Basis for rapid innovation

Basler successful with Greenfield SAP S/4HANA transformation

For Basler AG, continuous development is a matter of course. This computer vision expert wants to create the greatest possible benefit for its customers. As a result, the company is transforming itself from a camera manufacturer to a full-service provider of image processing hardware, software, and services, focusing on flexibility, fast innovation cycles, and customized products and services. With the greenfield SAP S/4HANA migration, it is laying the technical foundation for its transformation.

Basler lays the foundation for rapid innovation with Greenfield SAP S/4HANA Migration

Focus on customer benefits The company: Basler AG

For Basler AG, creating the greatest possible benefit for its customers is an incentive for continuous transformation. The company, a leading international computer vision expert, is evolving from a manufacturer of industrial cameras to a solution provider with a comprehensive portfolio of hardware, software, and services for image processing. These are used in many areas, including factory automation, medicine, logistics, and robotics. Basler maintains long-term customer relationships with high-quality technology, clear added value, and reliable, trusting cooperation. For an attractive price-performance ratio, the company is constantly optimizing its production processes and supply chains. The group, founded in 1988, employs about 1,000 employees at its headquarters in Ahrensburg as well as at other sales and development sites in Europe, Asia, and North America.

Challenge

Create a lean SAP infrastructure that supports new business requirements optimally

Consulting approach

Greenfield migration to SAP S/4HANA; leverage SAP best practices to maximize standardization

Customer benefits and solution

SAP S/4HANA lays the technical foundation for long-term competitiveness and enables rapid innovation, greater efficiency, and flexibility as well as continuous optimization

The challenge: Greater agility for IT and business

Basler AG has been working successfully with SAP for more than 20 years. Over time, this computer vision specialist has adapted the functionality of the software to its own requirements and, in some cases, highly automated it thanks to custom developments. This produced a complex system custom-tailored to the specialist departments’ special needs. However, new processes and business models could only be implemented at great expense for the IT department given the increased infrastructure. The company therefore decided to renovate the SAP environment. A greenfield migration to SAP S/4HANA was supposed to bring operational processes back to the standard, advance the digital transformation, and enable the company to become more agile and innovate faster. Basler worked with valantic and successfully completed the migration – one of the largest organizational projects to date – and it is already working on additional transformation topics.

Solutions & results in detail

Migration to SAP S/4HANA according to the greenfield approach; reimplementation of the system and redesign of the business processes

Arndt Bake
General Manager EMEA at Basler

”With valantic and SAP S/4HANA, we have laid the technical foundation for future corporate development and other digitalization topics.“

Martina Quast
Head of SAP at Basler

”valantic convinced us that we could handle a project of this size at several international locations at the same time. In addition, the team was able to map end-to-end requirements from all areas of the company from a single source.“

Mockup for white paper: The SAP S/4HANA Business Transformation

White paper SAP S/4HANA Business Transformation

The SAP S/4HANA Business Transformation: Learn more about SAP S/4HANA as an enabler for growth and digitalization and how you can plan and implement migrations successfully.

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Basler reaches an important milestone in the digital transformation

A greenfield migration to SAP S/4HANA is a challenging project – but also the pinnacle of digital transformation. As a new implementation, it goes far beyond a technical system upgrade and addresses flows all across the company. All business processes are simplified, standardized, and automated as much as possible, so that the departments can act faster and more efficiently and better predict departments’ needs in the long term.

Basler AG was one of the first companies in Germany to decide in favor of this step and the goal was clear: To ensure the company’s business success and international competitiveness in the long term. A powerful and intelligent, yet slim and flexible ERP system was supposed to enable rapid innovation as a technical basis.

Change as a success factor

For the world’s leading computer vision expert, continuous development is essential. Since its founding in 1988, this family-run company has focused on its customers’ needs. Their benefits are the measure of all action and an incentive for permanent change: This manufacturer of industrial cameras has become a full-service provider of image processing hardware, software, and services.

However, given the way its SAP system had developed, Basler was only able to implement innovations in its portfolio and change business models at great expense. Across more than 20 years, the company had adapted the software to its own requirements and, in some cases, highly automated it thanks to custom developments. The complex process landscape was therefore custom-tailored to the needs of the specialist departments – but this was increasingly an obstacle to rapid market launches.

