Enterprise resource planning (ERP) consolidation holds many opportunities for organizations. Beyond the ease of running a single integrated ERP system, companies have the chance to remediate pervasive data quality issues and start with a clean slate. Using the right data migration approach when consolidating legacy ERPs gives you a chance to harness legacy data and unify it with newer, enriched data sets, reduce expensive technology spending, and deliver more data governance controls.
Legacy, on-premises ERP systems quickly balloon into a sprawling ecosystem as the organization adds and modifies functions like payroll, HR, Finance, Supply Chain, and many other business-critical functions. Unifying this vast amount of data under a single, integrated ERP system puts guardrails around this growing resource and centralizes business intelligence for the whole organization.
But merging these various data sets isn’t the only problem when it comes to ERP consolidation. Not only is working with and matching inaccurate, outdated data challenging, but it also compounds the issue. According to Emily Williams, Vice President of Product Alliances at Syniti, in a recent interview: “We’ve worked with clients who initially implemented their ERP system 10, 15, 20 years ago. The amount of errors or discrepancies in the input data such as abbreviations, spelling mistakes, and duplicative information has compounded over the years, resulting in messy data.”
Consolidating multiple ERPs can deliver savings and standardization, but executing them is challenging. Using data migration to transition to the newest version of an ERP or consolidate multiple systems helps confidently plan for disaster recovery and continuity of services. With the right partner, CIOs can take advantage of ERP consolidation projects and actually reduce costs, improve efficiency, and implement a single source of truth for better accessibility and risk management.
By combining data quality best practices with data migration during an ERP transformation, organizations lay the foundation for a greater EPM strategy that drives business goals. At Syniti, we’ve seen a recent uptick in large, Fortune 100 enterprises consolidating many legacy ERPs to SAP S/4HANA or a combination of best-of-breed cloud systems, and we seem to have made a bit of a name for ourselves with that level of data consolidation. From Electrical Supply, Real Estate, Finance & Insurance, and so much more, we’ve worked with organizations across all industries to optimize their data during ERP migrations.
Let’s take a look at how three well-known companies across different industries have used Syniti’s migration and data quality solutions to turn a complex initiative like ERP consolidation into a competitive advantage.
Company: Geberit Group
Experiencing explosive growth and product expansion, Geberit Group was experiencing data quality issues with their existing ERP and PIM systems. Following a recent merger with Sanitec, Geberit needed to address the quality assurance of Geberit’s material master data during and after the integration of Sanitec’s data.
The Syniti Knowledge Platform (SKP) was implemented as a comprehensive data management solution to migrate Sanitec’s multiple ERP systems to Geberit’s SAP ERP while avoiding operational costs and delays due to mismatched and inaccurate data. Users across the company, from business users to data quality managers, are able to resolve data errors, initiate logistical corrections, and track results within the SKP platform.
“Syniti’s collaborative, customer-first approach and deep expertise were instrumental in helping us take our data quality standards to the next level with dramatic improvement.”
- Jonas Arheit, Master Data Manager, Geberit
Results / Quick Wins:
Company: Jebsen & Jessen
Jebsen & Jessen wanted a natively integrated performance management system so that actuals in their ERP system could be automatically posted in their financial consolidation, budgeting, and reporting system. Syniti’s ERP migration approach eliminated the need for any manual entries outside of SAP ERP or manual reconciliations and gave Jebsen & Jessen complete audit compliance and control from transaction to reporting.
“We now have a single, integrated platform to help us manage the business, we’ve eliminated error-prone manual reconciliations, and we’ve laid the foundation for the rest of our enterprise performance management strategy.” - Ow Yeong Fong Luen
Results
Company: Zurich Insurance
To reduce costs and improve efficiency, Zurich Insurance Group embarked on a Finance Transformation Program that involved consolidating 23+ legacy SAP ERP systems into a single production instance. A multi-year, multi-wave program, Zurich needed a reusable migration solution and methodology to better govern data quality for future waves.
With proactive data assessments, data cleansing, and a reusable reconciliation process, Syniti’s data quality improvements lead to more accurate, business-ready data better able to support critical business applications. The solution’s 24/7 access to useful reports improved collaboration and resulted in a dramatic improvement in data quality and predictable data migration results.
“We now have a predictable, reliable toolset, team, and process that can be reused to maintain data quality in production, and can be leveraged by other data quality, cleansing, and governance initiatives.” - Andrea Smith, Program Manager, SAP Convergence IT, Zurich Insurance
Results
ERP consolidation has long been considered a necessary evil driven by aging systems and hardware, but when done effectively, it can really be a value-added data project for the business. When paired with a solution that enables not only the migration of data but a holistic audit of that data as well, organizations can uncover many more opportunities for innovation within the business that could save millions.
We’ve long recommended implementing data quality solutions at the same time as conducting any data migration, and ERP consolidation is no different. Using one unified, integrated platform can mean more agile adjustments to changing business models as needed. Pairing ERP migration solutions with integrated and automated end-to-end business processes such as data catalog, data governance, matching and deduplication, and replication enable access to the right data at the right time. Unified data management platforms like Syniti Knowledge Platform keep delivering on value long after your legacy ERP retires and the project is complete.