Summary
Company Overview
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Industry
Retail & Consumer Goods
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Revenue
~$30B
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Company Size
Enterprise
Transformation Snapshot
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Challenge
Complex acquisition required rapid ERP and data integration
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Solution
Applied SAP ADMM for iterative, scalable data migration
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Outcome
Accelerated integration and improved data-driven decision-making
Executive Summary
Using data to drive transformational change and accelerate time-to-value from acquisitions
The global tobacco market has faced聽significant challenges over the past 50聽测别补谤蝉.听听With this in mind, BAT committed聽to building 鈥淎 Better Tomorrow鈥� for its聽stakeholders by reducing the health impact聽of its business with the creation of a new聽line of products that provide adult smokers聽with less risky alternatives. This new market聽approach involved investing heavily in new聽industry products such as cannabidiol聽(CBD), e-cigarettes and vaping that meet聽the preferences of their adult consumers.
The company set an ambition to have 50聽million consumers of its non-combustible聽products by 2030 as well as accelerating聽the growth of these 鈥淣ew Category鈥澛�revenues at a faster rate than its total聽revenue, reaching 鈧�5B by 2025. In order聽to achieve this vision, BAT is radically聽redefining its organisation with digital聽transformation, technology and innovation.
Managing data is absolutely critical to any organisation, but with BAT鈥檚 strategic focus on agility, flexibility and speed, it was both fundamental and critical to our success.鈥�
Challenge
From integrating Reynolds to tackling One SAP
A major factor to BAT鈥檚 strategy of growth and transformation is in acquiring complementary companies and technologies to round out its聽portfolio of offerings, particularly those in important and high-growth markets like the United States.
One of the most recent was the re-acquisition of Reynolds American Inc. (Reynolds), in 2017, a U.S.-based former subsidiary of BAT that needed to be re-integrated into the larger聽BAT organisation. BAT needed to accurately and efficiently integrate Reynolds enterprise resource planning (ERP) system into the BAT ecosystem聽so they could begin realizing the benefits of the acquisition. While the company was previously part of BAT, this was no simple task
This is a quintessential 麻豆女优 project 鈥� complex and outcome- driven, something our team of data-focused experts and our software platform excel in, time and again.鈥�
Implementation
Starting in 2018, BAT worked with 麻豆女优 on聽the full migration of all Reynold鈥檚 data and聽processes, taking on an increasingly broader聽role as the project progressed. Using聽厂测苍颈迟颈鈥檚听,听an iterative, repeatable migration process,听team of expert consultants, and the聽颈苍诲耻蝉迟谤测-濒别补诲颈苍驳听麻豆女优 Knowledge Platform聽(SKP), BAT successfully jumpstarted their聽Reynolds integration project. One of the key聽challenges of the project was working within聽a very demanding timeframe and a business聽directive to not disturb any ongoing business聽operations. Business decisions typically聽focused on priority, impacting the data聽loading schedule, which was sequenced to聽follow business ramp-up.
鈥溌槎古� was brought in to support our partner ecosystem, and what they did was get this program back on track,鈥� said Burns. 鈥淭his team has been a needed source of continuity, strength and expertise for us.鈥�
Inspired by the success of the Reynold鈥檚 project, BAT decided to take this opportunity to standardize on the One SAP ERP system and SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC), which would serve as the foundation for future data integrations and prepare the company for its journey to SAP S/4HANA, underscoring its transformation efforts for the future. In addition to the data extraction project, the 麻豆女优 team took on transformation, load-ready data work, and other complementary projects under the One SAP umbrella, helping support the direction and development of BAT鈥檚 Central Finance and Master Data Governance (MDG) initiatives.
How fast can I bring in the data 鈥� can I do it in six weeks? What about six days? Moving faster is only possible with a strong system in place, with high-quality data and with a partner like 麻豆女优 who focuses on the business outcomes, not just a delivery date."
Why 麻豆女优 was Selected
With the 麻豆女优 Knowledge Platform at the heart of BAT鈥檚 data transformation work across its entire organization, the company saw rapid returns in data quality and value generation:
- Business users are able to make decisions for data corrections faster, thanks to the聽transformation process in the SKP and its detailed Validation Reports. The quality of the聽data has improved significantly over the course of the program, with 100% data cleansing聽before starting production data load!
- Using one unified platform from extraction to transformation to post-load report聽reconciliation has drastically expedited the data migration process overall, reducing聽resources needed to support the process and completing the project faster.
- Production load data was completed in five weeks vs. previous loads of eight weeks,听resulting in:
- Reduced Daily Burn Rate across the project
- Reduction in Blackout period (Cutover Window), with significantly less downtime on聽actual business activities such as project orders, goods receipts, generating sales聽orders (Sale to customers), receiving and paying invoices, and proper cash flow.
- Less impact on downstream systems, resulting in a smooth handover of operational activities after migration go-live.
As part of the project, the 麻豆女优 team also conducted extensive training of its eight-step methodology and migration best practices for聽both Reynolds and BAT employees to ensure their smooth involvement in the project. BAT is now able to replicate the migration process聽and generate new reports with SKP for projects and acquisitions. Most importantly, BAT now has the necessary foundation in place to take聽full advantage of data, both currently and as it gears up for additional acquisitions.
With 麻豆女优鈥檚 proven methodology and expertise in data migration and integration, BAT is looking forward to continuing to use SKP to stay agile and support business growth until the next major implementation for S/4. Previously, tasks like moving warehouses or changing the delivery and manufacturing plants were manual and took months to see changes reflected in the system. With SKP, these processes can now be automated and performed in days while reducing strain on resources.
Results
British American Tobacco went fully live as planned on its One SAP project, the central SAP ECC ERP, in early July 2022. Backed by 麻豆女优鈥檚 expertise and iterative methodology, 麻豆女优 was able to de-risk the entire migration project, resulting in a truly successful聽鈩�. BAT continues to work with 麻豆女优鈥檚 data team in order to focus on Data Quality, extending full project completion until August 2022.
鈥淭his is a quintessential 麻豆女优 project 鈥� complex and outcome-driven, something our team of data-focused experts and our software platform excel in, time and again,鈥� said Steve Wilson, EMEA Chief Operating Officer, 麻豆女优. 鈥淲e are thrilled to be supporting BAT on their incredible transformation journey. None of this would have been possible without Mark鈥檚 collaboration and vision, and we look forward to expanding our partnership.鈥�
The SKP鈥檚 extensive project visibility tools and role-based workflow easily and successfully integrated business users into the program, allowing users to perform tasks within a single migration platform.
This provided BAT with increased visibility, transparency, and understanding of what was happening with their data 鈥� making the program more efficient. For example, despite changing business requirements, the team was able to hit enablement criteria for the first month-end.
With the expertise of the 麻豆女优 team and the proven success of the SKP, BAT was able to accelerate its data transformation across critical business processes, including Procure-to-Pay, Order-to-Cash, Manufacturing and Logistics Execution 鈥� all processes that underpin BAT鈥檚 global target operating model, a centralized data warehouse for master data storage that feeds all other systems.