embecta: Serving customers and people with diabetes while creating an independent company
Explore embecta’s journey with SAP
After beginning its journey as an independent company following a spin-off, embecta had a clear mission: giving people with diabetes uninterrupted access to its insulin-delivery products. Using the RISE with SAP offering and SAP Business Technology Platform, the company rapidly rolled out an IT infrastructure that’s helping it accelerate toward its vision of a life unlimited by diabetes.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Healthcare | Parsippany, New Jersey | 2,000 employees |
CEO, embecta
Keeping patients front and center in establishing a new company
For nearly a century, embecta has been helping people live a life unlimited by diabetes. Having invented the world’s first specialized insulin syringe in 1924, two years after the discovery of insulin, embecta now sells its injection devices in more than 100 countries and partners with healthcare professionals and advocacy organizations to educate people with diabetes and healthcare providers about the disease.
Following a spin-off in 2022, embecta embarked on a new chapter as an independent, publicly traded company. That required setting up new business processes and systems, including a new IT infrastructure.
In planning for this transition, which had to be completed within an aggressive time frame, embecta had a key focus – people with diabetes.. CEO Devdatt Kurdikar explains: “Our goal as we went through this separation journey was making sure our product supplies weren’t disrupted. Because at the end of everything we do is a person with diabetes who needs an injection device so they can inject themselves with insulin. They need to be able to go to a pharmacy and get a box of pen needles or syringes. It’s just not something they can skip for a day or couple of days.”
CIO and Head of Shared Services, embecta
Nimbly deploying a high-performing IT landscape across the globe
To help it spin off rapidly while maintaining continuous supply chain operations, embecta used RISE with SAP. As CIO Mike LoRusso says, “We chose SAP solutions for two reasons. First, we wanted tried and true solutions we could not only separate on but also continue to advance with. Second, we chose RISE with SAP because we had to separate quickly, and we needed the technology to be stable once we were up and running.”
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, a cloud ERP solution, drives productivity across diverse parts of the business, enables best practices, and helps optimize key business processes in the newly spun-off enterprise. With SAP managing and optimizing the cloud ERP, embecta’s IT team has more time to work on business initiatives instead of technical operations. embecta also adopted SAP Business Technology Platform as, according to LoRusso, “the central nervous system of our overall architecture.” SAP Integration Suite helps it connect both SAP software and third-party systems with its IT landscape. Meanwhile, the SAP Datasphere solution lets it unify and harmonize data across on-premise and cloud solutions through an enterprise data hub, and the SAP Analytics Cloud solution enables unified analytics and planning capabilities.
What’s more, integrating SAP Analytics Cloud with the private edition of SAP S/4HANA Cloud for group reporting provides embecta with on-demand insights, a comprehensive groupwide view, and agile business steering.
RISE with SAP allowed embecta to adopt a clean core strategy and minimize customization for a faster transition and access to continuous innovations. LoRusso explains, “We were able to move from a traditional design-and-build implementation to a verify, test, and implement approach. Once we started to implement around the regions, we could stabilize more quickly because the technology already worked as a very cohesive platform with minimal customization.”
Transitioning successfully while helping ensure stability for patients
Thanks to RISE with SAP, embecta has successfully separated from its parent while maintaining a consistent supply of injection devices for its customers and the people they serve. About 93% of the business already operates on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, and the company runs almost all its back-office business processes on SAP solutions.
According to Kurdikar, “We are well on our journey toward completing that separation, and our partnership with SAP is an important part of that. We deployed a suite of solutions that allowed us to become independent of our parent without disrupting supply to our patients and customers. That’s been a really important accomplishment for us as a company.”
Tight integration between the private edition of SAP S/4HANA Cloud for group reporting and SAP Analytics Cloud lets embecta plan and forecast accurately with sophisticated analytics tools and consolidate financial data smoothly. Consolidation logic in the planning data provides real-time visibility into financial health and performance across different areas, aiding data consistency and reliability. And the ability to swiftly make data-driven decisions empowers the company to react quickly to market changes, enhancing its agility and competitive edge. This holistic approach not only streamlines the financial consolidation process but also optimizes strategic planning and operational efficiency across the company.
A better overview of order cycles helps embecta provide better customer service. Kurdikar says, “Our partnership with SAP enabled us to implement a single global platform with the right analytical tools. This provides real-time visibility into the cycle of when we receive an order, when it arrives at a distribution center, when it’s shipped, and when we invoice. I’ve been in the industry for almost 30 years, and this is the first time I’ve seen this kind of real-time information in a single screen on a dashboard.”
On the transition, LoRusso adds, “If you think about a people, process, and technology triangle, implementing a solution that is technologically very stable allowed us to focus on the people and the process aspects of the implementation. In many ways, our expectations were exceeded in terms of the stability achieved.”
Reducing the impact of diabetes using intelligent technology
Once the spin-off from its parent is fully realized, embecta can concentrate on using technology to continuously enhance its offerings for patients.
For instance, Kurdikar notes that the company can now use the vast amounts of internal company data created by its new IT systems to become more operationally efficient and better serve customers and patients. When asked about the application of advanced technologies such as AI, he remarks, “We will be able to understand what a person’s individual diabetes journey has been and come up with predictions on what actions might help them best. Over time, that is going to allow us to progress toward our vision of a life unlimited by diabetes.”