Four ways manufacturers can deploy SAP to improve results

With SAP, manufacturers can gain full visibility into their business to make better decisions, foster innovation and improve efficiency.

In brief:

• Modernizing now can help advanced manufacturers speed up everything from decision-making to production and delivery.
• Getting there requires these organizations to harmonize, standardize and consolidate ways of working — and SAP can help.
• SAP helps advanced manufacturing companies gain fulsome visibility into the business to fuel better decisions, stronger innovation and greater efficiency.

Greater complexity requires manufacturers to maintain better visibility across the organization.  New consumer behaviours. Increasing labour costs. Disrupted supply chains. So many factors are reshaping reality for manufacturers today. There’s no two ways about it: operating efficiently and performing effectively requires a digitally transformed manufacturing operation.

As a master system or record for all data, SAP can be a pivotal piece in that digital puzzle. By pulling data from disparate places across the organization and integrating it effectively, SAP is helping advanced manufacturing companies achieve fulsome visibility into the business. Decision-makers can use SAP to access always-on information, wherever they are and however they’re working. This kind of accessibility to reliable insight is democratizing data across the industry, empowering folks with the ability to innovate in real time.

That capability is particularly poignant because companies across the industry itself are plagued by heavily customized legacy systems. Not only do these outdated systems slow things down, they also create barriers and limits for businesses seeking growth through new capabilities or mergers and acquisitions. Legacy systems make it difficult to access data or deploy advanced tech like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), too. On the flip side, manufacturers that use SAP can maintain a single source of truth, foster master data governance and introduce data stewardship that enables operational efficiency and sustainable growth.

Harmonized systems like SAP also help manufacturers thrive in decentralized environments. There’s value in being able to move fast and provide people from all parts of the business with the information they need to work well. Manufacturers that use SAP as a foundational program lay the groundwork so they can tap into manufacturing 3.0 next, and further digitize operations after that. These organizations use SAP to foster speed and fuel global templates. As people or teams move from one plant or division to the next, they continue singing off the same song sheet. That supports the ability to deliver on whatever the market requires next — while helping manage costs and optimize growth.

Overall, simplified and advanced SAP technology is creating much-needed agility in an industry where customer demand and market realities are shifting at a remarkable pace.

What should manufacturers consider when launching SAP?

Digitally transforming to embrace SAP is a major change. It must be recognized as such. Implementing SAP strategically helps manufacturers make the very most of its powerful capabilities. The right plan also enables people across the organization to embrace this new way of working and amplify results.

Keeping these four leading practices in mind can help manufacturers make progress on the SAP journey now:

1.       Prioritize the planning phase. While you’re at it, consider the pre-planning phase, too. Lay down the foundational change management network. Engage stakeholders and carry out thoughtful resource planning. Know who you will need, where, when and for how long so you can backfill teams accordingly. As this overall roadmap takes shape, you can also dive into the pre-work of data cleansing and organizing. Put simply: everything you do at this early stage will fuel the ultimate success of the transformation program overall. Invest time here to get the planning right.

2.       Start looking at your data early. Effective SAP implementations demand loyalty to its data structures. Account for that when you’re looking at data. Prepare, validate and mock up data loads. Work through this process again and again until your data is properly aligned in the SAP system. And then? Create a data governance structure to fuel your ongoing success. Keeping data clean is critical to unleashing SAP’s full power.

3.       Give SAP transformation its due. Position SAP as a major undertaking — because it is. The organization must prepare for this shift along the entire value chain. Think beyond SAP itself to the business processes, simplifications and governance decisions, and document it all properly. Communicate openly, transparently and continuously at every stage of the transformation to ensure people across business units are taking ownership and making the best use of SAP’s strengths.

4.       Manage the change continuously. SAP implementation isn’t an IT undertaking. It’s a business project that requires multidisciplinary ownership and sponsorship. It’s important to take time to communicate the potential business outcomes and opportunities. Show people across the organization what a new type of reporting here or a little extra insight there can do to transform their results. Consider how you’ll communicate regularly throughout the transformation and as SAP uptake occurs at the culture level. From newsletters to data dashboards to training to town hall discussions: build a framework for keeping the dialogue going around the shift to SAP. Communicate vertically and horizontally to keep people engaged and deliver the best possible results.