3M upgrades SAP to cut costs, reduce risk and speed up pace of change
Overview
Change right to the core
3M’s SAP environment was holding it back from growing and innovating. By embracing automation from ActiveControl, 3M streamlined processes, reduced risk and saved money from faster downtime timescales.
6 hours
Ahead of schedule for wrapping up downtime
$162K
What businesses stand to lose per hour of downtime (Statista)
Innovation
Replacing manual steps with automation cut costs and reduced risk
Challenge
Unrealized potential
A longstanding SAP customer, the healthcare division of 3M was suffering from a lack of continuity and consistency across its global operations. A slow and inefficient approach to change management held back customer service and sustainable business growth potential.
3M recognized that its tool – SAP Change Request Management (ChaRM) – didn’t provide the full functionality it needed to run agile operations. With user frustration, missed milestones, lack of visibility, and slow project delivery from inefficient, manual ways of working, 3M was at risk of compromising core business processes.
Solution
Unlocked productivity
3M used Basis Technologies’ change automation software, ActiveControl, to overcome these challenges. With its out-of-the-box APIs and other features, ActiveControl provided a globally integrated platform that gave 3M more visibility over change statuses and the flex to interchange QA systems, from development to deployment, across large-scale projects to protect against downtime and system failure.
As the integrator at the core of 3M’s global business processes, ActiveControl provided a ‘single source of truth’ to record all changes across 3M’s SAP landscape, and automating approval workflows for increased efficiency.
Outcome
Understated savings
Changes deployed finished six hours ahead of schedule. Given that one hour of unplanned outage can cost a business between $9,000-$162,000 (Ponemon Institute / Statistia), the impact of finishing earlier is a significant cost saving.
With ActiveControl giving 3M’s teams the confidence to deliver the right changes and done right to meet evolving business needs, it’s equipped to change intelligently for the future, such as a potential S/4HANA migration.
ActiveControl
Let ActiveControl be the change your business needs
ActiveControl from Basis Technologies automates end-to-end SAP change and release processes to reduce manual effort and minimize downtime.
Built for SAP, ActiveControl enables companies to adopt agile development and continuous delivery in SAP environments.
Your SAP transformation starts now
Our change experts help enterprises remove IT bottlenecks and deliver the urgent changes their business needs to grow. Run SAP changes faster and smarter while saving significant time and effort. It all starts with a conversation.