Krombacher Brauerei benefits from SAP S/4HANA Roadmap

Products: Beverage manufacturer

Employees: approx. 1,000 (2022)

Turnover: approx. 862 million euros (2021)

Headquarters: Krombach, Germany

Website: www.krombacher.de

Hooray for a Sustainable Approach to IT!

As one of Germany’s leading premium breweries and family businesses, Krombacher has been producing alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages responsibly for many years. In all its activities, the company maintains a consistent focus on customers, the highest level of product quality and transparent communication. Nature has always been especially important to Krombacher, meaning that our brewery places a lot of value on sustainable management and action. A sustainable approach must be viewed as an ongoing process requiring continuous efforts. This also applies to the design of internal IT processes. In order to ensure that IT processes are sustainable and innovative, Krombacher decided years ago to partner with NTT DATA Business Solutions. We are now paving the way together for innovation. Using an SAP S/4HANA Roadmap, we obtained important insights for the upcoming SAP S/4HANA transition that will help ensure that implementation proceeds smoothly.

SAP S/4HANA Roadmap Leads to a Decision for a Brownfield Approach

In addition to helping manage the complexity of the transition, the SAP S/4HANA Roadmap also checks whether applications being used are compatible with SAP S/4HANA and which parts of the programs need to be adapted. This is intended to provide the basis for deciding on the perfect transition scenario. This involved the question of whether greenfield, which is the traditional new implementation, or brownfield, which is a system conversion. The Roadmap contains a detailed conversion analysis and an extended custom code check as well as a value workshop. As part of the analysis, a close look was taken at Krombacher’s previous ERP processes. Scrutinizing the applications currently in use made it easy to spot opportunity and potential. The company’s processes are already at an advanced level, but can be made even more efficient and sustainable by introducing SAP S/4HANA. In light of the system’s good convertibility, a decision was soon made in favor of the brownfield transition scenario.

All Items Crossed off the To-do List

The conversion entails a to-do list of tasks that must be completed beforehand. In addition to the switch to the SAP HANA database, additional topics were addressed and successfully implemented as part of the project. Krombacher received support with correcting weak spots that were found as well as with analyzing system security. In addition, a quality assurance system was added to the ERP system landscape and a development system was added to the BW system landscape. Adobe Document Server (ADS) and ABAP Test Cockpit were also incorporated. The in-depth expertise of the IT experts helped to ensure the connectivity of the extensive interface landscape. As a result, all preparations for the SAP S/4HANA conversion were successfully made processes at Krombacher were made significantly more efficient. With the upcoming SAP S/4HANA conversion using the hybrid agile SAP activate method, Krombacher is at the forefront of new developments and will soon benefit from new, innovative functionalities in many areas of the company. This clears the way for us to continue to operate sustainably as a modern family business in the future.