Though the proliferation of new data tools and strategies can be disorienting for organizations struggling to modernize, the primary promise of the modern data stack is still simplification—a more streamlined and accessible environment for managing data and driving organizational success.
Many companies lose sight of this fundamental promise as they find themselves lost in the weeds of data modernization, setting ambitious goals for themselves while lacking the internal expertise and resources necessary to build the data platform they need. They become mired down with more goals, more tools, and more development projects, all of which can slow down the modernization and fail to bring about the actual goal of the modern data stack—to seamlessly optimize operations by leveraging expertly managed data.
But the tools do exist to create a powerful yet elegantly simple data stack, and the transition process can be exciting, rather than painful, with the right expertise and support. Leveraging SAP and Snowflake is a particularly compelling approach to building a modern data stack that works for you, combining the unparalleled structure of SAP’s ERP software with the limitless power and customizability of Snowflake’s data platform.
Let’s explore how a leading manufacturer of grooming products used these two tools to consolidate a siloed collection of regional ERPS and create a global operating model that completely transformed their supply chain.
How SAP and Snowflake Work Together to Create a Simple Yet Powerful Modern Data Stack
There’s a reason that the majority of industry-leading organizations rely on SAP for their enterprise resource planning. SAP creates an intuitive workflow that is particularly suited to making interdepartmental collaboration easy and efficient. Meanwhile, centralized data cloud platforms like Snowflake make it possible to build data functions that unlock a whole new world of possibilities through tools like machine learning and GenAI. Within Snowflake, custom data functions and capabilities are easily built-to-scale to integrate SAP with other tools in the data ecosystem to drive insight and decision-making.
It’s no surprise that organizations who are experiencing rapid-growth or who need to overhaul a disorganized, outdated data platform tap experts to help them rebuild their data stack using these two tools. Doing so ensures that their organization is getting the most out of their data on both ends of the pipeline—on the frontend, where SAP works its magic to make data usable for team members, and on the backend, where Snowflake processes and manages the data to make it more actionable and insightful.
How One Industry-Leading Organization Modernized Without the Growing Pains
When a leading manufacturer of grooming products came to Hakkoda looking to modernize their data stack, they had been struggling to consolidate their disorganized, regional operating model for two years. Juggling 11 different global ERPs and lacking the internal expertise needed to use Snowflake and the data tools that power the modern data stack.
The organization was keen on avoiding one of the all too common pitfalls of SAP modernization—overinvesting in tools while underinvesting in data development and expertise. They already faced an uphill challenge in reigning in a bloated and inefficient operational model, and to entrust the enormous task of rebuilding their data stack to their underequipped internal data teams was simply unrealistic. So rather than asking the impossible of their data teams and risking a potential years-long setback as the modernization process dragged on, they came to Hakkoda looking for support.
Together, we were able to develop a global data strategy for the organization, migrating two of their ERPs, introducing Coalesce for expedited data transformation, and integrating SAP S/4 Material Management functional data with Microsoft D365 into a holistic data view. Hakkoda also trained the organization’s internal data team and advised them on their talent acquisition processes to ensure ongoing success and development. Building optimized synchronicity between the organization’s SAP and Snowflake platforms was particularly effective in driving insight into the company’s supply chain and building greater organizational data synchronicity.
The results speak for themselves, as the organization reduced operational costs for global demand planning while optimizing the supply chain for 85% of the company’s market. Visibility into both USA and EMA supply chains were integrated, from manufacturing materials to the final product, completely transforming the organization’s insight into the supply-and-demand factors that dictate their production.
All of this was achieved without a prolonged, painful period of inefficient attempts at modernization thanks to the organization’s willingness to seek external support to supplement their internal data teams and resources. This enabled the company to launch a modernized data stack quickly and efficiently, without overburdening internal teams and without languishing unnecessarily in a lengthy transitionary period.
Make Your SAP Modernization Journey Painless with Hakkōda
The growing pains of joining the modern data stack aren’t an inevitability for organizations who are thoughtful and realistic about their internal capabilities and the timing of their SAP modernization journey. The vast majority of industry-leading organizations believe they’ll need a significant amount of outside help to achieve their modernization goals in 2024, and supporting your internal data teams to expedite the process of building a powerful, scalable data stack is more than justified by consistently high ROIs on data tech investments.
Hakkoda’s Snowflake certified experts are ready to use their deep knowledge of SAP and other modern data tools to support your organization’s data modernization journey. So if you’re ready to make your transition to the modern data stack pain-free, let’s talk today about how Hakkoda can help.
