logo
logo
DE
I
EN
I
IT_woman_1920px

Foundation laidfor the next 20 years

Two years of extremely demanding preparations culminated in the successful rollout of the new SAP platform – S/4 HANA – at the start of September 2022. The new platform replaces the previous SAP system, which had been in use for over 20 years. The first migration step was largely disruption-free and affected the Finance departments worldwide as well as the business processes of the Distribution & Logistics Switzerland division.

Added value


  • Business process simplification and automation
  • Global process standardization results in higher process quality and efficiency gains
  • Increase of competitiveness

A veritable dinosaur among IT systems
The SAP R/3 system used to date had been in place for more than 20 years. Not only had a large number of process variations been developed during that time, but the SFS Group has also become significantly larger, more international and more complex over those many years. On top of that, the software provider will only continue to offer support for the R/3 system for a few more years. All these factors prompted us to make the switch to the new version SAP S/4 HANA. This change will enable the SFS Group to

  • implement the most recent system line for all business processes,
  • replace the two SAP instances previously in use with a single instance,
  • reduce the complexity that had arisen over the past 20 years and standardize processes around the globe and
  • increase efficiency and remain competitive.

DSC01401_1920px

80 years of work
With a great deal of passion and commitment and in collaboration with a consulting firm, the in-house project team kicked off efforts to switch to SAP S/4 HANA in August 2020. After a slight delay, the system for the D&L Switzerland division as well as for the Finance departments of another 28 companies in a total of 27 countries successfully went live on the weekend of September 5, 2022.

0
Person years of work
0
Users trained
0+ bn.
Master data records
DSC01427_1920px

Majority of project objectives reached
The tremendous efforts of numerous SFS employees over the past few months and years have enabled SFS to lay the foundation for ERP business processes for the next 20 years. From a project perspective, most of the objectives defined by the Group Executive Board were reached during the two-year project phase:

  • Deliveries to customers could continue unhampered
  • In-house programming by the IT department was cut by 30%, reducing both time and labor as well as the amount of maintenance required in the future
  • The processes were standardized to a high degree
  • The merging of two SAP systems into a single system has cleared its first hurdle
  • The quality of the financial statements can be maintained in a timely manner

The migration of business processes in other SFS Group divisions is currently in the planning phase and will be implemented in the next few years.

Iso Raunjak 2021 Iso Raunjak Head of Division Distribution & Logistics Switzerland, Member of the Group Executive Board
“S/4 HANA is a key project – and a successful go-live was essential for the Distribution & Logistics Switzerland division in order to ensure delivery capacity for our customers. Hence, the relevance and therefore the pressure was very high. Thanks to the outstanding commitment of everyone involved the go-live beginning of September ran rather smoothly. Our customers, suppliers and employees were affected only marginally. This major step allowed us to lay the foundation for the future successful business development of D&L Switzerland.”

Contact & Services

Franziska Süess

P +41 71 727 63 68