Our client successfully acquired a cutting-edge energy company with a global presence spanning over 50 countries and entailing the operation of numerous factories. In the process of the carve-out, a strategic decision was made to initiate a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) S/4 HANA-driven business transformation. The primary objective was to complete the carve-out for the new acquisition before the expiration of the transitional service agreement (TSA), while concurrently standardizing global business operations, with an anticipated annual cost savings of over €100 million.
The countries and businesses involved in the transformation had historically operated as independent entities with their own business processes and legacy systems, encompassing both SAP and non-SAP platforms. This presented a unique opportunity to bring them all under a unified corporate governance structure, fostering efficiency through standardized processes and harmonized data.
Despite engaging multiple experienced system integrators (SIs) and suppliers for the ambitious program, the complexity and scale of the initiative overwhelmed the delivery. The program encountered severe distress, placing the TSA exit at high risk and causing significant disruptions during the initial go-live, necessitating a temporary shutdown of factories.
In response to this critical situation, the client's board enlisted AlixPartners' expertise to assess and provide execution leadership for rescuing and recovering the program. Our hand-picked senior team of distressed ERP program turnaround experts swiftly identified critical issues and root causes. They defined necessary actions to de-risk the program, designed preconditions to restore progress, and promptly implemented changes to rapidly turn around and recover the program.
The program encountered severe distress, placing the TSA exit at high risk and causing significant disruptions during the initial go-live, necessitating a temporary shutdown of factories.
The most impactful key actions taken were:
- De-risking the program and persuading client leadership to alter the overall delivery and deployment approach.
- Implementing stringent governance, transparency and discipline, and developing strategies, approaches, and processes to support global delivery.
- Identifying and integrating essential technology partners to enhance the efficiency of data migration, testing, cutover, product build, and change management, and exercising rigorous oversight of SI implementation partners to increase delivery accountability.
These actions successfully brought the program back on track, instilling confidence and ensuring its successful delivery and value creation. Collaborating with our client and implementation partners, we have successfully gone live in more than 30 countries without encountering disruptions to any factory operations.
