Terumo, a $6 billion medical device company headquartered in Tokyo, announced that its subsidiary, Terumo Americas Holding (TAH), underwent a digital transformation by implementing SAP S/4HANA and several other SAP solutions. Forced to temporarily pull the plug due to COVID-19, the Americas business had a successful go-live in July of 2020.

Although the digital transformation program is a global project, ASUG sat down with the three individuals responsible for the TAH program, which employs more than 8,000 people throughout locations in the U.S., Latin America, and Canada. The goal, in addition to simplifying processes and modernizing the infrastructure, was to ultimately have a single instance of an ERP that can help gain insights and drive business in the age of disruption.

In part one of this two-part series, Kalyan Balsubramanian, CIO for all the Americas, Sung Yang, VP and digital transformation project executive, and Rick Larrieu, VP of global IT and infrastructure, discussed the scope of the project, building the business case, navigating the implementation process, and going live. In part two, we’ll go into more detail about the benefits of moving to SAP S/4HANA, executing on a well-thought-out change management strategy, and doing so during a pandemic.

ASUG: Can you talk about Terumo’s digital transformation project from a high level and explain the scope of the project?