The ROI of Relief: NTN’s Shift to SAP Commerce Cloud Pays Off in People

Uptime and reliability are essential in precision manufacturing. For Japan’s NTN Corporation, this principle extends from their world-renowned bearings to the digital systems that connect them to their partners. The company’s eWINGS III portal is a critical lifeline for order processing with 76 domestic agencies—a system that simply has to work.

However, NTN faced a common challenge: their existing order system, though functional, was built on aging infrastructure. This led to rising maintenance costs, security vulnerabilities, and a significant operational drag on its IT team tasked with driving innovation.

Moving to the Cloud

The solution wasn’t reinventing the wheel but giving it a modern, high-performance chassis. NTN chose to migrate its proven system to SAP Commerce Cloud, a move designed to help the company enjoy the benefits of a cloud-native environment. The project focused on renewing the infrastructure foundation without disrupting the essential business processes NTN’s agencies relied on daily.

The results highlight a powerful lesson in modernization. Kenji Kitazato, General Manager of the ICT Strategy Department at NTN, summarized the transformation: “Our previous order system was aging, and security measures and troubleshooting took a lot of time and effort, placing a heavy burden on the IT department.”

He noted that the move to the cloud” has reduced the workload of daily operational management, allowing the IT department to shift to higher value-added tasks.” With a more stable, secure, and scalable platform supporting daily operations, NTN is positioned to further promote a digital shift for future business expansion.

According to SAP, the eWINGS III inherits the same functions as the previous one. They include quotation, ordering, Delivery date response, inventory confirmation, and report output. However, moving the platform to the Cloud and updating the middleware has significantly improved security of the platform.

Additionally, the system operation’s reliability and flexibility have also improved. The company can now benefit from quick backup switching in the event of failure and efficient maintenance work associated with version upgrades and patch applications.

SAP Japan’s service department was responsible for this project’s technical upgrade and data migration. Its scope of work included migration rehearsals, data migration during the actual go-live, and monitoring after the go-live.

eWINGS III has been deployed to NTN’s 76 domestic agencies and is operating stably as a platform supporting daily order processing. The company plans to use this cloud platform to further promote a digital shift for future business expansion and service sophistication.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

Modernize the edge, not just the core. Digital transformation isn’t limited to ERP. Critical customer-facing systems, like business-to-business order portals, are also prime candidates for cloud migration. The NTN project proves that SAPinsiders can gain immense security and efficiency benefits by moving these edge systems to a platform like SAP Commerce Cloud without a disruptive overhaul of core business logic.

Redeploying your people is the Cloud’s hidden ROI. One of the most compelling business cases for the Cloud is reducing the IT maintenance burden. As Kitazato stated, the move allowed his team to shift to higher value-added tasks. This is a critical trend for SAPinsiders as they can now use the Cloud to automate infrastructure management and free up their most valuable technical talent to focus on innovation and strategy.

Look Beyond ERP in SAP’s Cloud Portfolio. NTN’s success story reminds us that SAP’s cloud strategy is a broad portfolio. While SAP S/4HANA is central, specialized solutions like the Customer Experience (CX) suite solve specific, high-impact business problems. For organizations looking to improve their customer or partner interactions, exploring SAP Commerce Cloud is a logical and powerful step.