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PwC gets the clients’ perspective
SI Group, a global performance additives company, is a leader in developing, manufacturing and distributing chemical intermediates that support pharmaceuticals, plastics, oil and gas, automotive products and a variety of other applications. Private investment firm SK Capital recently acquired SI Group and Addivant then merged the two under the SI Group brand. The leadership team sought to simplify the business through a legal entity restructuring project that consolidated and streamlined global operations across more than half of its entities.
Interview with:
Mike Farnell
General Counsel,
Chief Sustainability Officer,
SI Group
Interview with:
Mukund Devanathan
Chief Information Officer,
SI Group
What was the challenge?
“Legal entity restructuring provided us a unique opportunity to simplify our operations, processes and enterprise resource planning while enhancing our SAP platform for future growth. But the complexities involved made the transformation no easy feat. We originally thought it would impact only a few of our teams but quickly realized the project affected most of our operations, including sales, customer service, supply chain, enterprise-wide information systems and third-party coordination. It was also planned to simplify tax and accounting complexities, including legal and statutory changes, many of which impact financial reporting. We needed to bring together a group of professionals with a variety of functional specialties to address these challenges.”
Describe the solution delivered by the community of solvers.
“PwC’s Deals and Cloud and Digital specialists provided a SAP redesign that restructured our operations to a combined entity and simplified processes. The PwC team also developed an online tool that let our customer service representatives automatically determine the new selling and distribution business rules to follow, assigning the correct selling entity based on information about the sale. Customers once obligated to do business with multiple SI Group entities can now buy our products from one entity, resulting in simpler and more seamless experiences.”
How does the solution blend the strengths of technology and people?
“We placed a large focus on change management and communication to enable a smooth transition. We educated our people as they moved from regional-based processes to one standardized way of working. And we prepared them with internal and external communications to know what to expect, how to inform customers and how to confirm minimal business disruption. SAP’s technology helped us improve our supply chain and fulfillment processes, which enhances our customer service. Regional teams can now obtain and sell goods directly from manufacturing facilities, providing a consistent experience with more cross-selling opportunities.”
Where or how did innovation and unexpected ways of thinking come into play?
“We worked closely with PwC to quickly identify opportunities and solutions to simplify our organization. We applied innovative design thinking to our company structure — including core operations, as well as IT — which ultimately reduced our costs. PwC helped us navigate the challenges of registering our new legal entity structure with multiple global governments, some of which were still short-staffed and overexerted due to COVID-19. The reorganized legal entities simplified the statutory and internal reporting requirements of our transactions, resulting in a platform we can scale more cost-effectively as we grow. The detailed planning and business readiness training shared across the business enabled a seamless go-live with nearly zero business disruptions during the crossover, which we’re very proud of.”
Sustained outcomes
60%
decrease in legal entities, simplified processes, lowered costs and improved customer experiences
2,800
customers positively impacted by the restructure, now with streamlined supply chains and faster delivery
2,000+
rules eliminated, streamlining over 90% of the business to empower end-customer direct sales
Support team’s improved communications built trust with customers and helped them navigate the new system to manage their inventory
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