Introducing Indorama Ventures
Headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand, Indorama Ventures is a world-class chemical company with a global integrated lead in PET and fibers, serving major customers in diversified end-use markets. Employing 26,000 people, the company has a huge global presence, operating in 34 countries and running 136 manufacturing facilities. Indorama Ventures’ reach is so extensive that one in five of the world’s plastic bottles contain high-quality PET resin manufactured by the company, and one in four airbags contain yarn spun by the company. Keen to build on its success, Indorama Ventures plans to grow its operations globally, while also supporting environmental, social and economic sustainability.
At-a-Glance
After years of growing its global operations, Indorama Ventures had developed a complex IT infrastructure comprising multiple ERP systems. To simplify core business processes, accelerate efficiency and reduce costs, the company is migrating its existing ERP systems to SAP S/4HANA, running on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP Applications. Once the solution is fully implemented, Indorama Ventures anticipates significant reductions in IT workloads and operational costs, while also strengthening strategic decision-making.
Targeting greater efficiency
In recent years, Indorama Ventures has expanded its operations by acquiring leading companies in the chemical manufacturing sector. Most of the time Indorama Ventures brings a new company into its group, it also inherits the systems and processes used by that entity to maintain business continuity.
Due to high-speed growth and a desire to improve business continuity, Indorama Ventures retained the core infrastructure and applications — everything from financial planning systems to enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions — of newly acquired companies.
Running multiple ERP solutions increased the workload of the company’s IT teams. Indorama Ventures recognized that consolidating its ERP environment and migrating it to the cloud would help to improve efficiency and simplify the management of its ERP landscape. To achieve this, Indorama Ventures launched an Aligned Systems and Processes (ASAP) project with the aim of standardizing key processes.
“Because SAP S/4HANA is an in-memory database and SLES for SAP Applications is optimized to support this feature, Indorama will be able to find key business information and generate reports much quicker than before. As a result, Indorama Ventures expects to improve overall business productivity.”
Searching for the best solution
To boost efficiency, Indorama Ventures decided to replace its existing ERP systems with SAP S/4HANA, which it would offer as a shared service across the entire company.
As an industry-leading platform, Indorama Ventures felt confident that SAP S/4HANA was the best option for a consolidated ERP system. 33% of the entities in Indorama Group already use SAP applications, so standardizing on SAP S/4HANA would reduce the need for additional training to get employees up to speed.
To ensure best practice throughout the implementation, Indorama Ventures teamed up with Accenture and CS Loxinfo to build, design and deploy its new SAP solutions on SLES for SAP Applications in a Microsoft Azure cloud environment.
SLES for SAP Applications came highly recommended by Accenture, and Accenture put Indorama Ventures in touch with other companies that use SUSE as the operating system for SAP S/4HANA. Every organization that the Indorama Ventures IT team spoke to was very satisfied with SUSE, which gave them confidence that they were choosing the best operating system for their needs.
Knowing that SUSE could provide local support was a huge plus, as Indorama Ventures wanted to ensure that SUSE could resolve any issues as quickly as possible. Thanks to the rock-solid stability of the SUSE operating system, the Indorama Ventures IT team have only ever had to call SUSE Support twice. Moreover, the company has never experienced any unplanned downtime.
Establishing a strong foundation for growth
Indorama Ventures is still in the process of rolling out its SAP S/4HANA on SLES for SAP Applications as part of its ASAP project. Once ASAP is complete, the company anticipates significant reductions in IT workloads and improvements in strategic decision-making.
Because SAP S/4HANA is an in-memory database and SLES for SAP Applications is optimized to support this feature, Indorama Ventures will be able to find key business information and generate reports much quicker than before. As a result, the company expects to improve overall business productivity.
Running leaner IT operations
By moving from multiple ERP systems to SAP S/4HANA, Indorama Ventures believes it will be able to reduce its overall ERP costs and enhance efficiency.
Creating a single, shared ERP solution gives Indorama Ventures the opportunity to reduce the licensing and operating costs associated with its previous infrastructure.
By adopting a shared-services model, Indorama Ventures also expects that each entity in its group will be able to carry out daily processes much more efficiently.
What’s next for Indorama Ventures?
By 2023, Indorama Ventures aims to have migrated all of its existing ERP systems to SAP S/4HANA running on SLES for SAP Applications, and the company is on track to meet this target.
Once Indorama Ventures’ ASAP project is complete and all ERP systems have been migrated to SAP S/4HANA, the company will have established more efficient, standardized processes across its operations. Moreover, if and when Indorama Ventures make future acquisitions, they will be much easier to integrate into its SAP environment. Ultimately, this puts the company in a much better position to continue to drive growth in the years ahead.