In January 2023, Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd made a significant move towards its digital transformation strategy. Collaborating with PwC Consulting LLC and SAP Japan Co. Ltd, the company integrated SAP S/4HANA—a globally acclaimed ERP solution—into its operations. This milestone was achieved by deploying the solution across three of Yamaha’s domestic entities, including its headquarters. (InsideSAP Asia often references articles from websites in other languages to bring you as much information as possible.)

Furthermore, Yamaha’s decision to adopt SAP S/4HANA reflects the company’s dedication to its digital transformation initiative with SAP. Yamaha has been systematically embedding this sophisticated ERP platform into its management operations since 2019. This integration has also played a pivotal role in their drive towards data-driven management and global operational standardization.

Laying the Foundation for its Digital Transformation with SAP

The integration of SAP S/4HANA has been a central part of Yamaha’s digital transformation strategy. This powerful ERP solution offers a suite of tools that optimize and streamline operations across multiple domains. By leveraging SAP S/4HANA, Yamaha has further equipped itself with the capabilities to process large volumes of data, derive insights, and make more informed, strategic decisions.

Moreover, Yamaha’s digital transformation strategy hinged on the innovative ‘Fit to Standard’ method during the SAP S/4HANA roll-out. This approach ensures that operations are aligned with global standard functions, reducing the need for additional features. This method has proven instrumental in facilitating a smooth transition from Yamaha’s legacy systems to more modern, stable, and efficient operational structures.

PwC Consulting: A Strategic Ally in Yamaha’s Journey

As Yamaha embarked on its Digital Transformation with SAP, PwC Consulting’s vast experience in global ERP implementations was crucial. PwC developed a global template that covered Yamaha’s headquarters and enabled the seamless introduction of SAP S/4HANA across three Yamaha entities domestically.

PwC’s global template was instrumental in supporting over 140 bases across four regions—Japan, North America, Europe, and Asia—in five business areas, namely sales, logistics, purchasing, production, and accounting. This template offers a standardized operational and system framework that consolidates and visualizes management information, enabling efficient and strategic decision-making.

In 2022, PwC Consulting LLC and SAP Japan also collaborated to advance customer data solutions in response to changing personal data regulations and the global business environment. Their co-innovation partnership focused on providing consulting services and solutions to Japanese companies and local governments. It also leveraged the companies’ combined expertise in SAP’s Customer Data solutions for customer ID and access management and PwC’s consulting services on data utilization, customer experience, and personal data protection.

The Road Ahead: Yamaha’s Future Ambitions

Following the successful implementation of SAP S/4HANA, Yamaha Motor is looking to the future. The company further plans to delve deeper into digital marketing, develop connected products, and make a strategic shift towards a customer-centric business model. Additionally, Yamaha is also focusing on co-creation with society and customers and intends to refine its R&D system with a focus on digital technology. These strategic initiatives encapsulate Yamaha’s long-term vision for 2030— “ART for Human Possibilities – People can be happier.”

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PwC Consulting LLC (PwC Consulting), a long-standing partner of SAP, has collaborated with SAP Japan to further the advancement of customer data solutions to keep pace with the rapidly evolving personal data regulations and global business landscape. (InsideSAP Asia often references articles from websites in other languages to bring you as much information as possible.) The co-innovation partnership is centered on offering consulting services and solutions to Japanese companies and local governments leveraging the two companies’ products and field expertise such as SAP Customer Data solutions for customer ID and access management and PwC consulting services on data utilization, customer experience, and personal data protection.

“We are very pleased to announce the start of a partnership in the field of customer data solutions between SAP Japan and PwC Consulting,” Kenji Katsura, Senior Managing Executive Officer Partner of PwC Consulting LLC announced. “The collaboration between PwC Consulting and SAP Japan has been around for 30 years since the company entered the Japanese market. However, until now, the majority of our collaboration has been in the area of core systems such as accounting and human resources.”

PwC Consulting and SAP’s alliance have been delivering transformative solutions to organizations worldwide, harnessing PwC’s deep industry knowledge and end-to-end consulting and SAP implementation capabilities including in SAP Finance, SAP S/4HANA, and RISE with SAP. The SAP partner has been consistently recognized in several innovation awards such as the SAP Asia Pacific Japan Award for Partner Excellence 2022 for RISE with SAP; SAP Pinnacle Awards 2022 Winner in the Business Process Intelligence category; Best Run SAP Intelligent for ANZ – Business Process Transformation (ERP Subcategory) in partnership with NSW Department of Customer Service; and SAP Pinnacle Awards 2022 Winner in the Partner Application – SAP Business Technology Platform category for PwC Climate Excellence – Banking.

Elaborating on PwC’s latest innovation partnership with SAP Japan, Katsura added:

“PwC’s SAP business strengths for clients are not limited to the simple introduction of SAP products, but cross-departmental cooperation. It is possible to provide services that make full use of the method of “Business eXperience Technology (BXT)” that combines various technologies and specifically communicates to clients. This method will also be actively used in this alliance. We will continue to push forward.”

Advancing Customer Data Protection Software and Services

Hiroshi Tomita, Vice President, SAP Customer Experience Business Division , SAP Japan, highlighted that the pandemic has prompted companies to accelerate their digital transformation, including an emphasis on the urgency to enhance the customer experience across contact points. He detailed:

“By utilizing the consent management provided by SAP Customer Data solutions, we will help realize a world where customer data can be used more safely and securely, and a better customer experience based on customer consent can be realized. This time, by jointly promoting the concept formulation support service and personal information protection service provided by PwC Consulting, we will be able to provide total support from the formulation of personal information handling regulations to the introduction and operation of solutions. We were able to create a possible scheme.”

The SAP Japan and PwC service offerings are:

• Personal information protection/privacy protection and data utilization consulting in building business processes and systems

• SAP solution implementation support service

SAP Customer Data platform offer organizations revenue growth, risk protection, and scalability by connecting information across their enterprise. Specifically, the SAP Customer Data solutions for customer ID and access management builds customer loyalty while driving compliance support. The solution integrates separately managed customer IDs, centrally manages customer profiles while keeping them up-to-date and delivers customer-centered consent management.

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