Ali Oezer - Rolling out SAP IBP, standardising globally, and building a centre of excellence

In this episode, Ben and Wim talk to Ali Oezer, end-to-end supply chain strategy lead at STADA. Ali spent 28 years at Procter & Gamble in customer service, manufacturing, procurement and supply network operations before joining STADA, where he first ran global supply planning for in-house operations.

He walks through STADA's move from APO to SAP IBP and the Digital Supply Chain module: why they chose it, how they picked the pilot, the two-wave rollout across 15 sites and around 500 contract manufacturers, the standard planning roles that came first, and the centre of excellence that will make them self-sufficient.

In this episode

• (00:43) A P&G career and the move to STADA's global standardisation journey
• (04:20) The three legs: systems, processes and organisation design
• (05:26) APO end of life: SAP postponed it five times, then the decision was clear
• (06:47) Why IBP: one platform, real-time integration, and "nobody is perfect"
• (08:32) Was SAP the default choice? How the vendor decision was made
• (11:00) Pilot, then two waves: 14 months to pilot, two years in total, 400 people impacted
• (15:43) Standard planning roles across 15 sites and 500 CMOs, and constraint planning in the tactical horizon
• (18:19) Picking a hard pilot: 95% of it became the global template, and when to standardise fully
• (22:21) Planning service centres as the long game
• (24:04) AI: Joule, an in-house chatbot, and "three to five years" for repetitive work
• (27:29) Strategic planning and supply network design: what's next
• (30:00) Demand and supply in one role, or two?
• (33:09) The centre of excellence: key users, subject matter experts, IT, and the 80% rule
• (35:41) Advice to a young Ali: think end-to-end, master the change
• (38:02) Book recommendations

Three quotes

"Systems, processes and organisation design. Those are the three legs, equally important."

"What we developed for the pilot is 95% our global template. It works."

"About 80% of issues are managed within level one and level two."

Questions this episode answers

How long does an SAP IBP implementation take? At STADA, the pilot went live 14 months after the project started, and the full rollout across 15 in-house sites and around 500 contract manufacturers is planned within two years, in a pilot plus two waves.

What is a planning centre of excellence? An internal team of key users and subject matter experts who own training, incident handling and continuous improvement for the planning system. At STADA it is a three-level pyramid, and about 80% of issues are solved without IT or the vendor.

Should you wait for S/4HANA before implementing IBP? STADA didn't. The planning project ran on its own timeline, integrated to ECC first, with S/4HANA taking over as each region goes live.

Resources Ali mentions: The Executive's Guide to MRP II (Oliver Wight) · Integrated Business Planning · The Toyota Way (Jeffrey Liker) · The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Stephen Covey) · Pathways to Leadership.

Read the companion article: SAP IBP implementation: six lessons from STADA's move off APO.