How Kemira Used Its SAP Transformation To Redefine Business Analytics and Planning

Kemira’s SAP transformation began with a familiar enterprise problem: an aging SAP ECC environment, a looming support deadline, and a global business that depended on SAP.

The Finnish chemicals company, with approximately $4.2 billion in annual sales, could have approached SAP S/4HANA as a required technical migration. Instead, it used Project LEAP, a cbs Corporate Business Solutions-supported move to SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud, to reset its digital core and strengthen the systems that support enterprise data and planning.

That foundation allowed SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud to become part of the transformation, supporting reporting, planning, and forecasting across its environment.

Kemira brought that story to SAP Sapphire 2026 in a session focused on the journey from S/4HANA to an AI-ready enterprise. Kemira’s experience shows how AI ambition depends on enterprise work that must come first: clean data, connected planning processes, and real-time business context. For customers still weighing SAP ECC modernization, Kemira shows how cloud transformation can also become a planning and analytics strategy.

Project LEAP Moved the SAP Core Without Pausing the Business

Project LEAP carried a level of operational risk that made business continuity central to the design. Kemira was moving a global SAP estate that supported 400 plants, 58 company codes, operations in 37 countries, more than four billion data records, and 3,000 system users. The transformation also moved 60 systems to the cloud.

cbs supported the project through its Fast Value Approach, which focused on global standardization, data harmonization, and process digitization. It helped Kemira decide which processes should change, which established practices should remain, and where old structures or data should be removed before the move to SAP S/4HANA.

The go-live took place in one weekend across three time zones. Kemira and cbs executed 840 technical cutover steps using a near-zero-downtime approach supported by cbs ET Enterprise Transformer. The project also moved 363 on-premise ERP interfaces from SAP PI to SAP Integration Suite, aligning the integration migration with the SAP S/4HANA go-live.

Finance changes were just as important. With SAP S/4HANA, Kemira shifted to the ACDOCA Universal Journal as a single source of truth for P&L, CapEx, and OpEx. That strengthened real-time reporting, margin analysis, and profitability management.

SAP Datasphere and SAC Extended the Transformation Into Planning

Kemira implemented SAP Datasphere as its central enterprise data warehouse, with SAP Analytics Cloud serving as the front end for reporting and planning. That architecture gave the company a common data layer for finance and planning use cases that had to draw on SAP S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors, and other enterprise systems.

Kemira used the new environment for financial reporting, profitability analysis, workforce planning, and HR reporting. More than 800 users gained access to the platform, giving business teams a stronger base for self-service reporting and analysis.

cbs worked with SAP product management during the project on areas such as authorizations, performance, and near real-time data integration. Kemira was using SAP Datasphere at a scale that was still unusual for the SAP analytics market.

Roland Werp, Senior Manager in Business Intelligence at cbs, called the deployment an early proof point for SAP Datasphere. “There’s arguably no other company with billions in revenue worldwide that has yet implemented SAP Datasphere as a single, central enterprise data warehouse,” Werp said. “Kemira is the first industrial customer of this size to prove that you can run your entire finance reporting on Datasphere.”

Forecasting Shows Where Planning Becomes Decision Support

The value of Kemira’s planning foundation is clearest where volatility affects margins. Taras Podbereznyj, CIO at Kemira, connected the new analytics foundation to forecast accuracy.

“The accuracy of the forecasts is extremely important to us,” Podbereznyj said. “For example, the better we can forecast for future raw material prices and the better we can predict market volatility, the better we can react and manage our profitability.”

The work Kemira undertook with cbs connected the SAP core, enterprise data, reporting, and planning in an architecture that can support more advanced decision-making.

Kemira’s Sapphire session also referenced SAP Integrated Business Planning and AI operators that can augment work with real-time intelligence. That moves the discussion beyond better dashboards toward planning environments where business teams can act on more current, connected signals. Whether those capabilities are emerging now or still ahead, they require connected enterprise data, integrated planning, and business processes that can supply trusted context for decisions.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

• Migration timing can shape planning advantage. Kemira’s case shows that ECC modernization decisions are not only about deadline management. Companies that treat migration as a strategic choice can use a transformation program to redesign data, planning, and reporting foundations before AI capabilities mature.
• Architecture creates room for future capabilities. The value of the transformation is not limited to today’s reporting and planning use cases. A connected data and planning foundation gives the business more room to adopt SAP’s next generation of AI, agent, and planning capabilities.
• Forecasting turns data into decision support. Kemira’s clearest business value comes from using better data to understand raw material prices, market volatility, and profitability. That shows how improved forecasting can move planning beyond backward-looking reports and toward more advanced decision support.