This part­ner insight is brought to you by NovioQ. 

Today’s enter­pris­es need ERP sys­tems that can both stan­dard­ize core process­es and sup­port unique busi­ness require­ments. SAP excels at pro­vid­ing a sol­id foun­da­tion, but orga­ni­za­tions fre­quent­ly dis­cov­er that main­tain­ing com­pet­i­tive advan­tages requires more flex­i­bil­i­ty than what ERP cus­tomiza­tions can provide.

Recent ASUG research reflects a grow­ing recog­ni­tion that suc­cess with SAP requires strik­ing a bal­ance between pre­serv­ing dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed process­es and uphold­ing sys­tem integri­ty. The path for­ward lies in cre­at­ing an agile lay­er around the ERP core by using com­ple­men­tary tech­nolo­gies that can adapt quick­ly to chang­ing needs with­out com­pro­mis­ing sys­tem integrity.

Low-code plat­forms have emerged as an effec­tive approach in this respect, enabling orga­ni­za­tions to build cus­tom appli­ca­tions that work along­side their core ERP, or in many cas­es, mul­ti­ple ERPs. These agile appli­ca­tions can address spe­cif­ic busi­ness needs with­out com­pro­mis­ing sys­tem sta­bil­i­ty or scalability.

One use case of this Agile ERP strat­e­gy in action address­es the unique chal­lenge of Mas­ter Data Man­age­ment (MDM) and Gov­er­nance. Sur­veyed mem­bers in ASUG’s annu­al Pulse of the SAP Cus­tomer Research recent­ly ranked MDM and Gov­er­nance as the sec­ond-most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge, just above mov­ing to SAP S/4HANA and just below budget.

In man­u­fac­tur­ing envi­ron­ments, the spe­cif­ic domain of Mate­ri­als MDM dri­ves every­thing from pro­cure­ment to pro­duc­tion to ship­ping. Cre­at­ing a new mate­r­i­al in SAP typ­i­cal­ly requires pop­u­lat­ing up to 200 sup­port­ing data fields — whether it’s for raw mate­ri­als, fin­ished prod­ucts, or pack­ag­ing com­po­nents. No sin­gle per­son holds all this knowl­edge — cre­at­ing and enrich­ing mate­ri­als data demands coor­di­nat­ed input from stake­hold­ers across account­ing, ware­house man­age­ment, pro­duc­tion, and oth­er departments.

This coor­di­na­tion chal­lenge exists regard­less of where orga­ni­za­tions are in their ERP jour­ney. Whether run­ning tra­di­tion­al SAP, migrat­ing to S/4HANA, or already oper­at­ing on a new plat­form, com­pa­nies need solu­tions that can inte­grate into their envi­ron­ment and main­tain sys­tem integri­ty while sup­port­ing their unique busi­ness requirements.

Tra­di­tion­al ERP inter­faces require MDM spe­cial­ists to nav­i­gate com­plex screens and man­u­al process­es. With­out sys­tem-dri­ven gov­er­nance process­es, mate­ri­als data quick­ly becomes out­dat­ed or dupli­cat­ed, cre­at­ing com­pli­ance risks and oper­a­tional bottlenecks.

NovioQ works with clients to deliv­er an agile work­flow solu­tion that sup­ports their unique process­es, inte­grates with exist­ing sys­tems, and direct­ly address­es these mate­ri­als data challenges:

• Con­fig­urable rules enforce data require­ments spe­cif­ic to each department

• Sim­pli­fied screens replace com­plex ERP inter­faces for data entry

• Auto­mat­ed noti­fi­ca­tions route tasks to the right sub­ject mat­ter experts

• Team col­lab­o­ra­tion tools track hand­offs between departments

• Mul­ti-sys­tem inte­gra­tion main­tains data accuracy

This com­bi­na­tion of automa­tion and gov­er­nance helps orga­ni­za­tions main­tain data integri­ty while sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduc­ing the time required for mate­ri­als man­age­ment tasks. Most impor­tant­ly, it main­tains the core ERP as the sin­gle source of truth while pro­vid­ing the flex­i­bil­i­ty need­ed to adapt to chang­ing busi­ness requirements.

