FREYR: Scaling up clean battery production to accelerate decarbonization using a flexible technology foundation in the cloud
Explore FREYR’s journey with SAP
As an emerging leader in sustainable lithium-ion batteries, FREYR Battery needed a robust and scalable technology footing to support its plans. To help achieve its ambitions, FREYR chose SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition as part of the GROW with SAP for scaleups program.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Professional services and industrial manufacturing | Founded in Norway – Global presence | ~200 employees |
Head of Controlling/IT and Administration, FREYR Battery
Powering a global growth trajectory with best practices in the cloud
FREYR Battery offers a clean solution to the rapidly growing global demand for high-density and cost-competitive battery cells for stationary energy storage, electric mobility, and marine applications. The company is targeting the production of environmentally friendly battery cells through a business model intended to maximize long-term value creation and unlock sustainable, superior returns for its stakeholders.
When setting the stage for its initial public offering (IPO) and to ready the business for expansion into the United States, FREYR sought a modern business foundation. It needed to embrace the optimal way of doing things, from best practices in business processes and reporting to setting up new factories and hiring new people. In readiness for its public listing, accurate and reliable financial reporting was essential to achieve Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance.
Chief Digital Officer, FREYR Battery
Realizing plans for industrial-scale battery cell production globally
FREYR decided to invest in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition as part of the GROW with SAP for scaleups program. FREYR first focused on its finance and procurement operations before shaping logistics, warehousing, and manufacturing processes. Morten Grimsø, head of controlling/IT and administration at FREYR, comments, “I was impressed by the range of capabilities combined in one solution. Compliance with SOX and the ability to implement the architecture were important factors in our decision to use a public cloud offering.”
Next, the company turned its attention to adoption speed, agility, and specific functionality to be embedded into processes. Beyond serving its finance operations, this robust and scalable technology foundation is intended to support manufacturing and warehousing activities, including materials planning and ensuring the availability of materials needed for battery production processes.
To support the implementation, FREYR worked with teams for the SAP Value Assurance service first and later SAP ActiveAttention services from SAP Services and Support’s premium engagements portfolio. Together, SAP and FREYR mapped a strategic architecture aligned with industry best practices. They also developed a clear road map outlining the phased integration of essential business capabilities needed to achieve FREYR’s ambitious goals.
Grimsø adds, “Starting with the digital discovery assessment tool and leveraging the SAP Activate process helped us move quickly into our implementation.”
Head of Controlling/IT and Administration, FREYR Battery
Accelerating sustainable growth without increasing complexity
FREYR rapidly implemented its finance foundation on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, public edition with capabilities for warehousing, maintenance, and production processes to serve its industrial-scale clean battery cell production. The company now has access to data across its manufacturing processes, giving its people rich insights to help it continuously improve its operations and its solutions in line with its sustainability goals.
The speed that advanced ERP can be embedded into an organization can be the source of significant commercial advantage for a startup, according to William Dennett, chief digital officer at FREYR. “We designed and implemented the finance module in its first iteration in three months,” he says.
“At the same time, our operations team has benefited from the speed of the implementation. As a startup, we knew that having standardized processes from the very beginning was an advantage. We avoided having to design everything from scratch and then go through a business engineering process to roll it out. With a set of best practices to follow, our operations can be compliant with best practices from the get-go.”
Dennett adds, “We used an iterative minimum viable product (MVP) approach, and cloud solutions from SAP lend themselves to that way of working. As SAP has a toolbox, using our MVP approach allowed us to turn on core functionality at the right time to meet requirements and then adopt more functionality organically as our needs grew.”
Thanks to prebuilt architecture and support for proven best practices and processes, the solution can reduce complexity, easing the switch from test to production.
In terms of meeting its strategic goals, this robust and scalable architecture allows FREYR to bring new plants online quickly and enables the company to add new functionality with ease during times of critical development. With bank integration up and running, the solution is already supporting its financial and procurement operations and joint venture initiatives in the United States ahead of commencing manufacturing activities.