SAP Signavio Powers SoCal Edison’s SAP S/4HANA Transformation
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Key Takeaways
⇨ SoCal Edison is leveraging SAP Signavio and SAP LeanIX as part of its SAP S/4HANA implementation.
⇨ The utility has leaned heavily on ensuring user adoption throughout each step of its transformation.
⇨ The project emphasizes the importance of a digitized business case, highlighting process transformation and data-driven decision-making.
It’s not difficult to turn on the lights, but there is a lot of effort that goes into delivering the electricity to ensure those lights come on. That delivery process gets even more complicated when it is meant to serve 15 million people, which is the case for Southern California Edison (SoCal Edison), one of the largest electric utilities in the United States. Many processes and technologies go into flipping the switch to turn a light on, and SoCal Edison aims to future-proof itself with the help of SAP Signavio and SAP LeanIX as part of its SAP S/4HANA implementation.
“There is a lot of pressure externally as well as internally to operate more efficiently and drive value from continuous innovation,” said Terino McMullen, Principal Manager, Technology Integration, at SoCal Edison, while speaking at SAP Sapphire in May 2025. “We felt that the right path in terms of framing our ERP journey for the next generation of ERP, which will have us going to SAP S/4HANA, was best driven by a business transformation.”
SAP Signavio Enables Process-Centric Approach
SoCal Edison’s drivers for business transformation and SAP S/4HANA adoption included aging IT and grid infrastructures, as well as a complex regulatory environment. The utility adopted its first SAP ERP system in 2008, which included a “manual, tedious, paper-driven, five-inch binder of a business case,” according to McMullen. To achieve its efficiency and innovation goals, SoCal Edison pursued a process-centric digital transformation, which led to the adoption of SAP Signavio, SAP’s business process transformation suite.
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SAP Signavio was part of SoCal Edison’s effort to provide data-driven evaluations of how the company’s processes were performing. Those process evaluations are then used to frame conversations with key stakeholders aimed at identifying areas of improvement. The utility company chose SAP Signavio because of its suite of transformation capabilities, including process mining, modeling, optimization, data-driven KPI tracking, and process transparency. The ability to integrate with the utility’s established SAP landscape was also an important factor.
Driving User Adoption Through Persona-Based Analysis
Those early conversations with stakeholders served as the initial step toward driving user adoption. After establishing updated processes, SoCal Edison implemented persona-based journey mapping to identify the journey processes of its varied user base, which includes both office staff and field crews working in remote locations. The journey mapping enables the utility to better understand end-user needs, thereby guiding discussions about adopting new technologies and processes.
“Our success will be made by how well the users adopt the change,” said McMullen.
Success is measured by 73 KPIs, according to McMullen, which track the efficiency gains resulting from the SAP S/4HANA implementation and process transformation. The overall goal was not just to upgrade an ERP system but to become a “transformation program” that fuels ongoing innovation and process improvement.
Using SAP LeanIX to Track the Transformation
SoCal Edison implemented SAP LeanIX, a tool for transformation and enterprise architecture planning, to monitor the impact of its SAP S/4HANA implementation and whether it is achieving the intended transformative effects.
McMullen said SAP LeanIX was used to integrate technological capabilities, transformed processes, and data. He added that the tool, by enhancing the understanding of how processes, technologies, and data intersect, aids in decision-making regarding technology rationalization within the utility’s application portfolio. Additionally, it helps them understand, from a future-proofing perspective, how certain capabilities align with specific processes and technologies.
By implementing SAP S/4HANA in a large-scale transformation project and utilizing tools like SAP Signavio and SAP LeanIX to ensure a process-focused journey, SoCal Edison has flipped the switch on its transition to a more innovative and efficient electric utility.
What This Means for SAPinsiders
- SoCal Edison gained executive buy-in for its SAP S/4HANA project by creating a digitized business case that emphasized the impact of process transformation, the ability to drive more data-driven decision-making, and the facilitation of increased innovation, rather than focusing primarily on the technology.
- User adoption was a key focus of the project. McMullen said driving that adoption began with committing to new capabilities, understanding the overall journey, and ensuring business stakeholders support the change. He emphasized the importance of being honest with end users—informing them that it’s not always going to be easy. However, interest in the project remains high by having a solid roadmap, adhering to that roadmap, and delivering on what was promised.
- SoCal Edison’s SAP S/4HANA journey exemplifies how companies should approach IT projects as more than just technology upgrades. It’s crucial to conduct preparatory work before the project to understand how these upgrades will affect the organization’s people, data, and processes.
