SAPinsider Vegas 2024: The Inside Scoop

⇨ Molson Coors successfully streamlined its change processes, reduced business downtime, and ensured business continuity during its migration to the cloud, experiencing a 40% reduction in manual effort.

⇨ Embracing automation allowed Molson Coors to monitor the progress of change initiatives in real-time, identify bottlenecks, and optimize workflows.

⇨ Molson Coors serves as an example of a successful migration strategy that will meet the 2027 deadline for SAP S/4HANA transformation.

In the weeks following SAPinsider’s gateway event in Las Vegas on 18^th-21^st March, SAPinsider caught up with David Lees, CTO of Basis Technologies to get the inside scoop on the busy four days, packed with insightful discussions around unleashing innovation and excellence.

The primary highlight of the event for David was the opportunity to listen to and engage with huge brands who have embarked on their own transformation journeys, putting everything the SAP industry preaches into practice.

For David, one particular brand stuck out. Molson Coors is the world’s fourth largest beer/beverage company, with more than 200 years of brewing history. Jason Wierek, SAP Environment Manager of the business attended a session to discuss how they laid the groundwork for their SAP S/4HANA transformation using Basis Technologies and AWS. Given the size of the workforce (over 16,000 globally) and extensive portfolio, it’s clear this project was no small undertaking.

Here’s a quick snapshot of how they got on.

Transformation in motion: Molson Coors

Having established that manual change control was no longer sustainable, Molson Coors knew something had to change if it were to meet its S/4HANA transformation goals. One of the biggest challenges the team faced was ‘retrofitting’. Molson Coors needed to ensure it could move its planned changes out of the production cycle and into its N+1 landscape (a mirrored environment for testing), so that development & Quality Assurance (QA) systems in that landscape were up to date and mirroring the production track.

Molson Coors also needed to reduce business downtime, which had caused ongoing problems for the business when undergoing changes within SAP. The business previously managing transports manually and on spreadsheets, which meant mistakes were inevitably made which had a knock-on effect on business continuity.

Molson Coors chose Basis Technologies to help manage its business-critical migration to AWS Cloud because of its ability to automate and govern change in even the most complex SAP landscapes, while ensuring business continuity for a production cycle that couldn’t afford to slow down.

Embracing automation enabled Molson Coors to streamline its change processes, reduce business downtime, and ensure business continuity during its migration to the cloud, while also allowing the team to monitor the progress of change initiatives in real-time and identify bottlenecks to optimize workflows. The company experienced a 40% reduction in manual effort and cut down it’s retrofitting time from ‘multiple days’ to just one hour.

A beacon of hope

Molson Coors’ story is a stark reminder of the end of support deadline for SAP ECC that draws ever closer. Organizations are being urged to prioritize their SAP S/4HANA transformation, with some even fearing that they’ve left it too late.

However, Molson Coors is a prime example of a successful migration strategy that will meet the 2027 deadline. In other words, there is still time, but businesses need to act quickly to stay on track.

Wherever you are on your S/4HANA transformation journey, it’s never too late to get help. Reach out to Basis Technologies today to find out how we can help you meet your goals as you accelerate towards the 2027 deadline.