The challenge

Inventia’s strategy is to maintain high agility in the competitive pharmaceutical industry by making rapid changes in its technology landscape while keeping data secure and processes compliant. With the dynamic market, R&D, regulatory and operational challenges typical to this industry, Inventia saw digital transformation involving the data and processes as the key to a path toward continuous business differentiation and innovation.

For optimal business results, it was imperative to improve and integrate the records, data and business workflows involving several critical enterprise modules like financial controlling and accounting, sales and distribution, material management, logistics, quality management, and production planning. The company needed its SAP landscape to drive real-time business benefits. Inventia therefore chose to explore a fast conversion of its existing on-premise SAP ERP 6.0 EHP 7 to the latest SAP S/4HANA 1909 in the cloud with an ambition to go live in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic!

In the journey from As-Is to To-Be, the first assessment task was to scan and analyze the source landscape, compare scenarios, plan and simulate the configuration and selective data transformation to the desired SAP S/4HANA target system, time slice the data modules and organizational entities and align interfaces. It was also important to ensure that all application functionality is converted to the latest S/4 release and to remove the risk of problems caused by master and transaction data that sometimes cannot be converted. Finally, software and services were deployed to give a quick and safe 360-degree view of the S/4 transformation project for an accurate outcome in a single step.