EY driving the SAP cloud adoption charge
The adoption of cloud technology, digitisation, and new ways of working is accelerating at an unprecedented pace. This includes a rapid shift toward advanced technologies enabling secure data management and the establishment of robust supply chain redundancies. In this new era, the ability to overhaul an organisation's core operational systems will be the differentiating factor between industry disruptors and those left behind.
As highlighted by Tom Janoshalmi – EY Global Consulting SAP Leader – businesses must use intelligent tools to combine flexibility and resilience across the entire value chain while embedding real-time intelligence in operations in order to succeed.
This month Technology Magazine speaks to Janoshalmi on how the EY organisation’s extensive SAP capabilities, deep industry and regulatory expertise, financial acumen, and global presence uniquely position it to assist organisations in achieving their transformation goals.
As Janoshalmi explains, implementing a cloud system means change can be met with challenges around integration with legacy systems and processes, necessitating flexibility for future growth, and garnering full support from various departments within an organisation.
“At the EY organisation, we also observe a growing demand among customers for modern, event-driven data architectures,” he adds. “They expect data to flow seamlessly across diverse technology landscapes. Businesses today seek a data strategy that allows them to remodel processes by leveraging structured and unstructured data from various layers of the technology stack.”
Consider the example of the chemicals industry and how it manages specific transformations. “Global digitisation and evolving end-user demands have compelled chemical companies to innovate in more efficient, effective, and sustainable ways,” Janoshalmi asserts. “To succeed, organisations must accelerate transformations on a larger scale, ensuring end-to-end connectivity across their enterprises and with partners.”
With this goal, EY’s Intelligent Chemicals solution (ICS) is intended to enhance the journey to SAP S/4 HANA. “The EY Intelligent Chemicals solution (ICS) is a detailed, pre-built, chemicals-specific, services and technology solution that is augmented with EY differentiators to support chemical companies in their digitally-enabled, SAP transformation journey,” says Janoshalmi. “It combines a rich industry reference model, key performance indicators and standards, risks and controls, test scripts, and demos – mapped to SAP cross-industry and SAP chemicals best practices. These can be used to accelerate transformation for chemical clients.”
Addressing client challenges and trends
EY teams developed ICS to empower chemical clients to leverage SAP solutions across their entire value chain while preparing for the future. “Built on the latest version of SAP S/4HANA, ICS covers critical chemical processes, including production planning and detailed scheduling, sales and service, finance, procurement, enterprise asset management, multi-resource scheduling and environment, health, and safety management. ICS facilitates digital enablement and process enhancement, offering a unique value proposition by aligning a company's business and operating models with a technical model, tested and transitioned to the client's environment within the EY ecosystem.
“According to the latest EY DigiChem survey of industry leaders, over 80% of chemical players prioritise environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and sustainability as much as revenue growth. Digital solutions are expected to play a central role in achieving these objectives. The primary challenges reported include access to a robust technical infrastructure (40%), investment requirements (38%), and the need to develop secure systems (38%).”
How ICS can accelerate transformation
“The EY organisation’s approach to business transformation with SAP solutions provides a clear strategic intent and framework to maximise the value of SAP S/4HANA, fostering organisational alignment. ICS is designed to expedite crucial business transformations by offering industry-specific solutions and best practice processes. This approach improves programme design through experience-driven workshops using the EY industry model. A value-focused service approach aims to increase adherence to SAP standards, allowing the reuse of selected components from legacy systems. This streamlines SAP delivery, focusing on the most impactful aspects of the transformation.”
ICS is complemented by a broad suite of chemical-specific innovations, including real-time inventory management, material valuation, order management and billing, accelerated material requirements planning, embedded extended warehouse management, integrated quality management, and a consistent SAP Fiori user experience (UX) for SAP S/4HANA. These enhancements, Jaloshami describes, help deliver additional value to clients.
“ICS offers significant advantages to our clients, including supply chain efficiency, production planning, compliance with regulations, and intelligent innovation.”
“When it comes to realising transformation with SAP offerings, EY teams are focused on helping organisations drive strategic, industry-focused, cloud-optimised, value-driven SAP transformations,” Janoshalmi concludes. “Our more than 26,000 experienced SAP professionals across the globe help deliver value quickly so that organisations can more easily respond to today’s business challenges and fundamentally change the transformation experience – before, during and after an SAP programme.”
