H.B. Fuller: Adhering to a clean core strategy on cloud ERP to help it execute a merger and acquisition strategy
Cloud migration bonds innovation and entrepreneurship
H.B. Fuller Company, a global leader in adhesives, stuck to an ambitious, large-scale migration to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition through the RISE with SAP journey, helping it quickly unlock the value of SAP Business Suite. And using SAP Signavio solutions and SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) primed the company for efficiency and nimbler mergers and acquisitions.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Chemicals | St. Paul, Minnesota | 75,000 employees |
savings estimated through legacy infrastructure cost avoidance.
saved by eliminating the need for a physical data center.
countries using a single global instance of cloud ERP.
Global Director of SAP ERP, H.B. Fuller Company
Mitigating growing risks from legacy IT landscape expansion
H.B. Fuller is a leading global adhesives provider focused on perfecting adhesives, sealants, and other specialty chemical products to improve products and people’s lives. The company manufactures more than 20,000 products for a variety of applications at 81 manufacturing facilities in 26 countries across the world.
With a heritage spanning 135 years, H.B. Fuller’s commitment to innovation has paved the way for it to create products and processes that answer and solve some of the world’s biggest challenges. Found in everything from electronic devices and building materials to food packaging and disposable hygiene products, the company’s adhesive solutions are an integral part of most finished goods in the marketplace.
Key to H.B. Fuller’s continuing success is a targeted acquisition strategy to fuel growth, expand its network and market share, and bring in new talent and technology. The strategy also provides a framework for the company to optimize production efficiency.
In terms of operational resilience, H.B. Fuller was running 75% of its business across North and South America and Europe on a single instance of the SAP ERP application. Nearing the end of a service contract with its hosting provider, and with plans to continue rolling out the solution to the Asia region, the company was facing the prospect of a massive infrastructure upgrade. Seeking another way, H.B. Fuller decided the time was right to move to the cloud.
Nicholas Jackson, global director of SAP ERP, comments, “We needed to drastically simplify our landscape across the board, from project landscape to production landscapes. All the tools that come with RISE with SAP, such as SAP BTP and SAP Signavio, really take to you the next level in your journey. If we want to be aggressive, if we want to continue the commitment to SAP, we needed to make that step.”
Global Director of SAP ERP, H.B. Fuller Company
Migrating to the cloud guided by proven tools and processes
In line with its cloud-first strategy, H.B. Fuller opted to use RISE with SAP for its transformation to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. This business transformation as a service combines advanced ERP in the cloud with a proven methodology that includes processes, tools, and experts and aligns with the clean core concept. This strategy focuses on consuming the software as standard, helping lower total cost of ownership while supporting agility and simplifying the adoption of future innovations with faster access to upgrade cycles.
By moving to modern ERP software, the company has ongoing access to up-to-date business capabilities without technical debt. Operating in the cloud also makes it easier and faster to integrate new acquisitions to support a key part of its growth strategy.
The cloud transformation leads to lower total cost of ownership. By eliminating a data center and having a team from SAP run its environment with automation and proactive support, the internal team can take on more value-added activities. By moving to a modern tech stack, it’s also become easier to recruit top talent.
The comprehensive RISE with SAP journey covered business units located in 123 countries. It encompassed core finance processes, product lifecycle management, the SAP Environment, Health, and Safety Management application, the SAP Ariba Sourcing solution to manage indirect spend, and the SAP Concur portfolio.
Given the scale of the project requirements, H.B. Fuller put its trust in premium engagement offerings from SAP Services and Support, using the SAP MaxAttention program to guide a brownfield migration scenario. And by adopting a clean core strategy, H.B. Fuller could keep the underlying SAP applications as standard while making use of the powerful extensibility options provided by SAP BTP.
As the company began its transformation to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition globally, H.B. Fuller also invested in business process transformation using SAP Signavio solutions to provide process insights.
Global Director of SAP ERP, H.B. Fuller Company
Sealing its spirit for innovation in the cloud
By migrating to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition using RISE with SAP, H.B. Fuller simplified its IT landscape and avoided additional technical debt and the prospect of spending approximately $1.5 million on an infrastructure upgrade. The company gained process insights to streamline processes, reduce redundant operations, and maximize data consistency.
RISE with SAP provides a clear journey to SAP Business Suite, which brings together AI capabilities, data, and core business applications from SAP. And the advanced ERP in the cloud provides a flexible foundation for accelerating the integration of new companies, enabling H.B. Fuller to potentially unlock value from acquisitions faster and more efficiently.
In the new environment, H.B. Fuller can take advantage of recommended release upgrades from SAP, with three new features incorporated into new releases that are delivered every second year. Regular upgrades deliver overall project savings with shorter innovation times and fewer business disruptions while mitigating IT staff upskilling and reducing testing efforts.
And by adhering to the clean core concept in its brownfield migration, the company is now taking advantage of SAP BTP for integrations and extensions, keeping them strictly separate from the cloud ERP.
Despite the size, scope, and scale of the transformation project, the company achieved an on-time, on-schedule, and on-budget migration while vastly minimizing predicted downtime. Jackson comments, “Our original estimate of downtime was well north of 120 hours to 140 hours. Thanks to SAP MaxAttention, we restricted downtime from early morning European time on Friday until Sunday afternoon—just 52 hours in total.”
Support and enablement of H.B. Fuller’s transformation journey with RISE with SAP included implementing the SAP Document and Reporting Compliance solution for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition in six countries. Because the solution provides enhanced compliance and reporting capabilities across multiple countries, submitting statutory reports through its framework was a key part of the project scope. Jackson notes: “Document and reporting compliance was really a critical deliverable that most people don’t consider using SAP MaxAttention services for.”
Support also included proxy extensibility in the new cloud ERP environment and strategic migrations of tenants on SAP BTP from Amazon Web Services in the United States to Microsoft Azure in Europe. This not only helps improve system performance but also positions the company for growth in Europe.
Jackson believes the value delivered by SAP MaxAttention was instrumental to the success of the project: “Expertise provided by the team from SAP MaxAttention to understand our plan and identify where we could save time and what we could optimize was definitely a differentiator in our successful implementation.”
Collaboration from business process transformation teams and SAP MaxAttention resulted in process correction and innovation recommendations. Process insights from SAP Signavio solutions were used to aid delivery team decision-making in the implementation and go-live of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. Additional process insights analysis workshops were also held to empower H.B. Fuller’s team to use live procure-to-pay process insights to improve business processes.
Accelerating growth in its standardized business environment
By adhering to a clean core strategy that simplifies and improves SAP system management, H.B. Fuller is in a strong position to accelerate innovation and integrate its new acquisitions. The company is committed to continued agility and innovation by running the latest releases so it can take advantage of the new SAP standard innovations, including AI and sustainability features.
By minimizing customizations and staying close to standard, the company can speed innovation with faster upgrade cycles.
H.B. Fuller is also considering adopting advanced treasury and risk management tools through RISE with SAP. This will help smooth integration with trading platforms and allow it to make more strategic decisions with real-time and predictive cash insights.