The Digital Transformation of Zeon Chemicals: The RISE with SAP Advantage
Zeon Chemicals, a subsidiary of Zeon Corporation headquartered in Tokyo, is a global manufacturer of specialty chemicals, polymers and elastomers used in the automotive, medical and construction industries. Facing the need to improve business processes, the team at Zeon Chemicals embarked on a digital transformation journey founded on transforming their mission critical SAP ECC environment to S/4HANA under the RISE with SAP offering.
The project was spearheaded by Jochen Sievert, Director of Performance Excellence & IT at Zeon Chemicals. According to Sievert: “There are technical and licensing options to stay on-premises, but adopting the cloud and RISE with SAP was the best choice for our business. At the end of the day, it turned out to be a net-zero transition.”
Net-Zero Transition to RISE with SAP
Reduction in cutover time
Modernizing with Minimal Risk
Of the 320 employees across three U.S. locations, more than 200 actively use SAP daily, requiring that the transformation project be performed with minimal risk and downtime. To achieve this, Sievert’s team opted for a Brownfield conversion approach, complemented by SAP’s Near-Zero Downtime (NZD) methodology, which aims to transition organizations to S/4HANA without disrupting operations or impacting end users.
Recognizing the complexity of such a transformation, Sievert sought an SAP partner to guide every step of the process. “We were looking for a partner to take us on the transformation journey who understood our current processes and had the expertise and experience on how to improve them using SAP as the support vehicle.”
Sievert and the team selected Navisite, Part of Accenture. “The Navisite team demonstrated a unique ability to communicate effectively with both our technical SAP users and our business stakeholders,” noted Sievert. “We are confident in Navisite as a trusted partner during the S/4HANA conversion, as well as an extension of our team serving as trusted advisors with the ongoing optimization and innovation of our business.”
Careful Planning Results in Success
With Navisite on board, the companies began planning the move to S/4HANA. The project involved several key phases:
The Foundation for Transformation
The digital transformation project for Zeon Chemicals was a well-planned and executed transformation to S/4HANA leveraging RISE with SAP, resulting in several key benefits, including:
- Modernization: The transition from SAP ECC to S/4HANA under the RISE with SAP offering resulted in a net-zero transition in terms of cost—and provides a modernized IT infrastructure to enable planned business transformation
- Operational Risk Reduction: By transitioning to S/4HANA, Zeon Chemicals has reduced operational risk and improved governance. One example is the reduction of internal workloads during J-SOX compliance audits driven by detailed SOC reporting from SAP and Microsoft
- Turn Focus to Business Transformation: The team will transition focus to reviewing and enhancing business processes with S/4HANA at its core
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