ERP Modernization with SAP S/4HANA for a Food Manufacturer
- Eitekh Marketing Team
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Client Context
Incorporated in 1979, the client is a publicly listed consumer-goods manufacturer. The company is a market leader in the country's biscuits industry. It manufactures, markets, distributes, and sells biscuits, confectionery, bakery and snack products. The company also produces corrugated cartons and plastic trays for internal use.
FY2024-25 scale indicator | Publicly reported value | Executive relevance |
Revenue | CAD 316 million; 7% year-over-year growth | A sizeable, transaction-intensive operating environment |
Food-category volume sold | 127,582 metric tons; 9.8% year-over-year growth | High-throughput production, inventory and distribution requirements |
Installed food capacity | 163,728 metric tons for biscuits, confectionery and tasty saline | Complex planning across existing and expanding lines |
Workforce | 11,400+ employees | Enterprise change reaches a large, dispersed user population |
Exports | CAD 5.1 million; 21% year-over-year growth | Cross-border documentation, currency and compliance exposure |
Business Problem
This was not a greenfield ERP program. The client reported using SAP ERP before the modernization. By FY2023-24, management was explicitly preparing for an SAP upgrade through internal process optimization, stronger monitoring, and tighter transparency and accountability. The strategic challenge was to modernize an effective yet aging enterprise core while ensuring uninterrupted daily production, sales, distribution, statutory reporting, and quality controls.
Operational complexity
The company has a pervasive and complex IT environment processing a large volume of daily transactions across numerous locations. Management was simultaneously contending with imported-material price volatility, foreign-exchange pressure, logistics disruption, food-industry compliance and new production capacity. An ERP platform had to connect operating decisions to finance and control at this scale.
Change management and organizational adoption
The user population spanned corporate functions, more than 3,300 field-sales employees and nearly 8,000 factory workers. Moving from familiar legacy processes to standardized S/4HANA workflows therefore required more than configuration: roles, approvals, master-data ownership, training, local work practices and management behavior all had to align.
ERP Scope
The company progressed with its SAP system upgrade, expanded internal control coverage, and continued to innovate in product development and internal operations. It also enhanced supply-chain efficiency initiatives to safeguard profitability despite rising input costs and a challenging macroeconomic environment.
The program involved modernizing to RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The new platform is now the accounting system of record, with SAP ERP serving as the mechanism that unifies business processes, maintains documentation, and minimizes errors. The audit procedures comprehensively addressed access, system changes, interfaces, configuration, and application-layer controls.
Delivery Model
The deployment was cloud-oriented, delivered under RISE with SAP rather than as an on-premises-only upgrade. SAP describes RISE as a guided path for existing SAP ERP customers to move and modernize ERP in the cloud.
Business Outcome
The client's external auditors concluded that proper books were maintained through SAP RISE S/4HANA and that the financial statements agreed with records in the system. Their procedures also covered logical access, change management, operating controls and relevant interfaces.
Performance Indicator | Reported Result |
|---|---|
Financial reporting control | SAP RISE S/4HANA operated as the accounting system of record |
Process documentation | SAP brought business processes together, improved documentation and reduced errors |
Revenue | CAD 316 million in FY2024-25, up 7% |
Food-category volume | 127,582 metric tons, up 9.8% |
Exports | CAD 5 million, up 21% |
Net profit after tax | Approximately 9.62% growth |
Lessons Learned
The engagement illustrates a central ERP lesson for mid-market manufacturers: technical cutover and organizational adoption are inseparable. The most consequential challenges were not limited to software configuration; they sat at the handoffs among people, processes, data, controls and legacy interfaces.
Effective SAP/ERP Management Through Strong Leadership and Ownership
The client maintained a dedicated SAP/ERP function. Strong executive sponsorship and clear internal ownership effectively reduce decision latency and ensure the implementation partner does not become the de facto process owner.
Enhancing System Upgrades Through Process Optimization and Accountability
The client linked process optimization, monitoring, transparency, and accountability to upgrade preparation. This sequence matters as it identifies approval bottlenecks, control gaps, and local workarounds before they are encoded in the new system.
Unified Control Chain Testing for Financially Significant IT Controls
The client prioritized interfaces, access, change management, and application controls due to the financial significance of IT controls, given the transaction volume and location complexity. Consequently, interface ownership, reconciliation, exception handling, and authorization must be tested as a unified control chain.
Why Eitekh Was Selected
Eitekh presents a credible fit for this transformation because its capabilities align with the program's principal risks. Founded in 2013 and based in North America, Eitekh describes itself as an SAP partner serving manufacturing and logistics clients. Its SAP practice encompasses readiness and roadmap development, solution design, configuration, data migration and integration, testing, change management, user adoption, go-live support, optimization, and ongoing application management.
SAP Modernization Depth
Eitekh centers its practice on cloud ERP, integrated processes, real-time data, and clean-core architecture—key components for any SAP customer transitioning to RISE with SAP S/4HANA.
Manufacturing Process Experience
Eitekh's published portfolio features SAP programs that integrate finance, supply chain, production, quality, maintenance, and sales functions. In a similar packaged-food project, it demonstrates FI/CO, MM, SD, PP, QM, and PM capabilities, resulting in measurable enhancements in procurement, inventory, equipment, quality, and transportation.
Mid-market Execution Model
Eitekh's case portfolio showcases an eleven-month deployment across 20 entities for a diversified manufacturer and a five-month implementation for a pharmaceutical manufacturer. These examples highlight our expertise in managing compressed schedules, handling cross-functional scopes, and facilitating effective knowledge transfer.
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