Customer Stories
Messer: Becoming a data-driven enterprise with a modern data architecture
Explore Messer’s journey with SAP
Thriving in the dynamic industrial gases sector means responding quickly to changing market conditions. However, siloed data and inconsistent analytics modeling approaches at Messer Americas slowed down decision-making. Now, SAP data and analytics solutions provide a trusted and consistent view of the data to support business-critical decisions across the enterprise.
data foundation for enterprise-wide information.
data sources consolidated in a single solution.
of data modeling tasks achievable using self-service tools.
SAP data and analytics solutions are at the heart of our strategy to become a data-driven enterprise. They help deliver insights faster and more accurately, giving employees a higher degree of confidence in the data they’re working with.
David Johnston
CIO, Messer Americas
The Challenge
Providing rapid access to information that employees can trust
Real-time intelligence is crucial if employees at industrial gases provider Messer are to make the right decisions to drive the business forward. However, multiple databases held by different business functions meant that data management and analytics reporting resulted in the company losing out on the full value of its SAP data. Furthermore, the use of numerous third-party visualization tools meant the business wasn’t being as efficient as it could be.
Different databases in each department caused significant duplication, and it was difficult to know which data source to trust. Extensive IT efforts required for running detailed extract, transform, and load operations to get data in the right format for use in various visualization tools increased waiting time for analytics reports. Meanwhile, the company’s complex data and analytics landscape led to high IT costs and raised the risk of data not being managed in line with security policies.
To address this, Messer wanted to establish a unified, cloud-based data management foundation that would provide a standardized way to connect to and combine both SAP and third-party data sources. It also wanted to empower business users by providing a standard set of flexible, self-service business intelligence tools, delivered within a secure, scalable, and reliable technology environment.
SAP Datasphere helps Messer provide business users with the flexibility they need while also meeting IT governance requirements. It was also implemented in just a few months, delivering value quickly.
Deepu Sasidharan
Technical Advisor, Applexus Technologies Inc.
The Solution
Implementing a modern data architecture to streamline analytics processes
With help from SAP partner Applexus Technologies Inc., Messer created a new, unified data and analytics foundation based on SAP Business Technology Platform. The company deployed the SAP Datasphere solution to enable the consolidation and modeling of data from both SAP and third-party sources.
Drawing on SAP Datasphere, the SAP Analytics Cloud solution provides employees with self-service tools that offer straightforward access to analytics reporting, without help from IT. For example, supply chain dashboards enable planning teams to check volumes for volatile customers, confirm that scheduling teams are picking up from product sources as directed, and proactively manage pickup agreements.
In addition to the implementation of SAP solutions, a clearly defined deployment plan enabled the business intelligence community to come together with IT to establish governance rules and best practices for its new, standardized data management model. Furthermore, a comprehensive training program helped employees get up to speed quickly to support rapid adoption of the technology.
The Result
Empowering business users while saving IT costs
With the new data and analytics foundation in place, Messer has established a consistent view of data that is trusted throughout the organization. The standardized data model has improved governance controls around data management, minimizing security risk.
Data consumers can quickly access relevant and actionable data that is accurate, complete, timely, and in a format that is straightforward to use. Meanwhile, intuitive, self-service functionality means they can convert the data into meaningful insights themselves, without help from IT.
As a result, the role of IT has changed from report creation to facilitation, saving time and freeing up IT personnel to focus on other tasks. Furthermore, the simplified data and analytics landscape is more cost-efficient and easier to keep updated, enabling the company to take advantage of the latest analytics innovations.
Having supply chain data at our fingertips allows our team to make quicker, more cost-effective decisions. The results show up in better inventory management, which leads to improved customer service, lower overall competitive purchases, and lower overall supply chain costs.
Mark Brady
Director Supply Chain Management, United States and Canada, Messer Americas
Future Plans
Transforming decision-making with next-generation analytics
With cloud-based technology, it is now straightforward for Messer to innovate its data and analytics infrastructure on an ongoing basis to use the latest developments. Going forward, this is helping ensure that users have information at their fingertips on which to base sound business decisions.
Next-generation integration capabilities offered by SAP BTP enable the company to continue to consolidate information from a range of SAP and third-party sources. Furthermore, in the coming year, Messer also plans to deploy SAP BW bridge for SAP Datasphere, simplifying integration of the existing data warehouse solution based on the SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) application.
SAP helps Messer run better
Key business outcomes and benefits
- Unified data management model based on a trusted and consistent view of data
- Straightforward access to real-time data using self-service tools
- Ability for business users to create and share analytics reports and visualizations, without IT support
- Time freed up for IT personnel to spend on other higher-value tasks
- Simplified IT infrastructure that is cost-effective and straightforward to keep updated
Featured solutions and services
- SAP Datasphere is software as a service that includes data integration, database, data warehouse, and analytics capabilities for a data-driven enterprise.
- SAP Analytics Cloud combines business intelligence, augmented and predictive analytics, and planning capabilities into one cloud environment.
- SAP Business Technology Platform combines data management, analytics, artificial intelligence, application development, automation, and integration in one unified environment.
About Messer
Messer Americas is the largest privately held industrial gas business in the world, and it is a leading industrial and medical gas company in North and South America. The company offers over 120 years of expertise in industrial, medical, specialty, and electronic gases. It delivers quality gases, related services, and technology through an extensive production and distribution network.
Featured partner
Global technology leader Applexus Technologies Inc. offers business consulting services, SAP solutions, and products to customers in sectors such as retail, fashion, and consumer products. By delivering on the promise of an intelligent enterprise through transformative business solutions and products, the company enables smarter business processes by improving user experiences and providing actionable business intelligence.