Because of history, culture, and geography, Japan’s economy developed quite differently than it did in the U.S. One of the principal figures to arise in this economy is the Sogo Shosha, or General Trading Company. These corporations serve as intermediaries for the trade of a very wide range of products and materials that also provide logistics, plant development, and other services across different business sectors. The Sogo Shosha business model, with its extremely diverse lines of business and global outreach, is unique to Japan’s economy. Likewise, they have unique needs when it comes to ERP configuration.
GROM worked with a Sogo Shosha which needed an assessment for their legacy SAP® system configuration that would soon become outdated and unsupported. They needed a deep understanding of their situation and needed to develop a roadmap and build a case to begin a move towards S/4HANA
Because of the particularities of the economy it inhabits, as well as its diversified business lines, the Sogo Shosha requires a highly customized configuration for their ERP infrastructure. Our client was using a version of ECC 6.0 that effectively functioned as an R/3 2.2 solution. There was also a lack of adherence to standard business and SAP® best practices in its implementation. They had an excessive amount of manual processes, limited reporting capabilities, and a lot of inaccurate, inconsistent, and duplicated data. All these factors, along with the fact that their system was becoming outdated and unsupported, contributed to inefficient business processes and narrow visibility of what their data should really reflect.
The Sogo Shosha is a prime example of Japan’s collectivist business culture and collaborative leadership style. While there is a lot of importance placed on creating cordial and trustful relationships, pragmatism and collective benefit drives decision-making. If we wanted to work with this client, we would have to show them hard data, positive numbers, and a clear ROI.
After executing our assessment of their SAP® environment, we built a roadmap to define the right path towards modernization for this multi-dimensional corporation. Because of their organizational structure and the vast amount of data coming from all their different branches of business, they were positioned to benefit enormously from S/4HANA’s flexibility, scalability, and collaborative functionalities. Our roadmap included the following actions:
Most importantly, due to the level of customization necessary and the amount of obsolete or duplicate data in the system, GROM recommended a Greenfield approach to the project. Building from the ground up and driven by best practices, the Sogo Shosha would have its modern SAP® system accurately built to satisfy its specific needs.
GROM’s assessment and roadmap demonstrated numerous process and organizational efficiencies by aligning business processes to standard S/4 functionality and best practices. We also demonstrated a benefit in TCO due to reduced break-fix and customization-driven costs and a rapid ROI. Coupled with a warm and respectful exchange of business cultures, these demonstrable benefits convinced our Japanese clients to kick-off a migration to S/4HANA for their corporation.
GROM’s roadmap and assessment services help your business understand where the competitive advantages lie and paint a clear picture of your journey towards digital transformation and intelligent modernization.
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