Thinklytics

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.

Director of Enterprise Applications, Wholesale distributor (representative)

In the client's terms

The question

What stops reconciling the day we cut over?

The situation

A distributor of around 1,400 people, running on inventory accuracy, with a material master carrying duplicate SKUs, inconsistent units of measure and a long tail of obsolete items, plus customer records duplicated across legacy acquisitions. Leadership would not commit to a date.

What we found

The reluctance to set a date was the correct instinct and it was being treated as a problem of nerve. There was no evidence base on which a date could be committed, and the peers whose migrations had stalled had all set dates first.

What it produced

Leadership committed to a plan grounded in evidence. Master data quality moved from 58 to 89 and 31,000 obsolete and dark records were flagged for retirement, before any date was set. Projected rework and overrun avoided: $420K.

The roadmap

A four-week Blueprint and Readiness Assessment profiled the material and customer master, mapped which reports and downstream feeds depended on the data about to change, and assessed custom code for breakage. Duplication and dark data were quantified rather than estimated, producing a remediation roadmap and a Migration Risk Dashboard, then three further weeks executed the highest-priority remediation.

The work behind this result

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Frequently asked questions

Should you set a go-live date before assessing your SAP data?

No. This distributor's leadership was reluctant to commit and that instinct was correct, because no evidence base existed. A seven-week assessment moved master data quality from 58 to 89 and flagged 31,000 obsolete records before any date was set.

What does an SAP readiness assessment cover?

Profiling the material and customer master, mapping which reports and downstream feeds depend on the data about to change, and assessing custom code for breakage. Here it also quantified duplication and dark data rather than estimating it.

What does poor migration readiness cost?

This distributor avoided $420K in projected rework and overrun by remediating before committing. The larger risk was inventory reporting, which the dependency map protected through the move.