IBM and Hayleys mark successful first year in digital transformation journey

Hayleys PLC is one of the largest conglomerate in Sri Lanka, and a powerhouse within the nation’s economy, requiring deep insight into business, financial integrity, operational and financial performance at all levels. To steer profitability across such diverse businesses with multiple operating units, Hayleys needed an intelligent digital enterprise that provided real-time expertise and agility.

Hayleys engaged with IBM Services who identified the need of a robust, high-performance, platform for their disparate legacy enterprise applications that would seamlessly integrate across Hayleys subsidiaries.

Initially, four subsidiaries namely Fentons (an infrastructure services provider), Aventura (an industrial solution business), Hayleys Dipped Products (a global rubber glove manufacturer and exporter) and Agriculture sectors were chosen.

These four businesses were amalgamated into a single project using a single blueprint, as IBM Services proposed the deployment of SAP S/4HANA to help streamline processes, enhance employee productivity and improve data visibility transforming Hayleys business operations. “SAP S/4HANA represents a significant shift in a company’s entire business model, allowing them to transform processes, integrate new technology and quickly turn their focus on new opportunities. We proposed this solution for Hayleys as it would help drive their digital transformation, enhance operational efficiencies and unlock future growth potential,” said IBM Sri Lanka Country General Manager Riza Wadood.

The IBM Services Team initially scoped out end-to-end functionality required across the selected four sectors and implemented almost all available modules within SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management, including finance and controlling, sales and distribution, material management, production planning, plant maintenance, project systems and customer service. 

The team also deployed IBM Power Systems servers, IBM Storwize storage, IBM Application Management Services and IBM Systems Lab Services to support the SAP solutions.

“IBM proposed we implement SAP S/4HANA across the four businesses in a single project. This approach resonated with management, making it easier to roll out SAP S/4HANA across additional sectors in the future minimising our overall ERP investment,” remarked Hayleys Group Executive Director Sarath Ganegoda, who steered this transformation successfully.

During the migration to SAP S/4HANA, the IBM Team provided Hayleys personnel with profound insights to develop several critical enhancements and reports, and trained the staff to design and generate reports independently.

Commenting on the implementation, Hayleys Group Information Technology Head Shuhail Mohamed, who managed this implementation centrally, said: “We chose IBM Power Systems to support SAP S/4HANA because we were happy with the platform’s proven performance and reliability. IBM Power Systems enables us to follow a scale-up approach as we bring more Hayleys entities onto SAP S/4HANA in future. From S/4HANA implementation perspective, both Hayleys and IBM teams were highly committed towards achieving the end goal. Hayleys teams were well trained by IBM project team to sustain the system within the group and to jointly carry out S/4HANA rollouts.”

With SAP S/4HANA in place across, Hayleys has gained a comprehensive view of its business performance in real-time unearthing rich insight at group level. Moreover, the SAP S/4HANA solution has provided Hayleys with robust business controls, leading to greater integrity and accuracy of financial data across the four sectors ensuring easy business management and operational reviews.

“The SAP S/4HANA has helped Hayleys reimagine their business models, the way they work, and how they compete. With SAP as the digital core, the four Hayleys subsidiaries are powered by live information from across its operations, increasing productivity, improving collaboration, and driving innovation,” noted Riza Wadood.

Hayleys is Sri Lanka’s most diversified blue chip conglomerate with business in 16 diversified sectors, home to 32,000 employees and the first listed company to surpass annual revenue of $ 1 billion.