Roquette's SAP transformation: driving efficiency and enhancing customer experience

| minute read

Global leader in plant-based ingredients Roquette sought to replace its outdated legacy data infrastructure with a new cutting-edge SAP solution to break down silos, harmonise business processes and boost visibility company-wide.

Roquette: offering the best of nature

Roquette is a family-owned global leader in plant-based ingredients and a leading provider of pharmaceutical excipients. 

Founded in 1933, the company currently operates in more than 100 countries, through more than 30 manufacturing sites, has a turnover of around 5 billion euros, and employs around 10,000 people worldwide.

All the company’s raw materials are of natural origin, which allows Roquette to offer a whole new plant-based range of foods; pharmaceutical solutions that play a key role in medical treatments; and develop innovative ingredients for food, nutrition and health markets.

SAP driving streamlined efficiency and innovation

Roquette had been operating a custom-built legacy information technology management system, but the technology was outdated and inflexible.

Roquette was determined to dramatically restructure their data architecture and replace the existing system with a sophisticated, modern and harmonised SAP solution, combining both Enterprise Resource Planning and customer interfaces across all business lines, and all markets.

The goal was ambitious yet achievable. It would strengthen Roquette’s existing data-centricity and help future-proof the company and prepare it for new technology transformations yet to come.

They sought to reengineer their data management and create one, single master data infrastructure, breaking down silo-working between business units, and create a harmonised and streamlined end-to-end data solution.

This transformation project represented the largest digital transformation since the company’s foundation, but would dramatically enhance its agility, better preparing it for a data-centric future.

This project represents the largest digital transformation since our company’s foundation 90 years ago. It makes us more agile, efficient and streamlined

Michael Manouvrier

Chief Digital and Information Officer, Roquette

It meant the company was able to meet their main objectives of enhancing, digitising and harmonising their business processes.

The project sought to help employees by creating an integrated business model, which would enable teams to all work together in a unified way and provide real-time visibility on project developments.
For Roquette’s clients, the new solution would create a consistent and unique user interface.

For the company as a whole, this would allow for simpler performance measurement and traceability throughout every business step.

Leveraging Sopra Steria’s global network

Roquette had an existing 15-year-long relationship with Sopra Steria and chose our specialist team to support them throughout delivery of this complex project.

It was a true partnership between Roquette and Sopra Steria with both teams working hand-in-hand. Sopra Steria worked across a wide variety of aspects, from specific solution development to project management, data migration, release management and post-deployment support.

Sopra Steria guided Roquette in the development of a lean core model with a phased deployment. Starting with a pilot in a small plant in Spain, then expanding to larger industrial sites and commercial offices as the launch process was refined.

Sopra Steria mobilised their offshore development team in India to stabilise and review every part of the solution architecture, from the ground up to eliminate bugs and fully understand the initial data structure plan. At its peak, more than 100 Sopra Steria international staff were working on the project.

The Sopra Steria team advised and helped Roquette to redesign the deployment roadmap to ensure each step was achievable within the proposed timeline. The team participated in regular meetings with senior management to update on progress.

These fluid communication channels were key to reassuring stakeholders of the project’s advancement and allowed the teams to flag problems early and get quick decisions from management.

Uniting operations, enhancing insights, and expanding horizons

Previously, the organisation was very siloed, with each business unit such as finance, manufacturing, logistics teams, allocating their own tracking numbers to each order, as it progressed through the process.

Now, the new SAP solution provides an end-to-end approach, with harmonised order tracking throughout the business journey, providing unprecedented visibility from a group level down, and enabling managers to more easily identify efficiency opportunities.

It also allows for integration of new technology, such as connected cargo scanners or automated weighbridges to streamline consignment tracking in the supply chain process.

A 20-strong Sopra Steria team also manages a support desk to resolve any issues Roquette staff encounter using the new system.

The solution means Roquette can leverage the potential of their data, more accurately identifying everything from transport costs to production delays or late payments, meaning they take better informed business decisions.

As performance metrics are consistent throughout all business divisions, senior management have been able to construct company-level KPIs to better analyse team performance.

The solution was successfully deployed in Spain, Italy, China, Singapore and France - the largest and most complex market - with further launches planned in Japan, the US, and Mexico in the coming months.

The project has strengthened Roquette’s partnership with Sopra Steria and made the company more agile, efficient and streamlined.

  • 15 Years of working relationship between Roquette and Sopra Steria
  • 100 Number of Sopra Steria employees working on project at peak
  • 20 Sopra Steria staff available to offer IT support to Roquette staff using the new system
The lean core model approach was key to the project’s success. We needed to think big but start small.

John Lecointe

Deputy Director of Industry & Services vertical, Sopra Steria France