Fonterra, Mitre 10 collect SAP transformation awards for A/NZ

Two major Kiwi cooperatives tackle multi-year digital transformations with SAP.

Comments

New Zealand companies Fonterra and Mitre 10 starred at ERP vendor SAP's Best Run Awards for A/NZ.

Dairy cooperative giant Fonterra collected the “Best Run SAP Intelligent ERP – Cloud” gong while Mitre 10 podiumed in the “Best Run SAP Experience Management” category.

The awards celebrated the achievements of the top companies and people in New Zealand and Australia using SAP products to turn insight into action, drive innovation, and transform their businesses, SAP said.

They are open to any customers and partners using SAP products or technologies, with participants needing to emphasise new ways of thinking, disruptive use cases and deployments that sets the benchmark for their industry and "make the world run better".

It appears Fonterra is making progress on modernising and transforming what was in 2020 a fractured application landscape.

"We still run a fairly bespoke, customised set of legacy processes and therefore systems and integrations," chief technology officer Toby Granwal told Reseller News as the cooperative went live on HCL's IaaS service.

"We've still got SAP, still got JDE, a lot of custom applications, we've got multiple instances of SAP. A lot probably hasn't changed much."

It was important the cooperative address that, he said, but with HCL it had prioritised the foundational layer – infrastructure.

"That will earn us the right to talk about what to do from an ERP and application transformation perspective," Granwal said.

Later that year, the cooperative became the first major client for Microsoft's new NZ data centre region.

“The Microsoft partnership forms part of a wider set of strategic partnerships between Fonterra, Microsoft, EY, SAP, and HCL focused on fundamentally reshaping how Fonterra delivers IT," CIO Piers Shore said.

The new platform aimed to bring together all parts of Fonterra and build a culture around data, he said.

Capturing and integrating data across the organisation would create a foundation for actionable insight and enable Fonterra to deepen its relationships with farmers and customers, optimise its supply chain and manufacturing operations and deliver better products and services.

Asbjorn Aakjaer, programme director for the project at Mitre 10, last year said the business was two years into a business-wide transformation named Programme One.

It included a refresh of all the IT systems used to serve its 85 stores, owned by 64 people, and will result in an entirely new technology stack.

“We’ve set about to change everything, from the foundation all the way up, including the way we work and the systems that support our work, with a focus on our customers and team members,” Aakjaer said.

Winners were announced at an award ceremony which took place at Hinchcliff House in Sydney’s Circular Quay, hosted by managing director of SAP A/NZ, Damien Bueno and head of industries Pete Andrew.

“The quality of nominations for the SAP Best Run Awards 2022 demonstrates the innovation and agility of our customers and partners across Australia and New Zealand," Bueno said, thanking the judges and congratulating the winners.

The winners are:

Best Run SAP Intelligent ERP Enterprise
Winner: Origin, with DXC Technology

Best Run SAP Intelligent ERP - Cloud
Winner: Fonterra