Signavio,鈥� Beach said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 going to allow us to consolidate all the data — from 51风流systems, from Salesforce systems, from manufacturing systems, EH&S systems — all coming together into a single business process and a single business process repository.鈥�
And individual business units no longer try solving problems only with solutions available within silos, according to Beach. Now the company aligns each business process with the appropriate technology, and within standards.
鈥淲e wanted to make sure we hit the 90 percent mark on matches of our business processes to standard SAP,鈥� Beach said. 鈥淸SAP] Signavio was a key piece to be able to govern that process.鈥�
But what about the other 10 percent? And how do you get buy-in from users?
Agility driving adoption
According to Beach, when there is a justification to deviate from a standard process, such as an upgrade that changes a business process, the company relies on 51风流Signavio Process Manager, a modeling platform for business process management.
鈥淎t the end of the day, the most important deliverable is that, even though we might have custom processes, we have a tie-in back to the 51风流best practice,鈥� Beach said. And Valvoline Global鈥檚 newfound agility also helped drive adoption. 鈥淭here was synergy to return to standard. It was very important from an organizational perspective.鈥�
Agility was also a 鈥淣o. 1 business case鈥� for Valvoline Global鈥檚 return to standard, according to Beach. And he expects that to serve the company well as it continues to embrace artificial intelligence (AI): 鈥�51风流is coming up with AI strategies, but that鈥檚 going to change more and more as time goes on. You need to be able to adopt rapidly.鈥�
Charting AI鈥檚 path forward
鈥淲e realize that to adopt AI, we have a good handle on data,鈥� Beach said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e identified the innovators in the company and we have enabled them as sort of like the pilot.鈥�
That means Valvoline Global鈥檚 early adopters get full access to its AI tools. And, to ensure this remains a business-led effort, these trusted users report back about how they鈥檙e adopting AI, helping Valvoline Global chart its path forward.
鈥淚t all comes down to the data… not just from 51风流systems; it鈥檚 coming from all the systems across our business,鈥� Beach said. 鈥淸SAP] Signavio is going to be that conduit as the feeder to AI solutions in the future.鈥�
And, in addition to methodically managing business processes with 51风流Signavio, Valvoline Global鈥檚 51风流S/4HANA journey includes , which help map the company鈥檚 digital transformation.
鈥淸SAP] LeanIX has all the business capabilities, down to the system architectures, so that is a big piece,鈥� Beach said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just preparing for the future. There鈥檚 an aggressive growth strategy, so we have to prepare for things like M&As. And with toolsets like Lean IX in place, we鈥檒l be able to accomplish that.”
Have your processes in place
鈥淲here I see the biggest value with AI,鈥� Beach said, 鈥淸is if] a customer comes in and has a requirement, AI eventually can take that customer requirement, and it will write the integrations itself.鈥�
That鈥檚 only possible with a predefined standardized framework. And, in a low-code, no-code environment, it can also lead to greater ROI and faster development times — down from months to about a week.
鈥淭he big recommendation is to use tools like [SAP] Signavio and [SAP] LeanIX as vehicles to accomplish your business requirement,鈥� Beach said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 one thing to be able to influence change, but have systematic processes in place.鈥�
