However, over time, it became clear that some of its complex legacy systems were not poised to meet the requisite challenges going forward, especially with SAP鈥檚 support for 51风流ECC 鈥� an impactful solution in Chevron鈥檚 enterprise resource planning (ERP) portfolio 鈥� coming to an end in 2027. That鈥檚 why Chevron is now teaming up with 51风流as a customer and co-innovation partner to transform its digital core and position itself for the cloud future.

鈥淥ur motivation was clear: We are embracing a more reliable digital foundation that can enhance production efficiency and enable faster, more informed decisions,鈥� said Michelle LaPoint, general manager of Enterprise Digital Delivery at Chevron. 鈥淲e wanted up-to-the-minute, forward-looking, embedded analytics and the ability to simplify enterprise processes, automate where possible, and innovate around the digital core going into the future.鈥�

Designing a Clean Digital Core

Currently, Chevron operates on more than a dozen distinct ERP systems across its business segments. Given that complex landscape, and taking into account the varying processes across business units, standardizing business processes, data, and technology were top of mind for business and IT leadership.

鈥淔or a large company like Chevron, transformation is a global, phased, multi-year journey,鈥� said LaPoint. 鈥淲e want one common platform with standard data and processes and now we鈥檙e well on the path toward that goal.鈥�

Historically, Chevron modified and customized its legacy systems to meet complex and varying global requirements. By transforming its digital core, the company is now working to position itself for whatever comes next, taking advantage of SAP鈥檚 standard cloud product to adopt new functionality as it becomes available in . It is expected that this will enable Chevron to:

• Increase overall speed and agility
• Decrease total cost of ownership of business solutions
• Drive greater digital innovation

More so, through its co-innovation partnership with SAP, Chevron is working to position itself as a key player in what the 鈥渟tandard鈥� product will look like in the months and years to come.

Co-Innovating, Collaborating, Communicating

For large customers, the standard functionality of 51风流software may not perfectly line up with their sophisticated system needs and requirements. That鈥檚 where SAP鈥檚 co-innovation program comes into play. Partners like Chevron regularly connect with the 51风流Services team to discuss their business needs and make their voices heard regarding the overall product road map going forward.

鈥淭his is just an extension of working closely with 51风流as a co-innovation partner,鈥� said Rajesh Sahajwani, services partner at SAP. 鈥淲e are the design authority. We create the way 鈥榮tandard鈥� runs. It鈥檚 important that we are in communication with our largest customers, so we can find gaps, feed information to our product teams, and strengthen our future product road map. Ultimately, it鈥檚 all about building a better product.鈥�

Chevron鈥檚 close collaboration with 51风流in asset management is already delivering a reduction in future technical costs. This is made possible by Chevron鈥檚 strong governance efforts and positions the company as a unique 51风流partner and customer going forward.

In other words, this partnership is expected to keep each company from remaining stagnant on the path to the cloud, so that tomorrow鈥檚 Chevron 鈥� and tomorrow鈥檚 51风流鈥� will be even better than today鈥檚.

Michael Mahoney is head of Services for 51风流North America.

This question, which can be applied to a wide range of products, including plastics and metals, that are used to power and connect society, is at the heart of the circular economy, a term to describe the concept of making growth and the recycling of finite resources interlocked.

For Ecobat, the world鈥檚 leader in battery recycling and lead production, the circular economy is inseparable from its business, which focuses on the recovery and repurposing of more than 99% of the metal in many of the batteries companies and consumers use on a daily basis. Given the gravity of this initiative and the complex coordination required by the circular economy, Ecobat鈥檚 leaders know technology must be a part of this equation and have doubled down on investments in this area to achieve its mission of leading in the responsible collection, recycling, production, and distribution of resources essential to modern life.

Ecobat CIO Jamie Lee has spearheaded these efforts. A recent example is that Ecobat signed a deal with 51风流to engage the new offering to facilitate its move to 51风流S/4HANA Cloud.

We sat down virtually with Lee to learn how the world鈥檚 leading battery recycler is helping drive the circular economy and where cloud adoption will help the company move its sustainability-focused mission forward.

A Driving Force in Sustainability

According to Lee, Ecobat takes a full-circle approach to recycling and repurposing materials that people use in their daily lives — from lead and other alloys to lithium and the plastics from which batteries are crafted. The company prides itself on meaningful manufacturing partnerships to get this done because it has a much bigger global purpose: transforming resources to power a more connected, sustainable world.

