Bridgestone EMEA enhances efficiency and increases scalability across operations as it migrates multiple legacy systems to SAP S/4HANA Cloud across 26 countries.
Syniti, a global leader in enterprise data management, has highlighted its partnership with Bridgestone EMEA, the regional strategic business unit of Bridgestone Corporation, a global leader in premium tyres and sustainable mobility solutions.
The partnership aimed to deliver one of the largest transformation projects in Bridgestone’s history – its migration to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The company’s goal was to remove siloes across the organisation by consolidating business processes across its SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC) system into one SAP S/4HANA Cloud instance allowing the company to improve operational efficiency, data accuracy and set the stage for future growth, automation and innovation in the tyre and mobility sectors.
The project, spanning 26 European countries, was launched as previous attempts with a Big Bang go-live faced challenges. With just nine months until their planned 2024 go-live, Bridgestone turned to Syniti to support a successful launch. The project was not without its challenges; the compressed timeline meant multiple data loads had to be fit into a shortened time frame. Outdated systems brought data quality and integration issues, resulting in Bridgestone’s business experiencing continuous modifications during the migration process – requiring flexibility and precision from the Syniti project team. Despite these challenges, Bridgestone achieved a 100% master data load, significantly enhancing their data accuracy and achieved a 0.001% variance in inventory reconciliation – a critical component of their financial audits.
Syniti’s data first approach delivered significant results, including a 90% improvement in migrated master data accuracy. This accurate and reliable data became the cornerstone of Bridgestone’s new business processes, allowing the company to more fully realise the benefits of its SAP S/4HANA Cloud investment. By consolidating Bridgestone’s processes and improving data quality, the company is now better positioned to automate and innovate within the tyre and mobility sector. This partnership allowed Bridgestone to more fully realise its business transformation goals by aligning to common standards that enhance efficiency across multiple business processes and increase scalability across its operations.
Bart Kerkhofs, CIO and Vice President of IT at Bridgestone EMEA, said: “Our company is speeding up its transformation to be even more customer oriented, agile, efficient, data driven, sustainable and future-proof. This necessitates a comprehensive approach that encompasses all facets of our operations including upscaling our digital capabilities to elevate the overall stakeholder experience. Syniti was critical in helping us improve our approach to manage the data for our ambitious transformation effort. The Syniti team has proven they can do the hard things; their credibility was already established and we knew we could trust their Data First approach to achieve excellent results.”
Kevin Campbell, CEO, Syniti, said: “We are proud to have played a key role in Bridgestone EMEA’s Digital Transformation. Our team’s dedication to delivering high-quality data and seamless migration was central to the success of this ambitious project and underscores our commitment to handling the hardest work in data for the world’s largest companies like Bridgestone. This collaboration highlights the power of trusted partnerships and the transformative impact of Syniti’s software, methodology and our skilled team of professionals – led by our Data First approach.”
We asked Bart Kerkhofs, CIO and Vice President of IT at Bridgestone EMEA, further questions to find out more.
What were the primary challenges Bridgestone faced during the migration to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and how did Syniti help overcome these obstacles?
Many CIOs will recognise the scenario we found ourselves in. We were up against a really tight timeline – just nine months to prepare for and migrate from one system to another. Data quality issues and siloed data added to the complexity of this migration.
And, of course, this is real life so we weren’t operating in a vacuum. As important as the migration was, it wasn’t our team’s only focus. Business as usual continued so there were constant demands and modifications to business operations that added complexity to the project.
Bringing Syniti in when we did helped us to address our data quality from the outset, rather than later down the line when extra pressures would have been mounting. By prioritising the data – making sure that we only migrated accurate, up-to-date data we needed and removing unnecessary duplicates – we were able to move 100% of our master data to SAP S/4HANA, meeting that ambitious deadline.
The Syniti team also helped us to improve our data governance strategy and processes, so that going forward, our data remains in good shape.
Bridgestone’s Digital Transformation spanned 26 European countries. How did you manage to ensure consistent business process consolidation across such a vast region?
Twenty-six countries is a big undertaking! As you can imagine, over time different data management practices had developed and we were dealing with inconsistencies and siloes that could have caused us serious challenges closer to go-live.
As it was, Syniti’s Data First approach served us well. It meant we spent time tackling data quality before we even began to consider moving it. The Syniti team also helped us to develop our data management governance. They introduced standard rules and processes for our teams to follow so that we didn’t spend months addressing our data quality, only to discover it had reverted to its original state before we had a chance to migrate.
You mentioned that previous Big Bang go-live attempts faced challenges. How did the approach with Syniti differ, and what lessons were learned from the earlier experiences?
Migrations like this often involve dynamic business operations. Data that is constantly changing, from operations like finance and accounting and supply chain management. Our migration was no different.
From our past attempts at go-lives, we knew we needed a flexible approach that would allow for on-going modifications throughout the migration process. And we also realised that we needed support to develop that approach.
We chose to work with Syniti, and the difference was tangible. The team used a previously installed version of Syniti Knowledge Platform to re-align the set-up and design and deliver a 90% improvement in our migrated master data accuracy.
If you asked me what lesson I learned after the final, successful go-live, it would be that you can never focus on data quality too early when it comes to a complex migration like this.
Can you elaborate on how the 90% improvement in master data accuracy has impacted Bridgestone’s operations?
The obvious and most measurable impact is that we successfully migrated to SAP S/4HANA. Business continued on the day after the migration which is every CIO’s priority for this kind of project.
However, we didn’t migrate to S/4HANA simply because it was there. When you undertake such a complex project, there have to be long-term business benefits too. These benefits can only be realised if the platform is delivering on its promise, and it can only deliver if it’s using high quality data.
That 90% improvement in data quality has set us up for the future. We have better visibility and transparency across our operations so we can be more efficient. We have automated systems that have reduced the need for manual data validation. And we have trustworthy data for improved decision-making.
And it means we are ready for the future.
How do you see Bridgestone leveraging its SAP S/4HANA Cloud platform to drive further innovation and automation in the tyre and mobility sectors?
Bridgestone has committed to become a sustainable solutions company, providing both social and customer value through our products and services. This is our driver when it comes to innovation and automation, and one of the reasons we chose to migrate to SAP S/4HANA when we did, was because of the opportunities it presented.
It allows us to focus on sustainable products and mobility solutions. And its advanced analytics capabilities mean that we are able to drive automation in key areas like predictive maintenance and customer service, which enhances our operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
