The Maïsadour Group’s seeds division wanted to equip its S&OP process to make reconciliations between demand and supply more reliable and faster. TeamWork’s teams were chosen to deploy the SAP Integrated Business Planning solution.
An agricultural cooperative located in the south-west of France, Maïsadour is a group with a very wide international reach, with its more than 200 sites around the world. In its 2022-2023 financial year, the group achieved a turnover of €1.475 billion, through its 68 companies, in which a total of 4300 employees work.
MAS Seeds is one of the pillars of the group, focusing on the design, production and distribution of seeds:
• €210 million in revenue (2022-2023 financial year), 80% of which was generated outside France;
• Sales in more than 50 countries through its 13 subsidiaries;
• 880 employees and 500 farmers who are experts in seed production;
• Significant R&D: 10% of MAS Seeds’ global turnover.
A tool to secure the S&OP process
“For the past twenty years, we have been growing, whether in terms of volume of activity, territorial coverage or diversification of our seed catalogue,” explains Mireille Laborde, Supply Chain Manager at MAS Seeds. “We are constantly expanding our scope and our offer, but in a context that is becoming increasingly volatile. To address this, we need to improve information sharing, risk analysis and decision-making. That’s why we decided to implement an S&OP process”.
An interesting feature is that the MAS Seeds teams initially decided to set up this process without any specific tools. “However, we quickly wanted to support this process with a dedicated tool,” says Fabien Guillé, Head of the Forecast to Stock and Procure to Pay functional areas within the MAS Seeds IT department. “With the process already in place, the business teams were very motivated to support this project, with high expectations.”
At the same time, the IT department wanted to replace some end-of-life applications, including SAP APO and the company’s business forecasting management tool. A detailed set of specifications was produced, followed by a call for tenders. “On the business side, the SAP IBP (SAP Integrated Business Planning) solution ticked all the boxes, especially with its Excel environment,” says Mireille Laborde.
A large functional scope covered in a few months
At the end of the consultation, SAP IBP and TeamWork were chosen. “TeamWork is an important player in the SAP world, and more particularly in SAP IBP,” notes Fabien Guillé. We had called on Dowap (a company now a subsidiary of TeamWork) for our SAP APO deployment. We also regularly work with TeamWork on SAP topics.”
The first workshops are launched in November 2022, with the aim of going live with the solution at the end of the accounting year, i.e. in May 2023. This is a particularly short time, for a tool that covers a wide scope: S&OP, forecast management, production master plan, etc. “Integrating the calculation of financial indicators into the solution allows us to enhance the value of the forecast instantaneously,” says Fabien Guillé.
This design phase results in the delivery of a blueprint at the end of 2022. The teams then work in agile mode, with four one-month development sprints, each validated by unit tests. All this was followed by an intense three-week testing and adjustment phase.
A big bang deployment on all MAS Seeds subsidiaries
SAP IBP was put into operation at the beginning of June across the entire scope and all the group’s subsidiaries. A solution focused on the company’s two flagship productions: corn and sunflower.
“Our general management was very involved in the project and insisted that the teams be trained as soon as possible in the operation of the SAP IBP solution, with sessions organised in May, in French and English. This made the switchover easier and now allows users to fully master the tool. says Mireille Laborde. “From the first workshops, we saw the benefits that SAP IBP would bring us, and we are not disappointed with the result: This tool helps us a lot in our work of reconciling demand and supply, with reliable and continuously updated data.”
“After the hypercare phase, we signed a TMA contract with TeamWork,” says Fabien Guillé. “Since then, we have already implemented a few evolution batches. A larger batch covering all the group’s other seeds is also being tested and should be in production by May 2024. TeamWork is a partner we can count on to evolve our SAP IBP solution and keep it up and running”.
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