Twinings Ovaltine simplifies its business processes and accelerates its growth with SAP S/4HANA

Client Challenge: As the company expanded beyond its traditional, core business and into new markets, Twining’s Ovaltine (TwO) wanted a new enterprise business solution that would unify its operations and support growth.

Solution: Partnering with Capgemini, TwO launched the Optimus Programme to transform its business by deploying SAP S/4HANA – in combination with SAP IBP, SAP Analytics Cloud, and SAP Ariba – across its global markets.

Benefits:

• Unification of operations across different regions
• Improved data visibility and consistency
• Expanded capacity for transferring talent throughout the business

Few companies that exist today can claim the longevity of Twinings, which was founded as an English tearoom in 1706 and boasts the longest continually used company logo in history. Over such a long stretch of time, business has changed substantially. For example, in 2002, the company acquired Switzerland-based Wander AG, which has produced and distributed Ovomaltine, also known as Ovaltine outside of the Swiss market, since 1904. Such a combination of history and longevity fed into the company’s entrepreneurial spirit that has driven adaptation to modern-day market shifts and customer interests.

This attitude led the company to expand beyond its traditional hot-beverage business and to expand into a variety of international markets, including Europe, Thailand, China, and North America. As is often the case, this growth led to greater operational complexity. With each new market, Twinings Ovaltine (TwO) needed to adapt its processes and systems to increasingly diverse local tastes, market conditions, and practices. The result was a decentralised business that had ample opportunity to simplify its diversifying operations to better enable growth and expansion into new markets.

Eager to capitalise on those opportunities to simplify processes, TwO set out to implement a common and integrated solution, based on a greenfield SAP S/4HANA system, that would unify its internal processes – including order to cash, manufacturing, end-to-end planning, procurement, and finance – and substantially reduce complexity.

TwO recognised that Capgemini possessed the necessary combination of a thorough understanding of the business, a complete consumer products reference model based on leading SAP practices and latest technologies, and a strong, international delivery. As a result, the organisations forged a partnership to combine their strengths and tackle the project.

Balancing global and local business needs

As the collaboration began, the partners prioritised open communication between the project team, global stakeholders, and local managers. This ensured that the new integrated solution would not only bring together the numerous local teams that had maintained their own structures, systems, and processes, but that the solution would incorporate feedback from key leaders who were active on the ground.

An intense Global Template Definition (GTD) phase was kicked off with a winning combination of experienced TwO business process owners and subject matter experts and Capgemini SAP transformation experts. To demonstrate the functionality of SAP solutions, Capgemini used its global reference model, which the business then reviewed to determine how it could be adapted to the company’s unique needs. At the end of this intensive phase, a global design was signed off, enabling the development of change impacts, a delivery plan, and actions for the pilot implementation in Switzerland.

After a thorough review of TwO’s existing systems, ways of working, and objectives, Capgemini rolled out the global solution in four waves, each targeting a different geographic region.

The global, and highly integrated, solution provides a unified platform for Ambio, using the latest SAP technologies:

• Day-to-day operational processes with SAP S/4HANA as the core ERP solution
• Demand and Supply Planning using SAP IBP
• Integrated Financial Planning and Analysis (FP&A) leveraging SAP Analytics Cloud for Planning
• Enterprise Reporting with SAP BW/4HANA
• Procurement and Vendor Collaboration with SAP Ariba
• Employee Expenses in SAP Concur
• Mobile data entry and embedded analytics supported by custom Fiori Apps in SAP BTP

The project team established a highly effective change network to provide education about new processes and the benefits delivered by the new tools. Capgemini and TwO used Gen AI in support of learning material that enabled the upskilling necessary for the solution to have the desired impact. Using design documentation and Signavio data, the partners created prompts that generated course outlines and key learning objectives. In this way, the educational programme was aligned with the solution and specific employee needs to earn widespread buy-in and excitement from the business.

Taking the first step

As a result of the consistent collaboration and communication between TwO global and local stakeholders and Capgemini experts, the rollout for Wander Ovomaltine proved to be a notable success. As a result, the company has already seen improvement in its various processes, which, combined with the smoothness of the launch, has led to increased enthusiasm in other regions to see the introduction of SAP S/4HANA. Finally, the solution played a significant role in the development of a shared services centre, further supporting the global unification of the company’s processes.

The scale of the transformation was all too apparent, as virtually every function of the business was impacted:

• Account Managers receive real time and accurate information and are able to manage the revenue growth with much more control
• Procurement is now able to manage suppliers globally and easily track spending and supplier performance using SAP Ariba
• Factory performance has improved due to the introduction of an intuitive handheld digital solution for maintenance operations and integrated supply chain planning
• The Supply Chain team is leveraging now the automated Demand Forecasting solution in SAP IBP, which enables the business to avoid inventory costs, stockouts, therefore improving the customer satisfaction and enhancing the competitive edge in the market
• The Finance teams now enjoy a common and integrated planning and analytics solution in SAP Analytics Cloud, with earlier visibility of variances and the support of a shared service centre
• Supply Chain, Manufacturing and Finance teams benefit from collaborative planning across S&OP and Finance, sharing plans and working together on the different planning cycles – e.g. budget, monthly forecast –, increasing the transparency and accuracy of plan figures.

“Across the board, processes are online, digitally enabled, and consistent. This has helped break down siloes and promote a culture of continuous improvement”

Sandeep Seeripat, Twinings Ovaltine CIO remarks.

As the solution expands, Twinings Ovaltine will enjoy improved data visibility and consistently across its different markets. In addition, the shared processes and general standardisation will make it far easier for employees to transfer within the company, ensuring that the right talent is always in the right place.

“It has been a real pleasure to follow and be part of Twinings’ journey over the last couple of years. It is commendable to see the company’s focus on transforming itself to becoming a truly, end-to-end digitised business, by prioritising a cloud mindset, quality in delivery and change management. Our partnership has evolved. We have a trusted relationship, and in collaboration with Twinings’ implementation partner, Capgemini, we are ensuring that the company realises the value out of its investments.”

Elena Cebanu, VP Cloud ERP Solution Area, SAP

As the partnership continues, TwO and Capgemini will find work together to find more ways that the new solution can deliver benefits to the company. Already, the organisation has seen its planning process streamlined, ensuring that future market expansions will be far easier to manage. Together, TwO and Capgemini will identify new opportunities to apply technological innovation to serve global objectives while respecting local business expectations.