To support its global growth strategy aimed at increasing its revenue to £100m by 2024, Briggs of Burton — an engineering company that delivers hygienic process designs to the brewing, distilling, food, and pharmaceutical sectors — has tapped SAP technology partner Sapphire Systems to implement SAP’s digital transformation platform.
RISE with SAP, one of SAP’s digital transformation platforms, has been selected by Briggs of Burton to maximise its operations’ visibility and transparency, efficiently manage projects, and provide comprehensive reporting. This latest move sets Briggs of Burton as the first organisation in the UK to sign up for the software giant’s Business Transformation as a Service milestone offering.
Designed to help enterprises facing challenges in moving from on-premise legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, RISE with SAP aims to combine all aspects of transformation to integrate and simplify business processes.
In the case of Briggs of Burton, it needed to replace an outdated legacy system with new ERP capabilities to help with the development and engineering of hygiene-led facilities across several industries including brewing, distilling, food, pharmaceutical, biotech, and industrial.
The project is set to go live by the end of 2021, following a six-month deployment, managed by digital operating platform provider Sapphire Systems. Commenting on the collaboration, Briggs of Burton Finance Director Nathan Beddoe said:
“Sapphire Systems helped us to review all of SAP’s platforms in granular detail, drawing upon the team’s extensive experience of SAP deployments, to ensure we opted for the best fit for our future business requirements. As well as helping us to create a robust business case from which to help secure buy-in from stakeholders across the organisation, they guided us fully on the best path to seeing maximum value from our investment in SAP S/4HANA Cloud.”
Briggs of Burton Chooses SAP to Guide its Global Expansion
Briggs of Burton, a process engineering specialist that has a long history in the brewing and distilling industries, has been acquired by CIMC ENRIC Holdings in 2016 to complement its advantage in food equipment that is focused on beer brewing. Some of Briggs of Burton’s recent projects include a large-scale yeast manufacturing facility in China and a brewhouse for Carlton & United Breweries in Australia — where the craft beer market growth can be attributed to the increasing number of breweries in the country.
In an interview with Computer Weekly, Beddoe has confirmed that Briggs of Burton plans to set up an office in Shanghai. He also mentioned that its parent company, which is listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, is an SAP customer.
“We are moving from being a UK-centric business to being global, especially in parts of Asia and South America, where the market is growing. And that is a significant change, so this is a backbone to being able to do that,” Beddoe stated.
Expounding on Briggs of Burton’s decision to select RISE with SAP and adopt SAP S/4HANA on a cloud model with Sapphire Systems as its implementation partner, Beddoe further said:
“They (Sapphire Systems) paid close attention to understand all our specific needs and nuances, both those specific to our business and those of our parent company in China, and worked closely with us to scope out the best, most efficient platform for digital transformation, and indeed the best methodology to support our journey.”
Leveraging SAP’s Digital Transformation Solutions
Moreover, access to Ariba Network — SAP’s business-to-business (B2B) marketplace — is included in the RISE with SAP package. Beddoe said that this is a platform that opens up opportunities for Briggs of Burton in terms of procurement. He explained:
“A lot of the things that we need to eke out the best margins for our business, in terms of how we bid for work, how we approach suppliers, and so on, is not available in our current system.”
In the press statement, Sapphire Systems CEO Ian Caswell noted that their group opted for SAP S/4HANA Cloud because it has embedded artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning capabilities. He added:
“As a result of selecting RISE with SAP, and adopting SAP S/4HANA on a cloud model, we anticipate that Briggs will be live within just six months, allowing them to progress their transformational journey quickly, and pursue their growth plans underpinned by the very best platform for their business.”
