Pitney Bowes: Gaining efficiency, insights, and agility with a swift migration to the cloud
Explore how Pitney Bowes embarked on a journey with SAP
With more than 100 years of innovation under its belt, Pitney Bowes is continuing its cloud journey with its international team. By integrating SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition with a range of SAP solutions in select countries, the company has simplified, rationalized, and standardized business processes, helping it prepare for another century of leadership and growth.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
| High tech – shipping and mailing | Stamford, Connecticut (headquarters) | >11,000 employees | LTIMindtree Limited |
touchless order fulfillment and service execution.
simplification of case closure codes, from 120 to 9.
reduction in cost centers, from 1,443 to 71.
Vice President, UK/Ireland Country Leader, Pitney Bowes Inc.
Reducing complexity and harmonizing processes to enable growth
Small-business, retail, enterprise, and government clients around the globe rely on shipping and mailing company Pitney Bowes to reduce the complexity of sending mail and parcels. The company provides technology, logistics, and financial services to more than 90% of Fortune 500 companies.
To continue this tradition of innovation and help scale its business both nationally and globally, Pitney Bowes knew it was time to replace an aging on-premise ERP solution and consolidate its IT landscape in select countries. As it evolved its European business to focus on models such as subscription pricing as well as leasing, it needed to simplify and standardize processes, access deeper insights, and accelerate operations.
Pitney Bowes also wanted to adopt solution order management to support its transformation from selling stand-alone products to offering holistic solutions. Additionally, by helping to orchestrate physical delivery along with product installation and activation of an associated rental or service contract, solution order management would support another key goal of achieving touchless order fulfillment.
The Pitney Bowes team needed solutions that would enable best practices and grow with the company while minimizing the need for customization. It knew a two-tier approach in the public cloud would provide the leading-edge technology, speed, and flexibility it sought.
Senior Director, Global Order Management, Supply Chain Applications and SAP Service, Pitney Bowes Inc.
Building connected, standardized, and nimble IT operations
Pitney Bowes saw that integrating SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition with the SAP Sales Cloud solution would enable the comprehensive order-to-cash functionality needed to manage workflows from opportunity creation to fulfillment in one interface.
Prebuilt content in SAP Integration Suite would reduce customization requirements. Also important was SAP’s clear product road map for solution business and the end-to-end scenario of product as a service.
To realize its two-tier approach, Pitney Bowes migrated select countries on a rolling basis, moving off legacy systems to the public cloud in a phased implementation.
It used SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) to connect SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition and SAP Sales Cloud. The platform enables smooth data flows and helps the company integrate solutions for tasks ranging from cash and receivables management to reporting and compliance. And SAP Integration Suite aids intuitive integration with third-party and custom applications spanning postal services, banks, and logistics providers. Together these solutions facilitate quote-to-cash operations spanning quote to order, sales-order fulfillment, service execution, billing, and invoicing.
Working with SAP partner LTIMindtree Limited, Pitney Bowes started its European rollout by deploying the solutions across the United Kingdom and Ireland in a nine-month project. They followed with a six-month deployment in Germany.
Support from the Customer Success organization, the SAP Early Adopter Customer Care program, and experts for SAP Preferred Success services proved critical during the project. These SAP experts provided multiple services that guided the company through many aspects of implementation, helping safeguard the project and reduce risk.
Vice President, Enterprise Business Applications, Pitney Bowes Inc.
Becoming a solution business thanks to robust solution order management
Having deployed its new software in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany, Pitney Bowes has already experienced many benefits from up-to-date cloud ERP and a tightly integrated IT landscape. It has simplified order-to-cash operations, standardized processes, and reduced software customization. Preintegrated software has eased onboarding of nearly 350 users. And IT maintenance costs and TCO are lower thanks to a rationalized landscape, fewer third-party applications, and consolidated software licenses.
Tight integration between SAP S/4HANA Cloud and SAP Sales Cloud provides robust support for end-to-end processes, from lead-to-cash operations to field-service management. SAP BTP helps tie together areas as diverse as customer experience, salesforce automation, and device maintenance, increasing efficiency and providing value.
Together, the solutions can meet 95% of the company’s operational requirements, bringing together sales, service, and subscription models and enabling fully automated solution order management. For example, when a quote converts to a sales or service order, data flows automatically to SAP S/4HANA Cloud for fulfillment. Field-service operations can determine what type of technician is required, depending on whether a customer requires one-time installation or has a maintenance contract. When the customer settles an invoice, data flows back to SAP S/4HANA Cloud for tasks such as invoicing, booking, and revenue recognition. These integrated workflows not only increase productivity and transparency but also enhance speed and customer service.
Expanding the footprint across the global company
Pitney Bowes now plans to expand the rollout across its international markets, with a long-term goal of extending it to North America.
The company is also exploring the potential of other SAP solutions; for example, it’s looking at how it can use the SAP Analytics Cloud solution for reporting and business insights.
Whatever the next 100 years hold for this forward-thinking company, its migration to the cloud with SAP solutions is already preparing it and its customers for success.
Featured partner
LTIMindtree is committed to ensuring that its clients become their future sustainable selves ahead of schedule. This has allowed Pitney Bowes to support and maintain the solutions with its high-performance in-house IT team.