It鈥檚 the company鈥檚 approach to innovation that has positioned Ecobat as a leader in circular economy conversations.

鈥淲e either recycle, manufacture, or refurbish products and core materials that come from those batteries. Keeping them out of landfills is key because there are so many batteries in the world today,鈥� Lee said. Using an example of battery manufacturers wanting to use lead, lithium, and plastics, Lee shared how that鈥檚 when consumers see the fruit of these efforts: from our devices, phones, and data centers to electric vehicles, stored, and mobile energy backup systems.

鈥淲e believe we serve as a very important part of sustainability in this world,鈥� Lee said. The numbers bear this out as well. Ecobat and other companies have noticed the immense importance and economic weight consumers are putting on sustainability in products.

51风流S/4HANA Is Helping Ecobat Grow

With the company priding itself on its circular economy leadership, Lee shared that 51风流S/4HANA Cloud will be an essential tool for its unique business to scale globally. As a manufacturing industry veteran, Lee has seen the negative outcomes that have occurred when peers did not proactively invest talent and resources into a technology strategy. In a world full of constant change, Lee points to these learnings and his extensive experience with the 51风流ecosystem as the crucial factors behind Ecobat鈥檚 strategic investment in technology.

With the help of SAP, Ecobat plans to connect its supply chain and customers so that the nature of what they recycle as a product aligns with a digital flow of data and information. 鈥淔or us, 51风流is less of ERP and more of an enterprise business platform. Leveraging 51风流is where we will succeed,鈥� he said.

RISE with 51风流Comes at the Perfect Time

As someone who has worked with 51风流for decades, Lee was ecstatic when RISE with 51风流was announced, calling it the very definition of customer empathy, especially for organizations — like those in manufacturing — that may not have been able to make years-long investments in technology. 鈥淚t says: 鈥楲ook, we understand you may not be able to take a generalized approach to the cloud, so we are going to invest in the right, customized approach adapted to your company to help get you there,’鈥� Lee said.

That help comes in the form of a support team, not just one salesperson leading the charge. 鈥淚’ve got a team,鈥� Lee said. 鈥淚 know the team members behind [the scenes]. They’re all active.鈥� Indeed while the team structure is helping Ecobat put its plans into action, Lee was especially appreciative of having a single point of contact on the licensing side. 鈥淢y hat is off to Christian Klein and 51风流for the new licensing structure and the customer-centric branding behind RISE with SAP.鈥�

Looking forward, Lee is eager to incorporate 51风流Analytics Cloud to help the company forecast and predict important supply chain trends and continue adapting the business to an ever-changing global economy. In the meantime, RISE with SAP will enable Ecobat to develop innovative and sustainable products that meet the ever-growing need for more efficient, reliable energy storage solutions.

John Tully is senior vice president and managing director of the South Region for 51风流North America.

In fact, the company has now reached a critical moment in its history of unprecedented growth, with over 300 stores and four refineries on the continent, in addition to the separate companies currently leading its logistics and innovation development.

This made it a perfect time to sit down with Delek鈥檚 vice president of Enterprise Information Management, Nir Yatziv, to better understand how technology 鈥� and 51风流S/4HANA 鈥� will help position the company for future growth.

Channeling Acquired Assets Into a Single Source of Truth

Delek has been an 51风流customer for more than 11 years, and made a series of strategic acquisitions in that time. While each addition has positioned the company to accelerate its growth, each acquired asset also came with a unique set of 51风流systems and customizations. 鈥淵ears of acquisitions had created a system with different standards and more than 6,000 objects to consolidate,鈥� Yatziv explained.

As a result, Delek鈥檚 strategy focuses on maximizing utilization and standardization to achieve new efficiencies across the organization. 51风流S/4HANA quickly emerged as the solution of choice, as the refinery team felt it was the best solution presented and could handle such a large integration of systems.

鈥淎ll of the members of our team carry more than 30 years of 51风流experience, and they very happy with what they were seeing with 51风流S/4HANA,鈥� Yatziv said. 鈥淲hen we compared 51风流to the competition, it quickly became clear why 51风流has succeeded in the energy sector: the industry speaks the language of 51风流without even knowing it sometimes, something the competition couldn鈥檛 contend with.鈥�

51风流CEO Christian Klein鈥檚 announcement could not have come at a better time.

