Metsä Board Streamlines and Harmonizes its Global SAP System

ONE Landscape

In the course of a strategic reorientation, Finnish fiber paperboard producer Metsä Board (headquarters in Espoo near Helsinki) has implemented a clean-up and harmonization of its business processes and data. With cbs’ support, the company completed a 12-month cLeanERP project with the aim of establishing ONE Landscape; a consistent, globally uniform system landscape. Metsä Board deleted application data and organizational units that were no longer needed, including company codes and controlling areas, and, for the remaining 22 active company codes, it harmonized the charts of account and aligned them to the central financial system of the parent company. In addition, the company merged 19 controlling areas into one, and reduced 11 company codes down to two. Cost center and profit center structures were also harmonized. In addition to solutions from the SAP Landscape Transformation tool, the special software cbs ET Enterprise Transformer was used for customer-specific requirements.

The project went smoothly thanks to cbs’ many years of experience with transformation projects and the standardized tools. Standard solutions, such as the deletion of entire company codes, were rolled out with very little implementation effort. “The project success was attributable to a strong combination of standardized transformation solutions and cbs’ proprietary software for our individual requirements. Production system migrations were implemented within a few hours over the weekend and therefore had no impact on day-to-day operations,” says a satisfied Katja Naatsaari, Head of ICT. Feedback has therefore been entirely positive: “Besides providing us with custom solutions for data transformation, the cbs consultants offered quality professional support at all times; for example, with the profit center reporting adjustments and ABAP developments.”

Metsä Board now has a standardized and consolidated enterprise platform that is aligned with its current business strategy. The fiber paperboard manufacturer is now benefiting from the structural improvements to its overall organization associated with having become a model ONE Global Corporation. With its streamlined SAP system, Metsä Board is able to better manage the business and implement future strategic changes in a more agile manner.