The Challenge
Powertech Industries is one of the largest manufacturers of electrical products in South Africa. In 2018 they sold their battery brand, Willard, to Chinese conglomorate Auto-X. At the time, Powertech owned numerous different brands, the data of which was all stored in one SAP system. Powertech needed to ensure that no valuable proptietry data relating to their other companies was transferred to Auto-X during the Willard acquisition.
A transfer of this information could be detrimental to the business in terms of competitive edge, and could also leave Powertech open to legal liabilities under data protection law.
In order to safeguard the other Powertech companies and provide Auto-X with a clean database, a new SAP system had to be created.
The Solution
A robust pre-analysis identified the state of the overall system including size of the transfer, run-time, downtime and any other implications effecting day-to-day business operations.
By installing the Company Code Deletion tool, on a sandbox system based on the productive system we were able to run the deletion in a safe environment that did not affect the productive system. A workshop with the CIO and project team helped identify what data which needed to be deleted and what should be transferred over to the new system.
A methodical, step by step process of deletion was carried out in the sandbox and multiple tests carried out before handing this over to Powertech to test in their live environment. This was crucial in ensuring all outcomes were predetermined before the Company Code Deletion was completed on the production system.
The Results
A seamless transfer completed on time and on budget, gave Auto-X a clean Willard only database, while protecting the data of all the other companies. Minimal downtime also allowed Powertech to operate at full capacity during the entire process. All outcomes were predetermined so there were no nasty, hidden surprises.
