Regional Wholesale Distributor (representative) · Distribution & Logistics · United States · 7 weeks
Inventory and customer data made S/4HANA-ready in 7 weeks
A representative engagement. Leadership was being pushed toward a date and a budget with no read on the data. We ran a Blueprint and Readiness Assessment, then executed the priority remediation.
Challenge
A roughly 1,400-person distributor on SAP ECC lived on inventory accuracy. The material master had grown messy with duplicate SKUs, inconsistent units of measure, and a large tail of obsolete items. Customer records were duplicated across legacy acquisitions. Leadership feared committing to a date and repeating the stalled migrations they had heard about from peers.
Approach
We ran a four-week Blueprint and Readiness Assessment. Three of our consultants profiled the material and customer master data, mapped which reports and downstream feeds depended on the changing data, and assessed custom code for breakage. We quantified the duplication and dark data, built a remediation roadmap and a Migration Risk Dashboard, then extended three weeks to execute the highest-priority remediation.
Outcome
Leadership committed to a plan grounded in evidence rather than hope. The data that would have stalled the program was cleaned before the date was set, and the dependency map protected inventory reporting through the move.
Measure before you commit
We replaced a fingers-crossed date with an evidence-based readiness score. The assessment told leadership, with data from their own system, exactly where they stood and what to fix first.
Retire what should not move
A large share of the material master was obsolete. We identified the dark data so it was archived or retired rather than migrated, which made the move smaller, faster, and cheaper.
Protect the numbers that run the business
We mapped inventory and fulfillment reporting dependencies up front, so the plan protected the visibility the distributor runs on every day.
Results
- 7 wks Assessment plus priority remediation
- 58 to 89 Master data quality score, before and after
- 31,000 Obsolete and dark records flagged for retirement
- $420K Projected rework and overrun avoided
We were about to commit to a date with our fingers crossed. The assessment told us, with evidence, exactly where we stood and what to fix first. We went in knowing the data was ready instead of hoping it was.
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