SAP S/4HANA to support digital innovation and group business process optimization

Challenge

The customer, a home hygiene and personal care products market leader with strong vocation for innovation, sustainability and social responsibility, has internally launched a digital transformation process for its 5 companies and 4 plants located throughout Europe. The project SAP S/4HANA conversion and optimization of the main business processes through the help of new functionalities  in Finance, Treasury, Controlling and Purchasing fields, represents the most important goal that the customer set to achieve in the “technology innovation” area. 

Our team, in collaboration with SAP Cloud Customer Success, the service division of Sap Italy, was called upon in order to accompany the client through this initial 18-month transition process.

Solution

The project, managed with the Activate methodology, involved the conversion to the 2021 SAP S/4HANA release and the introduction of new features to support key business areas. These, identified as “green” areas by the client in order to be improved through a joint path with Qintesi team, included the following issues:

• Finance;
• Treasury;
• Controlling;
• Purchasing.

In the Finance field, the client has benefited from improvements in the management processes of Intrastat, Foreign Currency Valuation, assets, interest on arrears. The introduction of VIM (Vendor Invoice Management), has allowed to simplify the acquisition process, managing and accounting for invoices payable. Thanks to the adoption of SAP FIORI, the reporting tools provided by Advanced Compliance Reporting were made available to the client.

In the Controlling area, operations were carried out aimed at streamlining and enriching with information the monthly closing process for the calculation of product cost. In addition, oriented reporting tools were enhanced through the introduction of Margin Analysis. 

SAP S/4HANA Credit Management and Bank Account Management capabilities were introduced in the Treasury area.

The mobile approval of purchase documents via the My Inbox APP and the management of Advance Invoices integrated between the MM and FI modules have enabled the Purchasing team to take advantage of new tools to support their processes.