Who is Maison Johanès Boubée?
Maison Johanès Boubée is a still and sparkling wine merchant with bottling, logistics and export activities. A subsidiary of the Carrefour group, its head office is located in Bordeaux. Its 6 warehouses (including 3 bottling sites), spread throughout France, enable it to be present in all wine-growing regions. As a major player in the French wine industry, MJB covers all aspects of the sector (sourcing, bulk wine purchasing, bottling, procurement, logistics).
MJB employs over 600 people and has achieved sales of 986 million euros in 2021.
The genesis of the project
SAP ECC6 and APO have been MJB’s sales management and sales forecasting solutions since 2005. Since then, the solution and functional processes have evolved little, and were no longer optimized and adapted to new business requirements.
In this context, the announced obsolescence of SAP ECC6 (end of maintenance on December 31, 2027) was an opportunity for MJB to build the foundations of its new information system.
In March 2022, MJB therefore launched a consultation with several SAP integrators on the market to carry out the transition from SAP ECC6 to SAP S/4HANA. MJB chose Applium in July 2022.
For Nicolas Augier, in charge of Information Systems at MJB, the pragmatism and commitment of Applium’s proposal were decisive in the choice of integrator: ” We chose Applium for its pragmatic approach and strong project management commitments, which reassured us. They also agreed to pilot the actions carried out by SAP as part of the S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition (RISE) offering, on which we were still lacking experience at the time “.
Challenges and objectives
Conversion to S/4HANA is the starting point for a business transformation project, with the following challenges:
Business process optimization challenges:
- maximize the standard functionalities of the S/4HANA solution to optimize and harmonize practices,
- reduce low value-added tasks,
- provide more integrated tools for better collaboration between partners and customers,
- improve user experience,
- maintain or improve productivity and business process automation.
Technological challenges :
- pursue and develop the digitization of business processes,
- anticipate business and market changes,
- reduce the number of specific functions by exploring S/4 HANA’s standard functionalities,
- migrate infrastructures supporting SAP to a private cloud
Maison Johanès Boubée set itself the following objectives for this project:
- use SAP/4HANA as a performance driver,
- define a replacement solution for the APO tool (at end-of-life) and adapt business processes and tools accordingly,
- migrate infrastructures to a Cloud service to optimize costs and guarantee the security, availability and scalability of infrastructures supporting SAP.
Source and target environments:
In terms of approach, MJB opted for a Brownfield-type SAP conversion project, accompanied by functional upgrades, in particular to SAP Integrated Business Planning, and technical and architectural simplifications.
As overall prime contractor for the project, Applium notably took responsibility for managing the activities of the SAP RISE teams and securing all migration operations.
| Startup environment | Environment after migration |
| SAP ECC6 EHP 7 Modules FI/CO, SD, MM, LE, PP-PI, QM Oracle Database 19.9 | SAP S/4HANA 2022 Private Cloud Edition (RISE) Hana 2.0 database |
| IBM datacenter hosting | Microsoft Azure datacenter hosting (managed by SAP as part of the RISE contract) |
| Historical SAP Gui user interface | Integration of all standard and specific transactions in the new SAP Fiori user interface (no more SAP Gui for users) |
| Numerous interfaces, particularly with Carrefour Group applications, based on aging solutions | SAP Integration Suite for all interfaces and SAP Cloud ALM for monitoring |
| SAP APO | SAP Integrated Business Planning |
| Kofax/ReadSoft (Cockpit…) | Latest versions of Kofax/ReadSoft solutions (Cockpit…) |
| SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.3 | SAP BusinessObjects BI 4.3 on the new RISE infrastructure, pointing directly to the new production HANA database |
| SAP Solution Manager + Contol M | SAP Cloud ALM |
MJB chose to rely on the SAP Enable Now Cloud solution during the project to support the change management of users switching from an SAP Gui world to SAP Fiori tiles, by providing them with a pedagogical and interactive support.
From a methodological point of view, Applium relied on :
- The 10Steps2S4 method for the conversion from SAP ECC6 to SAP S/4HANA
- The method SAP Activate for the new functionalities and processes implemented
Feedback from Maison Johanès Boubée
After a 9-month project, the operational launch of the new SAP solutions took place over the Pentecost long weekend. The solution was available to MJB users from 5 a.m. on May 30, 2023.
For Nicolas Augier, the project was a real success, both from the point of view of the schedule and budget, both of which were respected, and the quality of the new solution delivered. ” Applium was able to demonstrate its expertise, advice and proactivity in the face of the various difficulties inherent in the complexity of the project ” he points out.
With hindsight, MJB is also pleased to have entrusted Applium with the management of exchanges with SAP as part of the S/4HANA Private Cloud (RISE) offering: “ Applium made it possible to streamline the actions and technical gestures carried out by the various interlocutors on the SAP side. Their mastery of the particularities of the SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud offering, and more generally of SAP Cloud solutions, was decisive in the success of the project ” Nicolas Augier points out.
Of course, such success would not have been possible without the MJB teams ” The rigor of the MJB teams during the acceptance phases and their constructive approach throughout the project were decisive for the respect of the schedule and the quality of the solution ” says Mickaël Roose, Head of Applium’s S/4HANA conversion offering ” SURFtoS/4 “.Alix Ponsada, Applium’s Managing Director adds : ” I’m proud of MJB’s confidence in Applium’s teams, demonstrated once again by this project. This project is an opportunity for us to demonstrate how deeply we are immersed in our customers’ solutions, and their challenges, while providing expertise and the ability to secure projects. “