From Con­cept to Real­i­ty: Syngenta’s Experience

Syn­gen­ta, a glob­al leader in agri­cul­ture pro­vid­ing seeds, crop pro­tec­tion, and farm­ing tech­nol­o­gy, faced this exact chal­lenge: its prod­uct pro­duc­tion cycle was ham­pered by man­u­al, long-run­ning mate­ri­als data updates and enrich­ment process­es span­ning mul­ti­ple coun­tries, prod­uct lines, and pro­duc­tion sites.

“Man­ag­ing mate­r­i­al mas­ter data at Syn­gen­ta is a crit­i­cal part of our abil­i­ty to deliv­er qual­i­ty prod­ucts across our glob­al oper­at­ing envi­ron­ment,” said Ruth Mont­gomery, Mas­ter Data Man­ag­er at Syn­gen­ta. ​“The process must inte­grate with our cur­rent ERP and MDM sys­tems, ensur­ing seam­less data trans­fer from the sin­gle point of truth while also eas­i­ly adapt­ing to the unique needs of our region­al busi­ness operations.”

Work­ing with NovioQ, Syn­gen­ta imple­ment­ed ​“Enrich,” a mod­ern Mate­ri­als Mas­ter Data Cre­ation work­flow plat­form. The results demon­strat­ed the pow­er of this approach:

• Mate­ri­als man­age­ment process­es that once took weeks or months were reduced to days or even hours

• Auto­mat­ed gov­er­nance sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced com­pli­ance risks

• Data entry qual­i­ty increased through stream­lined, con­sis­tent processes

• The MDM busi­ness team gained the abil­i­ty to inde­pen­dent­ly make work­flow and rule changes in near real-time

• A cen­tral­ized glob­al plat­form pro­vid­ed increased con­trol while accom­mo­dat­ing region­al variations

“Work­ing with NovioQ, we were able to quick­ly and effi­cient­ly deploy a new Mate­r­i­al Mas­ter Data Cre­ation work­flow solu­tion that is easy to work with, auto­mates much of the cre­ate and enrich process, and engages the right peo­ple at the right time to make sure the mate­r­i­al is ready to pro­duce, stock, ship and sell,” explained Montgomery.

The impact on Syngenta’s oper­a­tions has been sub­stan­tial. ​“With this solu­tion in place, our busi­ness is now able to cre­ate and enrich mate­r­i­al data records much faster with low­er errors and less human inter­ac­tion,” not­ed Mont­gomery. ​“In addi­tion, the flex­i­ble plat­form allows us to make busi­ness rules and process changes quick­ly to ensure the process keeps up with the demands of our busi­ness.” This abil­i­ty to rapid­ly adapt to chang­ing busi­ness require­ments while main­tain­ing data integri­ty rep­re­sents a key advan­tage of the low-code approach.

The Path Forward

Typ­i­cal­ly, a small team of two NovioQ low-code experts can deliv­er an ini­tial solu­tion from con­cept to pro­duc­tion launch in just 2 – 3 months — a time­line that would typ­i­cal­ly require three-to-five-times more resources and time using tra­di­tion­al methods.

For com­pa­nies that have already cho­sen their SAP path but strug­gle with how to address their cus­tom use cas­es, such as man­ag­ing Mate­ri­als and oth­er MDM domains, NovioQ’s approach shows how a focused low-code solu­tion can solve a spe­cif­ic busi­ness chal­lenge while pre­serv­ing core sys­tem integrity.

To learn more about bring­ing agili­ty into your ERP strat­e­gy and/​or imple­ment­ing this Mate­ri­als MDM solu­tion in your envi­ron­ment, con­tact Willy Fox at w.​fox@​novioq.​com.

Willy Fox is Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at NovioQ North Amer­i­ca, where he helps enter­prise clients eval­u­ate and apply tech­nol­o­gy to solve com­plex busi­ness prob­lems. Con­nect with him on LinkedIn.