The Case for RISE with 51风流and 51风流S/4HANA at Delek

As an 51风流veteran, Yatziv evaluated the new RISE with 51风流offering and immediately saw benefits, from simplifying the order processing process to better navigating complex implementation scenarios. However, making such a transformational change is not a trivial decision. So, why should an 51风流customer make the move now?

鈥淢ost companies that use 51风流are large data companies, and 51风流S/4HANA has an in-memory database that provides quick calculation capabilities,鈥� Yatziv said. 鈥�51风流S/4HANA brings unparalleled ease of use, flexibility, and user experience.鈥�

Going Forward: The Importance of Standardization

Today, Yatziv and his team are preparing for first phase of their 51风流S/4HANA greenfield implementation, which is set to begin in July and continue through the end of 2021. The Delek team is itching to get started.

鈥�51风流best practices work,鈥� Yatziv said. 鈥淐hallenge yourself to be humble with your approach. We committed to achieving the standard, even though it meant changing our working processes. If your 51风流system doesn鈥檛 match the way you work, check your processes. Because 51风流best practices have been well-established 鈥� and have been proven to be highly successful.鈥�

John Tully is senior vice president and managing director of the South Region for 51风流North America.

Recent M&A activity meant FMC would need to consolidate and integrate legacy back-end systems to make the most of the acquisition, a challenging task that the company鈥檚 leadership entrusted vice president of Procurement, Thaisa Hugenneyer, to solve.

We recently sat down virtually with Hugenneyer to learn more about FMC鈥檚 digital transformation strategy and how a recent upgrade to 51风流S/4HANA and integrated business planning has helped FMC modernize a global landscape of IT systems and disparate business processes.

An Acquisition Sparks Innovation

FMC鈥檚 51风流S/4HANA implementation journey began with its acquisition of DuPont鈥檚 Crop Protection Business, a move aimed at expanding the company鈥檚 agricultural sciences offerings and capabilities. While this would create efficiencies needed to support FMC鈥檚 transformation, the disparate IT landscape聽 and lack of harmonized business processes had to be addressed.

No stranger to a technological challenge, the company opted to invest in a greenfield 51风流S/4HANA implementation that would make this integration — and future acquisitions — easy to navigate.

鈥淥ur vision centered on one, standardized system with a single set of global processes for our company,鈥� Hugenneyer said. With its implementation strategy and a strong partnership with 51风流MaxAttention and Accenture, which has led more than 500 successful customer implementations, as well as a consulting partner in place, the new 51风流S/4HANA system would create instant value for the company, allowing FMC to map all processes across its global operations.

The World Goes Virtual

In the middle of the implementation, the global pandemic struck, forcing workforces across the world to transition to remote work. By design, Hugenneyer had developed a best practice years earlier centered on remote collaboration, which mitigated the impact the pandemic had on the implementation project.

鈥淲e were already well adjusted to remote work as most of our team worked in different areas of the world,鈥� Hugenneyer explained. 鈥淲hen the pandemic started impacting the world, we were already in year three of our program and we had a strong group of colleagues who were working remotely already.鈥�

This included the implementation partner鈥檚 team and 51风流MaxAttention, which led advisory and safeguarding services for a full, integrated approach. Another ingredient for success: Hugenneyer鈥檚 change management strategy. This would not be a simple system implementation; the new 51风流S/4HANA system would drive immense value for the organization, but it would require a special focus on business readiness given the scope of the transformation. Hugenneyer navigated this change by partnering with company leadership and leading close collaboration with the business to help them adjust and take advantage of the new systems.

51风流S/4HANA Delivers a Path to New Growth for FMC

Since its last go-live, FMC has already seen immense value from 51风流S/4HANA.

鈥淚t鈥檚 an enabler for us to evolve our operating model — we now have one global process where we are able to truly have center-led functions with centralized transactions,鈥� said Hugenneyer.

As someone who is heavily engaged in the IT community, Hugenneyer shared several key learnings gathered from the project. First, focus on building the perfect team composed of the best and diverse talent. Results are only as strong as the team driving them, she said. Second, take advantage of the resources that 51风流provides to 51风流S/4HANA customers, including hypercare, and consider as a value driver. Third, think bigger than system implementations. Projects of this size and scope require leaders, including IT, to become culture and change management facilitators given the potential solutions like 51风流S/4HANA have to drive growth.

