Debunking the Myth: Enterprise Resource Planning Isn’t Just for LARGE Chemical Enterprises

Chemical Company in a Box Levels the Playing Field for Small and Midsize Chemical Enterprises

Today’s rapidly growing and globalizing economy toughens the competitive landscape for small and midsize enterprises (SMEs). Smaller chemical companies are no exception. Most chemical SMEs would agree – their biggest challenges include developing innovative applications and formulations, delivering rapid response to changing customer needs, managing complex supply chains and meeting increasing regulatory requirements – all while competing with much larger players in their market space.

Facing these challenges means implementing adoptive flexible business models and IT infrastructure. Up until now, the myth has been that these solutions could only be afforded by large enterprises. To some extent this was true. Smaller chemical companies typically do not have the capital and resources needed to operate and maintain their own IT infrastructure and onsite data centers. Even turning to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to meet and scale their business needs, meant complex, costly and time consuming implementations. As a result, ERP was written off as an unrealistic solution for smaller chemical companies. Until now …

SAP has teamed up with qualified system integration partners to provide small and midsize chemical enterprises with the tools they need to successfully implement ERP systems, based on an innovative deployment model.

With SAP Chemical Company in a Box, smaller chemical manufacturers have access to over 100 preconfigured industry specific scenarios and best practices in one solution, readily deployed via subscription based hosting in the cloud. This new model provides flexible and scalable access, for small and midsize companies, to the latest business processes, technological innovations and growth scenarios, while eliminating the need for upfront investment into hardware, software or onsite IT resources. This allows smaller enterprises to significantly reduce the time, costs, and risks of ERP implementation. The myth has been debunked and the playing field, leveled.

– Leverage innovation and adapt to growth scenarios. For over 10 years, large and midsize chemical manufacturers have taken advantage of SAP’s Best Practices for Chemicals templates to standardize their business processes and leverage innovation. Now, the new subscription based hosting model in the cloud makes it even more attractive, in particular for small enterprises, to leverage the templates tailored specifically for the chemical industry and related verticals and scale in response to business needs and growth plans. Based on an in-memory data base, SAP HANA, Chemical Company in a Box also provides ad-hoc business transparency and enables decision making in real-time.

– Reduce time. In an increasingly competitive global environment, speed and efficiency are key to remaining competitive. Having a preconfigured and pre-built template from one vendor, one contract and one point of contact without upfront capital and IT resource investments is essential to time efficiency. Not to mention, Chemical Company in a Box can be up and running in two days and fully implemented in five months or less.

– Cut costs. Available as a hosted or cloud-based solution, best practices templates make implementation simple. While SAP partners offer flexible payment terms, tailored to fit customer’s cash flow needs, overall total cost of ownership can be reduced by 30 percent or more.

– Decrease risk of implementation. The preconfigured templates provide hundreds of tried and true best practices scenarios, customized for the chemical industry. The solution also offers a “try before you buy option,” which greatly reduces the risks typically associated with implementation.

Enterprise Resource Planning is no longer just for large chemical enterprises. Packaged solutions ready for immediate deployment in the cloud, such as SAP Chemical Company in a Box, are designed to simplify the IT landscape, deployment, and commercial terms, making it easy for small and midsize chemical companies to adopt a powerful ERP solution.

Dr. Stefan Guertzgen, Director of Global Industry Marketing for Chemicals, SAP

Dr. Stefan Guertzgen holds a PhD in Chemicals from the Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Muelheim/Germany and spent one year at the UC Berkeley/CA based on a Feodor Lynen Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation. Prior to assuming his current position he worked for 11 years in the Chemical Industry with Chemtura in various positions like R&D, global Business Development and Business Process Management. In addition he spent 7 years in Pre-Sales and Management Consulting at companies like AspenTech, AT Kearney and SAP.