Global Pharmaceutical Company
Global SAP Migration Drives Real-time Insights at Scale
Syniti built dashboards that really helped the business drill down into the data to uncover errors, and we were able to check the data literally within a second. We did not face any issues during go live because we used Syniti.
Company Background
An American multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology corporation that produces medicines and vaccines for immunology, oncology, cardiology, endocrinology, and neurology. This leading bio-pharmaceutical company has developed some of the world’s most impactful medicines and vaccines.
Project Background
This global bio-pharmaceutical company has been leveraging Syniti’s tools to manage and validate their enterprise data for many years. Recently, the company undertook the critical task of transitioning their Enterprise Core Component (ECC) platform to SAP S/4HANA, necessitated by SAP’s phased end-of-support for ECC and the advantages offered by S/4HANA’s modern capabilities.
The project represented a significant technological shift, including moving from an outdated ECC system (in use since 1997) to S/4HANA. The company’s complex requirements included:
- Validating massive data volumes (80 terabytes total, with 50-60 terabytes transitioned).
- Ensuring compliance with SOX and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).
- Limiting operational downtime to 90 hours.
Implementation Highlights
The bio-pharmaceutical company’s key challenges revolved around data validation and gaining visibility into the business impact of migrated data. Traditional manual data validation methods, such as VLOOKUPs, were impractical due to the volume and complexity of data. Specific issues included:
Data Validation Constraints: Manual validation of 80 terabytes of data was infeasible within the required timeframe.
Limited Vendor Capabilities: The vendor selected for data migration, lacked robust tools to ensure data accuracy and completeness, critical for compliance and operational integrity.
Minimize Disruption to the Business: The company needed to complete data migration and validation within a 90-hour shutdown window, with only 6.5 hours allocated for verification. Prolonged downtime could disrupt production lines, delay shipments, and lead to supply chain interruptions, affecting drug availability and patient health. Additionally, pharmaceutical companies operate in a highly regulated environment, and any downtime or inconsistencies during a system upgrade could result in non-compliance with regulations GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices).
Benefits
The successful migration to S/4HANA underscores the importance of robust data management and validation in largescale transformations. This project highlights the value of strategic partnerships and the role of data experts in overcoming complex enterprise challenges, setting a precedent for future large-scale migrations.
Moving forward, the bio-pharmaceutical company plans to transition to Syniti’s latest technologies, further enhancing their capabilities.