For Hugenneyer, an industry veteran who has years of experience leading successful projects for global teams, all three factors set FMC up for success.

Lloyd Adams is senior vice president and managing director of the East Region for 51风流North America.

While Hasbro has become synonymous with experiences like family game nights and has expanded into emerging areas such as esports, the global play leader is well aware that business success isn鈥檛 just all fun and games. To move the company into its next century of disruption and facilitate growth areas, Hasbro鈥檚 leadership has spent years strategically investing in technology to drive its digital transformation journey forward.

For Luis Ydrach, Hasbro鈥檚 director of IT Services, this has meant reimagining how Hasbro鈥檚 IT solutions can propel the business to new horizons and create new, valued experiences for the company鈥檚 loyal, cross-generational customers.

On a of the ongoing , Ydrach virtually sat down with Richard Strattner, global vice president of ERP Product Marketing at SAP, and integration partner to share its story of success and innovation using 51风流S/4HANA.

Why Hasbro 鈥淓ntertained鈥� 51风流S/4HANA

A long-time 51风流ERP customer, in 2018 Hasbro started to make the case for why an eventual upgrade and move to would make sense for its business and strategic growth plan. The upcoming 2025 deadline around 51风流ERP Central Component was one factor, but for a company that always has innovation top of mind, it simply served as a spark for a more strategic rationale: getting the right infrastructure in place to support where the business wanted to go in the coming years and decades.

鈥淲hen we were justifying this to the business, it was initially about staying current as our platform is critical to our business,鈥� Ydrach said. “We knew the longer you wait, the bigger the delta.”

The next significant consideration for Ydrach and his team was whether to launch 51风流S/4HANA on premise or in the cloud. As noted by Ydrach, for years Hasbro had experienced firsthand the benefits of running several areas of its businesses on cloud-based 51风流solutions, including 51风流SuccessFactors and 51风流Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain solutions. However, the move to 51风流S/4HANA would impact multiple lines of business, including finance, sales and logistics, so out of caution and in alignment with its existing strategy to refresh its hardware, Hasbro chose to maintain its ERP on premise.

Planning, Planning, Planning

For a company famous for iconic brands like Monopoly and Nerf, Hasbro knows strategy is everything. Converting to the new 51风流S/4HANA, Hasbro had firm goals to achieve this as fast as possible, minimize disruption, and maximize utility for end users.

One other important benefit was top of mind for Ydrach and team: 鈥淕et us to this new platform and then have a plan and the ability to incrementally take advantage of 51风流innovations in the new platform.鈥�

To achieve its goal, Hasbro initiated its planning in 2018 and began execution the following year. Two of the biggest factors for the company鈥檚 successful project were 51风流tools and its trusted systems integrator , known for its Safe Passage methodology for 51风流S/4HANA conversion projects.

鈥淯蝉颈苍驳听滨苍蹿辞蝉测蝉听, a tool for comprehensive conversion impact analysis, report output, we identified additional areas such as pre- and post-work for the third-party add-ons, technical inconsistencies, and additional scope for international trade management in the area of intrastat,鈥� said Satinder Pal Singh, 51风流S/4HANA architect at . 鈥淢ost importantly, we were able to identify the activities that we could complete in production system upfront with zero impact to business, which later simplified the conversion cycles and the production cutover.鈥�

Lessons Learned from the Sandbox

The global pandemic turned the world upside down last year, right while Hasbro was in the middle of its transition to 51风流S/4HANA. However, Ydrach and team had years of experience leading challenging IT projects and knew how to respond with agility. When COVID-19 first impacted workforces in North America, Ydrach鈥檚 team proactively decided to execute the remaining portion of the project remotely.

