SAP operational excellence and

the journey to ERP modernization

Produced by:

Interview with

Kendall Layman

MANAGING DIRECTOR IN IT

FOR AN AGRICULTURE COMPANY

SAP will soon be ending mainstream support for ECC. How has this accelerated your move to S/4HANA and where are you now in this transition process?

We kicked off our S/4HANA project about a year and a half ago as soon as SAP announced the timeline for ECC support ending in 2027. We knew the shift was coming and wanted to get ahead of it. Currently we're in the final stretches heading towards go-live which we've had to push back multiple times, now to November 2023. This end stage is always the most challenging with an ERP replacement. As the cutover date gets closer, the pressure intensifies to get everything ready. One of the toughest tasks is mindsets, especially with our finance team who are used to perfect reconciliation. Getting them comfortable - it is not going to have the desired functionality on day 1 - basic will be available and we will add to as we move forward. Processes are complete and they can do their jobs, understanding that more functionality will come and the product will evolve - crawl, walk run mentality, moving ourselves to that run phase overtime.

Some clients view S/4HANA as a pathway to enhance their digital landscape and formulate new cloud strategies, with the aim of sustainable growth.

Getting them comfortable with imperfection and incomplete processes on day one requires a monumental change management effort.

That change impact is so critical. What are some ways you're looking to streamline operations between now and go-live? How are you balancing the old and new systems?

Prior to this, we were on a shared SAP instance with our parent company so we didn't have our own team. Now that we've separated, we've hired a small but mighty support team supplemented by vendor partnerships. This optimized model helps us conserve resources during a resource-intensive transition. We're also being thoughtful about how to start consolidating legacy systems into S/4HANA post go-live through process integration. There are opportunities in both finance and production to retire old systems. But during implementation, we have to stay laser focused on getting just the core baseline functions transitioned over. Too much extra scope creep could risk the timeline and budget.

We have to stay laser focused on getting just the core baseline functions transitioned over.

When you do go live, how will you define success for the project? What are the key performance indicators you'll use to track progress?

Since S/4HANA is brand new for us, our measures of success on day one will be very basic. We can complete critical business processes to keep operations running. Hitting that major milestone and conducting baseline transactions means victory, even if refinements are still needed. Within the first few weeks, we’ll also be tracking more operational KPIs like system uptime, user adoption, help ticket volume and resolution time. But we have to crawl before we can walk. Getting live is the first hurdle to overcome.

What are some common missteps you've seen others make that could derail these types of ERP migrations? How should companies avoid these pitfalls?

One of the most common mistakes is inadequate upfront planning and analysis. That foundation sets the trajectory of the entire project. We've seen companies shortcut the scoping and requirements gathering work, which then comes back to haunt them later. Data readiness is another area that can make or break a successful go-live. Taking the time to properly clean up and reconcile master data before loading it into the new system is crucial. Finally, over-customization of the ERP platform tends to handcuff teams down the road when upgrades and enhancements need to be applied. The best way to avoid these pitfalls is meticulous project planning, establishing data health early, and leaning on standard SAP configurations over customization.

Data readiness is another area that can make or break a successful go-live. Taking the time to properly clean up and reconcile master data before loading it into the new system is crucial.

We're combating burnout by setting pragmatic expectations on delivery timelines, bringing on expert resources like data scientists to supplement strains on current teams, and maintaining high transparency in communicating priorities and unavoidable trade-offs.

With data volumes and complexity rising, what data challenges are you facing and how do you combat team burnout?

We have accumulated a lot of technical debt over the years – decades of decentralized, fragmented data from custom-built systems patched together. Now the business is demanding deeper analytics which requires massive behind-the-scenes data restructuring. This work has to be done amidst critical projects with very limited resources. We're combating burnout by setting pragmatic expectations on delivery timelines, bringing on expert resources like data scientists to supplement strains on current teams, and maintaining high transparency in communicating priorities and unavoidable trade-offs. There's only so much we can transform at once.

As a final question, what potential does Rise with SAP offer your organization in the cloud? How might this impact your IT model long term?

We’re still new to Rise with SAP but it holds intriguing promise. Having a cloud-based solution allows us to reduce overhead without needing to maintain large in-house infrastructure and support teams. SAP handles the hosting, patching, availability management in the cloud – things that would have required significant internal investment. We expect managed services to provide helpful monitoring and administration as well. Long term, we believe Rise will allow us to scale and innovate faster once we're stable on S/4HANA. But for now, we’re focused solely on getting to our first successful go-live and will look to leverage more Rise capabilities after that. The cloud gives us options to evolve our IT model over time

Kendall Layman is a Managing Director in IT for an Agriculture company. With over 30 years of experience in IT and corporate facilities management, he leads the global IT and corporate facility teams in supporting locations worldwide, reporting directly to the president. Kendall is responsible for the company's migration to S/4Hana.

Cobb Vantress is a leading global producer of broiler breeding stock with over 100 years of poultry genetics expertise. Their pedigree, parent, and grandparent stock are bred for optimized traits to meet diverse market needs. With major facilities worldwide, Cobb supplies over 6 billion parent stock annually and provides customer support through their global technical services team. As a Tyson Foods subsidiary, Cobb delivers high-performance broiler genetics to help meet growing global demand for quality poultry.