Soulbrain Co. Ltd., a mid-sized manufacturer of high-tech industry core materials in Korea, has deployed SAP S/4HANA and SAP Concur solutions as part of its enterprise-wide digital transformation. The SAP ERP implementation project has helped strengthen the company’s vision of “building a better future through convergence” by standardising IT processes, improving operational efficiency, and enhancing productivity.
The penetration of the cloud market continues to accelerate along with the rapid rise of the new digital economy caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic. In Korea, SAP’s cloud strategy seems to have worked well as the company recorded a 2.9{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} growth in sales and a 68.5{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} increase in profit last year. According to Lee Seong-yeol, Chief Executive Officer at SAP Korea, the company is supplying almost all of its products, including SAP ERP (enterprise resource planning), under the ‘cloud first’ policy. He explained:
“In particular, many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are newly introducing cloud-based ERP. In the case of upgrading to S/4HANA, the next-generation ERP of the company, or switching from using a third-party product, most choose the cloud method.”
Furthermore, Lee emphasised that it has become increasingly important for organisations to introduce a standardised process to increase operational efficiencies. He noted that SAP ERP is used as a global standard so companies are adopting it quickly without hesitation. Adding to the growing list of companies utilising solutions from the enterprise software giant is Soulbrain — a company that manufactures semiconductor and electronic related chemical materials with a customer base in both domestic and overseas markets, including the United States, China, and Malaysia.
Just recently, the South Korean branch of SAP has announced that it will support Soulbrain’s business transformation using several solutions such as SAP S/4HANA, SAP Concur, and SAP Fiori. Lee said that Soulbrain’s successful transition to the next-generation ERP platform is a good case reference for companies that want to take on the same path or consider converting SAP ECC to S/4HANA.
“We plan to introduce Soulbrain’s successful ERP upgrade cases to several global customers in the future,” the SAP Korea CEO stated.
Soulbrain Korea Drives Innovation With SAP ERP Implementation
Soulbrain initially migrated the old SAP ECC version to S/4HANA, which is based on an in-memory database, and then moved the entire SAP system to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud. With the help of long-standing SAP Partner and technology consultancy BSG Partners, the company also utilised the intelligent applications of SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), including the SAP Fiori UI platform and SAP Integration Suite.
BSG Partners aims to deliver value to customers by leveraging various enterprise Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud-based infrastructure and technological expertise. Commenting on the collaboration with Soulbrain, Dae-hyun Oh, Executive Vice President at BSG, said:
“Based on our long experience in SAP and AWS, we have built trust as a strategic partner to support innovation in Soulbrain’s company-wide business processes, including research, purchasing, production, sales, sales, and human resources.”
Meanwhile, Soulbrain Co. Ltd. Director Gu Min said that with the support of top management, the projects are so far displaying tangible results such as strengthening the company’s capabilities in each field. He maintained:
“We will continue to think about how to use the new IT for management in the future.”
The SAP ERP implementation and deployment of other SAP solutions helped Soulbrain to achieve the following results:
- Standardised and transformed company-wide IT processes by maximising the use of data.
- Minimised system building and operating costs, as well as secured the agility of IT assets.
- Enhanced quality and improved productivity by reducing the defect rate.
- Increased operational efficiency by analysing key challenges during the manufacturing process to reflect data-based improvement results.
- Visualising management data in real-time for better decision-making and future-proofing.
Finally, the introduction of SAP Concur solutions assisted Soulbrain in integrating and managing all aspects of financial expenses, including expense processing, business trips, and tax invoice processing, in order to maximise expense management efficiency and reduce costs caused by errors at all levels.