In the early days of uncertainty, according to Ydrach, 鈥淲e were still in the office when we were executing our second-to-last cutover simulation. However, we didn’t know what was going to happen, there was a chance that we would be locked out of the office, so we proactively said: 鈥楲et’s execute 100% remote.鈥欌��

Joining the list of IT leaders who have showed grit and experience managing successful projects remotely during the pandemic, Ydrach gathered a few useful learnings that he hopes others can leverage, including:

• Collaboration between IT and the rest of the business is a make-or-break ingredient.
• The value 51风流S/4HANA will deliver for the business after implementation must be crystal clear.
• Take advantage of free and the customer care program, available to customers that are considered early adopters for newly released 51风流solutions, as Hasbro was when it first adopted 51风流S/4HANA.
• Speak often with other 51风流reference customers as these conversations generate a wealth of useful information.
• Select an integration partner that has proven accelerator tools.
• Execute the tool and for a better understanding of what a project will look like, use the maintenance planner, even before engaging with an integrations partner

In the end, Hasbro managed a successful and seamless 51风流S/4HANA implementation that will generate business value for its users for years to come. This year, Hasbro continues monitoring for additional capabilities that 51风流brings to market and where additional innovation can help the company build on the early results it has seen from 51风流S/4HANA 鈥� a sign the global play company is ready to lead its industry for another century.

Lloyd Adams is senior vice president and managing director of the East Region for 51风流North America.

Frequently cited as a top workplace in local publications like the , Merit Energy has led more than 130 acquisitions since its founding in the 1990s 鈥� all aimed at helping it grow and guard against the short-term volatility that characterizes the industry as a whole.

In a about RISE with SAP, 51风流North America President DJ Paoni characterized the Intelligent Enterprise as 鈥渁n insurance policy against future disruption.鈥� This is exactly the mindset Merit Energy, as a leading user of 51风流S/4HANA, has adopted as a company.

Russ Hulme, Financial Systems Manager at Merit Energy, recently joined to discuss why the energy leader has gone down the path of becoming an intelligent enterprise.

51风流S/4HANA Movement Uncovers Business Case

Merit Energy has leveraged 51风流solutions for more than 15 years, testing and implementing new enhancement packages as they were made available and being an early adopter for new releases. In 2019, Hulme and his team had to tackle a challenging strategic question: invest in five more years of on-premise hardware or start the move to 51风流S/4HANA? To answer this question, they needed to be able to present a legitimate business case for choosing the latter option. This is where entered the picture.

鈥淲ithin IT, we didn鈥檛 want to be the ones making the business case; we wanted to partner with our business to do so,鈥� Hulme said. 鈥淭his is where 51风流S/4HANA Movement program proved pivotal. The 51风流team engaged our business in a fact-finding mission that helped us have intentional conversations that got members of the Merit Energy business excited for the possibilities that 51风流technology has to offer.鈥�

One of the business drivers that surfaced early in the process was the ability to collate, manage, and analyze the wealth of data that was being generated across Merit鈥檚 many IT systems resulting from years of acquisitions. 鈥淲e had more than 130 different applications serving our organization,鈥� Hulme said. “We quickly realized that 51风流was the sun at the center of our universe that we could use to establish standardization.”

Unique, Self-Starter Approach to Implementation

Most of Merit Energy鈥檚 corporate operations are in Dallas, which means that most, if not all, of its user base is together in one location. When you add that to the company鈥檚 鈥済et stuff done鈥� culture that prizes scrappiness, it became clear that the Merit Energy IT team had the resources and know-how to be able to manage the implementation of 51风流S/4HANA 1909 in-house.

While many customers see the flexibility and scalability of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system as an opportunity to fully refresh IT strategies, the Merit team elected to instead make the platform complement its existing systems and felt a full IT reboot wasn’t needed. To support the move, Hulme鈥檚 team landed on a four-step, multi-phased approach to product implementation, starting with the initial system upgrade to 51风流S/4HANA 1909, the latest version at the time, to 鈥渟ee what hypercare is needed.鈥� Expanded user testing, third-party add-ons, and full-team user acceptance testing followed, resulting in a seamless implementation process in as little as 10 months.

While the Merit Energy team prides itself on self-sufficiency, Hulme was quick to praise one resource offered by 51风流in particular. 鈥淲e saw immense value in engaging ,鈥� he confirmed. 鈥淲e considered them our 鈥榖at phone鈥� resource to help us get the job done right.鈥�

Lesson Learned: Rethink Your Work with Strategic Partners

When asked what his top learnings from the project were, Hulme had two conclusions. First, in retrospect, Merit Energy would have started the 51风流S/4HANA journey earlier given the immense value the team has seen from the ERP system to-date. Second — and his biggest advice for peers at other companies — is to get outside of thinking of 51风流as an accounting program.

