NTT DATA Leads Major SAP Project for Global Client

Building on the Success of LEAP

The client chose NTT DATA as primary partner for the project partly because the two companies had worked successfully together in projects in the LEAP program, NTT DATA's multi-year initiative for large enterprises running SAP software.
The client was keen to leverage the results obtained from that earlier collaboration, and the knowledge that NTT DATA professionals had acquired of the client's operations.

To ensure this ambitious project met its time and cost objectives, the client had certain expectations. These included:

• Use of Fit to Standard (F2S) to match business processes to the standard processes available in S/4HANA;
• Optimization of IT costs by standardizing system operations;
• Standardization of business processes with a view to expanding global shared service benefits.

NTT DATA was awarded the contract to provide Application Management Outsourcing (AMO) to the different business units, essentially providing them with a "one-stop shop" for services such as conversion, maintenance, software development and support.

Strategic Use of Templates:

To simplify the complexity of the transformation journey, the client's IT division developed S/4HANA templates tailored to the different operating models used by its various businesses.

NTT DATA was responsible for the rollout of two of the templates, covering Make-to-Stock (MTS) and Engineer-to-Order (ETO) production models:

• With ETO manufacturing, a product is engineered and produced after an order has been received. Using the ETO method, a manufacturer endeavours to meet the exact requirements of each customer;
• With the MTS model, by contrast, a business unit forecasts the likely demand for its products and then holds the recently manufactured products as inventory to be sold. This model is often used by manufacturers to prepare in advance for periods when demand is expected to rise.

These two templates cover the majority of the client's manufacturing activities, and the their use provides a standardized framework for deployment across multiple business units, ensuring consistency and facilitating a smoother transition to the new system.

The conversion project is divided into two phases – pilot deployment and simultaneous deployment. The pilot phase, which began in 2022, focused on deploying the templates to each of the subsidiaries participating in the pilot. The simultaneous deployment phase will then leverage the lessons learned from the pilot phase to drive a seamless rollout across the organization.

Central to the success of the S/4HANA conversion project was the Global Project Management Office (PMO), which is handled by customer. This is tasked with overseeing the project's execution, and plays a crucial role in developing deployment strategies, establishing policies, and ensuring alignment with global standards.

By fostering collaboration across regions and business units, the PMO and NTT DATA facilitate the adoption of standardized processes and promote information sharing on a global scale.

Progress So Far

Implementing S/4HANA is not a decision that is taken lightly, and the client's multiple business units are not necessarily obliged to use the templates provided by the IT division.

NTT DATA supports the client's central IT function in this regard and in discussions with the different business units, it seeks to demonstrate the expected cost and business improvements from using the template approach, as well as the performance improvements, and achieve a consensus with management.

While the client's business units operate autonomously and so are free to implement S/4HANA themselves, NTT DATA is confident that even those business units that initially go it alone during the migration phase will later choose to join into the global AMO structure, because by doing so they can benefit from economies of scale and optimize their costs.

For NTT DATA, this ambitious project represents a milestone as it is one of the largest AMO projects ever undertaken by NTT DATA's SAP business. As primary partner, NTT DATA will support the deployment of three global templates, with plans to support the remaining templates in the coming years.