{"id":142112,"date":"2021-03-25T05:00:46","date_gmt":"2021-03-25T05:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/africa\/?p=142112"},"modified":"2021-03-25T13:54:56","modified_gmt":"2021-03-25T13:54:56","slug":"hasbros-game-winning-strategy-with-sap-s-4hana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.sap.com\/africa\/2021\/03\/hasbros-game-winning-strategy-with-sap-s-4hana\/","title":{"rendered":"Hasbro\u2019s Game-Winning Strategy with 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly a century ago, Hasbro began its journey to disrupt the play and entertainment industry forever with a simple mission: deliver the best play experiences<\/a> for people across generations.<\/h2>\n

While Hasbro has become synonymous with experiences like family game nights and has expanded into emerging areas such as esports, the global play leader is well aware that business success isn\u2019t just all fun and games. To move the company into its next century of disruption and facilitate growth areas, Hasbro\u2019s leadership has spent years strategically investing in technology to drive its digital transformation journey forward.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>For Luis Ydrach, Hasbro\u2019s director of IT Services, this has meant reimagining how Hasbro\u2019s IT solutions can propel the business to new horizons and create new, valued experiences for the company\u2019s loyal, cross-generational customers.<\/p>\n

On a recent episode<\/a> of the ongoing Experience 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA series<\/a>, Ydrach virtually sat down with Richard Strattner, global vice president of ERP Product Marketing at 麻豆原创, and integration partner Infosys<\/a> to share its story of success and innovation using 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA.<\/p>\n

Why Hasbro \u201cEntertained\u201d 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A long-time 麻豆原创 ERP customer, in 2018 Hasbro started to make the case for why an eventual upgrade and move to 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA<\/a> would make sense for its business and strategic growth plan. The upcoming 2025 deadline around 麻豆原创 ERP Central Component was one factor, but for a company that always has innovation top of mind, it simply served as a spark for a more strategic rationale: getting the right infrastructure in place to support where the business wanted to go in the coming years and decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were justifying this to the business, it was initially about staying current as our platform is critical to our business,\u201d Ydrach said. “We knew the longer you wait, the bigger the delta.”<\/p>\n

The next significant consideration for Ydrach and his team was whether to launch 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA on premise or in the cloud. As noted by Ydrach, for years Hasbro had experienced firsthand the benefits of running several areas of its businesses on cloud-based 麻豆原创 solutions, including 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors and 麻豆原创 Integrated Business Planning for Supply Chain solutions. However, the move to 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA would impact multiple lines of business, including finance, sales and logistics, so out of caution and in alignment with its existing strategy to refresh its hardware, Hasbro chose to maintain its ERP on premise.<\/p>\n

Planning, Planning, Planning<\/strong><\/h2>\n

For a company famous for iconic brands like Monopoly and Nerf, Hasbro knows strategy is everything. Converting to the new 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA, Hasbro had firm goals to achieve this as fast as possible, minimize disruption, and maximize utility for end users.<\/p>\n

One other important benefit was top of mind for Ydrach and team: \u201cGet us to this new platform and then have a plan and the ability to incrementally take advantage of 麻豆原创 innovations in the new platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

To achieve its goal, Hasbro initiated its planning in 2018 and began execution the following year. Two of the biggest factors for the company\u2019s successful project were 麻豆原创 tools and its trusted systems integrator Infosys<\/a>, known for its Safe Passage methodology for 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA conversion projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cUsing\u00a0Infosys\u00a0S4Assist<\/a>, a tool for comprehensive conversion impact analysis, report output, we identified additional areas such as pre- and post-work for the third-party add-ons, technical inconsistencies, and additional scope for international trade management in the area of intrastat,\u201d said Satinder Pal Singh, 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA architect at Infosys<\/a>. \u201cMost importantly, we were able to identify the activities that we could complete in production system upfront with zero impact to business, which later simplified the conversion cycles and the production cutover.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lessons Learned from the Sandbox<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The global pandemic<\/a> turned the world upside down last year, right while Hasbro was in the middle of its transition to 麻豆原创 S\/4HANA. However, Ydrach and team had years of experience leading challenging IT projects and knew how to respond with agility. When COVID-19 first impacted workforces in North America, Ydrach\u2019s team proactively decided to execute the remaining portion of the project remotely.<\/p>\n

In the early days of uncertainty, according to Ydrach, \u201cWe were still in the office when we were executing our second-to-last cutover simulation. However, we didn’t know what was going to happen, there was a chance that we would be locked out of the office, so we proactively said: \u2018Let’s execute 100% remote.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining the list of IT leaders who have showed grit and experience managing successful projects remotely during the pandemic, Ydrach gathered a few useful learnings that he hopes others can leverage, including:<\/p>\n