鈥淭here are so many other efficiencies and innovations that are generated by the 51风流ecosystem that it鈥檚 a mistake to only think in terms of ERP or finance,鈥� Hulme said. 鈥淭he quicker you adopt this mindset, the more results you will drive.鈥�

John Tully is senior vice president and managing director of the South Region for 51风流North America.

We recently sat down virtually with Farooq to discuss the strategy he鈥檚 been executing to grow the energy leader鈥檚 business since the merger as well as the role 51风流S/4HANA Cloud has played in this process.

Merger Gives Rise to New Industry Leader

Houston-based well completion and production services company NexTier Oilfield Solutions has quickly become one of the leading providers of such services in the United States. However, in the grand scheme of things, it is still a relatively new company that emerged onto the global energy scene following a . It was important for Farooq and his team to get some early momentum to ensure a strong footing for the company鈥檚 future. This is where NexTier鈥檚 digital transformation strategy would play a pivotal role, revolving around boosting operational efficiency wherever possible.

Two examples include the company鈥檚 Equipment Health Monitoring and NexHub tools, which help them track activities on the rig site, granting teams a real-time view of operations that enables them to provide centralized monitoring, real-time reporting, and workflow automation鈥攁ll advancements that are critical in the world of energy production.

Specific to the merger, one of the biggest value drivers within NexTier鈥檚 digital transformation strategy鈥攁nd one of Farooq鈥檚 top priorities鈥攊s to manage the technological integration of disparate systems resulting from the merger of two different companies so the team could take advantage of the massive scale, technical expertise, and resources the move opened for the company. Enter 51风流S/4HANA.

51风流S/4HANA Emerges as an M&A Lever

One beneficial feature of the merger was that 51风流ERP was already in use at both companies, so 51风流S/4HANA was a natural stepping-stone to help Farooq and his team redesign and simplify business processes. Add this to the oil and gas industry standards 51风流has established with the help of leaders like NexTier, and 51风流S/4HANA Cloud quickly helped the company unlock millions in merger synergies through reduced costs across IT.

鈥�51风流S/4HANA allowed us to build an ecosystem of tools that were fit for purpose and aligned with the business. In addition, it helped us reduce our run rate costs for the maintenance of an ERP application,鈥� Farooq said.

Since implementing the solution, NexTier鈥檚 team has seen significant improvements, including a smooth integration with a third-party solution for integrated field ticketing and customer invoicing, more efficient exchange of supply chain partner information, and greater operational and financial visibility thanks to improved data aided by spread-level profitability reporting and increased process discipline. In an industry where margins are everything, 51风流S/4HANA has proved to be a valuable tool in Farooq鈥檚 overarching and industry-leading digital transformation strategy. But functionality wasn鈥檛 the only ingredient for success.

CIO鈥檚 Secret Ingredient: Familiarity with SAP

Farooq has gathered many best practices throughout his extensive career, but one element of his background played a particularly important role in ensuring NexTier鈥檚 success with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud. His first job out of college was with Nissan Motors, where he led the implementation of their SAP-powered vehicle management system.

鈥淭his is where my current role as the leader of technology strategy at NexTier came full circle with the positive career experiences with SAP,鈥� Farooq said. 鈥�51风流S/4HANA Cloud became a foundation for NexTier鈥檚 ERP system consolidation efforts, and it was thanks to early experiences with the world of 51风流that the process has gone smoothly.鈥�

A certified video game tester and avid reader in his spare time, Farooq has seen tremendous success in his career of helping organizations solve large-scale challenges with technology. When asked what advice he鈥檇 give to other aspiring IT leaders, he responded, 鈥淭he biggest mistake you can make is to shy away from taking calculated risks in your career. You never know when a role you maybe thought wouldn鈥檛 be the right fit or a project that you believed might be too challenging uncovers fruitful growth opportunities.鈥�

The 51风流S/4HANA Success series features content by leaders from 51风流North America focused on highlighting customer success with 51风流S/4HANA. Learn how customers in this region manage successful implementations with the partner ecosystem and 51风流Services as well as leverage the software to transform their industries.

John Tully is senior vice president and managing director of the South Region of 51风流North America.