Accelerate innovation

Martina Quast, Head of SAP at Basler, took this as an occasion for an SAP restart. She and her team provide technical assistance to the departments with regard to their processes and have increasingly reached their limits. “With our old system, we couldn’t accelerate the process any further,” she says. “In order to be faster overall, we needed a new, flexible technical foundation. In the future, we wanted to be able to quickly implement our own innovations in SAP and to be able to use the innovations provided by SAP quickly.” As a pioneer in the industry, Basler opted for a greenfield migration to SAP S/4HANA, thus initiating one of the largest organizational projects in its history.

Basler selected valantic as its consulting and implementation partner. valantic’s digital consulting, solutions, and software experts won the company over with their technical and technological expertise and methodical transformation approach. In addition, they had extensive experience in integrated SAP and process consulting in medium-sized companies. “valantic convinced us that we could handle a project of this size at several international locations at the same time. In addition, the team was able to map end-to-end requirements from all areas of the company from a single source,” says Martina Quast.

Uli Müller, Managing Director, Division SAP Services

Uli Müller
Managing Director at valantic

”We are proud to have achieved an important goal in the digital transformation with such an innovative company. Now we are looking forward to the next steps on our journey together.“

Structured for project success

In addition to the migration to SAP S/4HANA, the project scope included the implementation of other SAP solutions: SAP GTS for customs clearance and the SAP Signavio process intelligence tool. The latter was supposed to support testing during the migration and system analysis after the go-live. At the same time, SAP SuccessFactors was introduced for human resources and the existing SAP IBP was converted to S/4HANA.

Due to the large scale, the joint project team consisted of Martina Quast and her colleagues, as well as the people in charge and key users from all specialist departments:

Finance and Controlling
Purchasing
Logistics
Production
Sales
Export
Personnel

Among other things, valantic involved SAP S/4HANA consulting, implementation, and process experts, as well as experts in business and data analytics, supply chain excellence, and human capital management.

The team used the SAP Activate method, a standardized project procedure structured in six phases. These range from the “Discover” preliminary project phase to productive operation (“Run”). In addition, the partners oriented themselves according to the macro processes such as procure-to-pay, order-to-cash, and make-to-deliver in order to redesign the business processes and, using SAP best practices, to reflect them to a large extent in the SAP standard. Uli Müller, Managing Director at valantic, emphasizes: “Customizing processes only where they represent real business benefits was a change for the departments. However, this is essential in the long term to achieve the desired efficiency gains.”

Increase efficiency through automation

Basler and valantic completed this large-scale project under challenging conditions. The coronavirus pandemic and the resulting disrupted global supply chains placed additional burdens on day-to-day business and made implementation more difficult. The fact that the go-live was smooth, successful, and on-time is thanks to the partners’ close, trusting cooperation and the great commitment of everyone involved.

After an acclimatization phase – since the SAP S/4HANA greenfield migration caused changes in processes and organization – Basler users appreciate the new system’s advantages. The company has achieved the key project goals and a milestone in its digital transformation.

Arnd Bake, General Manager EMEA at Basler, is satisfied with the result: “With valantic and SAP S/4HANA, we have laid the technical foundation for future corporate development and other digitalization topics.” Uli Müller adds: “A project that lasted two and a half years was a challenge for everyone involved. The cooperation with Basler has been enriching for us in every respect. We are proud to have achieved an important goal in digital transformation with such an innovative company. Now we are looking forward to the next steps on our journey together.”

Further efficiency gains are planned, including targeted process automation. Here Basler will use the SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) to maintain the SAP standard. SAP Signavio will also be used to continuously analyze and optimize processes. In addition, the computer vision expert plans to use the SAP Analytics Cloud for reporting that is fit for the future, and it also wants to use SAP technology to address the issue of ESG reporting (environmental, social, governance).

Download Success Story: Basler AG

Continuous further development is a matter of course for Basler. With SAP S/4HANA, Basler is creating the basis for rapid innovation.

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Your Contact

Rüdiger Hoffmann

Partner & Managing Director

valantic ERP Consulting

+49 221 718250