"Extended greenfield approach" for Messe Düsseldorf

Germany is the world’s number one location for international trade fairs and Messe Düsseldorf is one of the world’s leading companies in the trade fair industry. In order to maintain and expand its position, the Messe Düsseldorf Group planned to migrate from SAP ECC 6.0 to SAP S/4HANA, SAP’s current ERP software suite as part of a comprehensive digitalization strategy.

“To tackle a project like this, you need a good partner – and that’s exactly what we found in GAMBIT,” says Stefanie Pulla, IT group manager at Messe Düsseldorf and project manager for the overall SAP S/4HANA migration project.

“As a first step, we commissioned GAMBIT to conduct a preliminary project, which we started at the end of 2020. We wanted to find out how we could achieve our strategic goals most effectively using SAP S/4HANA and also reduce complexity. We therefore examined several possible scenarios for the changeover in the preliminary project. We checked processes to assess their standardization potential. And we designed an initial system architecture.”

Before the changeover, the company used SAP ECC as the leading ERP core system for its core operational and administrative processes. The company was using (and still uses) the following core SAP components: materials management, maintenance, finance, controlling and – since order processing and invoicing of operational trade fair business are key activities for Messe Düsseldorf – sales.

The SAP ECC system landscape had been in use for more than 20 years and had been repeatedly enhanced throughout this period with features ranging from cockpits for streamlining and increasing efficiency in order creation to completely independent functions that are not part included in the standard SAP system. In addition, there was a high degree of integration with various peripheral systems – along with their respective interfaces.

In order to obtain an up-to-date picture of the current situation and a precise understanding of the strategic goals, the consultants conducted the preliminary analysis on the basis of GAMBIT’s own roadmap program.

In the course of the analysis, they interviewed a total of 13 stakeholders from management in strategy interviews. They also held several steering committees and workshops (dealing with topics like as-is process mapping, the SAP S/4HANA demo, and the technical implementation) as well as weekly consultations with project management – all of which took place completely remotely in video conferences.

“In total, we analyzed more than 600 processes and work steps in the preliminary project – which is an incredibly high number,” says Philipp Fischer, project manager at GAMBIT and project lead for the preliminary project.

“The detailed preliminary analysis laid the groundwork for the subsequent implementation project, because the results of the analysis served as a basis for decision-making and, together with the roadmap we developed, provided a concrete game plan for the subsequent switch to SAP S/4HANA.”

After the analysis, the decision makers at Messe Düsseldorf opted for one of the three scenarios that had been produced in the preliminary project: an “extended” greenfield approach consisting of an agile implementation in two migration waves.

The term “greenfield” describes a migration strategy where a new SAP S/4HANA system is implemented from scratch. Unlike a system conversion (or “brownfield” approach, which simply refers to an upgrade of the existing system), the greenfield approach and the use of SAP Best Practices enable companies to lay the foundation for a future-proof IT architecture that retains its flexibility in the long term. This approach solves existing pain points and eliminates the frequent problem of complex system landscapes that have evolved over years.

The extended greenfield approach at Messe Düsseldorf comprises a two-phase changeover scenario over a total of around 24 months. The new system is hosted in the cloud of the German provider plusserver.

The near-standard implementation is currently taking place in two stages:

• An initial phase in 2022 consisting of a “back office” migration for purchasing, maintenance, and finance and controlling
• A second phase consisting of a “sales” migration (including the entire operational trade fair business) in 2023 and the subsequent addition of processes with a high degree of customization

The fact that the processes are spread across two go-lives means that a transition period is necessary during which the previous SAP ECC system is connected to the new SAP S/4HANA system.

“We are using the GAMBIT SAP Activate Plus methodology to complete the implementation for Messe Düsseldorf. The ‘Plus’ in the name indicates that we have enhanced SAP’s Activate methodology with some service content that we felt was missing,” says Markus Gaganis, senior project manager at GAMBIT and project lead for the SAP S/4HANA implementation.

GAMBIT’s Activate Plus program rounds off the highly technical SAP content of SAP Activate by adding customer-specific and cross-application end-to-end processes as well as content relating to business and IT organization and change management.

Like with the SAP methodology, an SAP S/4HANA implementation using GAMBIT’s SAP Activate Plus methodology is divided into six phases: Discover (in other words, the pre-analysis), Prepare, Explore, Realize, Deploy, and Run. These individual phases are then subdivided into individual sections and categories.

Every SAP S/4HANA implementation starts with project preparation, which includes, for example, setting up project or change management, initial SAP S/4HANA training, and preparation of the demo system. And this is precisely what took place at Messe Düsseldorf during the first migration wave in 2022.

Finally, in the conception phase, stakeholders consider strategy and best-practice processes, design target processes, and map them in a model company. This phase may also include decisions regarding necessary process changes in the Process Change Advisory Board (PCAB).

“We also hold regular steering committee meetings to check whether we are still on track and whether any risks are present. We always look at the status of the budget and at the degree of completion or the milestones reached, so that we can intervene and readjust promptly if necessary,” explains Markus Gaganis from GAMBIT.

The technical conversion finally kicks off with the target system setup, essential and extended settings, and agile deployment of the processes. For Messe Düsseldorf, this took place at the beginning of June 2022 – around halfway through the first phase of the project. This is followed by training, live tests, and general trials, until the system is ready for commissioning with the organization cutover, the data transfer, the go-live and the final hypercare phase.

“We completed the first phase of implementation in 2022 – and went live on schedule on January 1, 2023,” says Stefanie Pulla of Messe Düsseldorf.

“Of course we had to overcome some hurdles in the project. That’s a normal part of any project of this size. But thanks to our internal team and our two external partners GAMBIT and plusserver, we managed to overcome every challenge that arose and are now well on the way to successfully managing the second phase as well. It is a partnership of equals, which is just the way we want it. Thanks to everyone in the team for all their tremendous efforts!”