Vaccines developer and manufacturer AJ Vaccines is undergoing a business and technology transformation with Capgemini as its lead partner in an end-to-end SAP S/4 HANA implementation.

Challenge: Vaccines manufacturer AJ Vaccines is on a transformation journey that’s taking the company from a previously government-owned entity to a commercial enterprise built on a modern digital core and standardized business processes. With efficiency, regulatory compliance, quality and transparency among the key requirements, AJ Vaccines sought to replace its legacy ERP environment with a new digital platform supporting its ambitious change program.

Solution: AJ Vaccines chose to implement SAP S/4HANA, based on the RISE with SAP cloud solution, as a new and future business platform. The company worked with Capgemini as its lead business and technology transformation partner, in collaboration with other vendors, to ensure the project’s success.

Benefits:

  • A future proof, AI-ready system that will grow as the company grows
  • Standardization, leading to faster, more efficient ways of working
  • Accelerated commercialization journey
  • Faster SAP S/4 HANA project delivery using Capgemini’s industry standards

AJ Vaccines builds its commercialization strategy on a RISE with SAP digital solution implemented in partnership with Capgemini

For Danish-based company AJ Vaccines, strategy drives everything. Its strategic imperative to transform digitally and pave the way for artificial intelligence (AI) is central to the company’s comprehensive business and technology transformation.

AJ Vaccines has a long manufacturing history, having started out as part of the state-owned Statens Serum Institut in 1902. The company became AJ Vaccines following the government’s divestment of the vaccines business in 2017. With this divestment came the need for change. A new management team, new business strategy, new technology, and enterprise-wide process standardization would accelerate AJ Vaccines’ commercialization journey.

From legacy SAP to modern cloud-based SAP

The existing SAP ERP platform was being maintained and operated in tune with thousands of Standard Operating Procedures. These had been written over decades as evolving functionality demanded and were no longer suitable for digital ways of working and new technologies. Large amounts of legacy data added to the complexity.

A comprehensive digital modernization of this existing SAP and business process environment was needed to put AJ Vaccines in a competitive market position. Remaining committed to SAP as the leading ERP system in the life sciences industry, AJ Vaccines chose to adopt the RISE with SAP solution built on the SAP S/4 HANA technology.

Building a new culture with modern technology

As a technology transformation partner, Capgemini brought the right skills and technology experience, as well as the methods and tools needed to securely and efficiently deliver this new digital platform. Working with Capgemini enabled AJ Vaccines to embrace both best practice processes and new agile ways of working, while reducing the burden of technical debt. It has also paved the way for the company to discover how new technologies, such as AI, can really transform business processes.

An important aspect of the transformation has been the positive impact on the company’s ability to attract and retain new people. When you are fighting for talent in one of the hottest industries around, you need the digital infrastructure that reflects your status as a modern, commercial organization.

The need for a modern digital core

With support for the legacy platform due to be discontinued as SAP focuses on cloud solutions, AJ Vaccines had additional incentive to transition to a new digital core. Crucially, as innovation and new product development are continuous processes, a digital core that also constantly evolves is essential. SAP’s commitment to continuously updating the clean core with innovations, such as AI, can keep AJ Vaccines ahead of the competition with a future proof business and technology landscape.

Adopting a partnership model for transformation

Transformation of the digital core and all the business processes it supports is a huge task. Talent shortages in Denmark mean it can be difficult to recruit the many different skillsets needed for such big programs of change. AJ Vaccines recognized that it needed help and sought external partners for different aspects of the program. A lead business and IT transformation partner with both SAP expertise and experience in the pharmaceuticals industry would be vital.

With more than 1000+ S/4HANA projects in Europe alone, Capgemini took on this role and worked in a multi-vendor partner environment where collaboration between all parties was critical. As the orchestrator of this collaborative transformation, Capgemini was also responsible for bringing everyone on board at AJ Vaccines:

“We are well versed in transformation projects and know how to make them successful. But not everyone has that same expertise, and we knew we had to lead by example, create a project room that was fun for people to be in, and bring on board the younger generation at AJ Vaccines to enthuse them in how they can be part of re-inventing the company. This is as much a project about changing mindsets as it is an IT transformation.” –
Søren Leth, Head of Capgemini in Denmark

Making collaboration real

Capgemini’s One Team approach brought together all parties to deliver the successful outcomes, from both a technical and business perspective. Effective change management began with an exploration of the ‘as is’ landscape. This embraced not only the company’s data and system functionality, but also its business processes, applications, employees, and the organizational structures. Standard end-to-end processes were introduced to simplify existing complexity:

“Capgemini’s industry standards helped us implement our new platform more easily, much faster, and certainly a lot cheaper overall.” – Grant Lawrence, AJ Vaccines’ CFO

Training and training material supported the employee journey from the previous user interface to a simpler UI that would be easier for people to learn. Capgemini led the transition, taking AJ Vaccines back to a clean core by removing countless bespoke code and replacing it with standard S/4 HANA functionality.

Further, AJ Vaccines’ stated intent is to innovate “to ensure that the entire world has access to the same safety and preventative opportunities through vaccination as enjoyed in Denmark”. As part of its commitment to AJ Vaccines, Capgemini partnered with the company in this innovation mission. It set up an Innovation Fund within the commercial construct. This opened with an AI initiative and some proofs of concept to see how this new technology could be used by the company to innovate and stay competitive.

Embedding quality at every step of the way

In the highly regulated pharmaceutical industry, quality is a central thread running through everything. With its new end-to-end SAP S/4 HANA solution, AJ Vaccines has gained transparency and control over every process on the journey to develop, produce and distribute vaccines globally. It is now a leaner and more agile organization with the foundations for continuous improvement in place across all its end-to-end processes.

Capgemini helped the company work towards a best practice way of working with quality, as well as with the laboratory information management system and other systems that are the lifeblood of running a modern life sciences company.

Doing more, doing it better with SAP S/4 HANA

AJ Vaccines went live with its new SAP S/4 HANA platform on 1 October 2025. While the life sciences industry in general is still exploring the potential for AI to transform ways of working, Capgemini helped AJ Vaccines take the first step on its AI journey, with SAP S/4 HANA giving the company a platform on which to build AI capabilities. Once implemented, AI agents will work better on the standard SAP processes than on bespoke functionality. Improved productivity and greater efficiency with smarter and better ways of working will result from the new clean core.

 “This great milestone will make us more competitive by driving productivity and simplification, enabling us to serve our customers even better in the future. Capgemini was an important choice for us both as a transformation partner and to help us drive the business to where we want to go.” – Grant Lawrence, AJ Vaccines’ CFO

AJ Vaccines has reshaped the organization to focus on business support and accelerate its commercialization strategy. The company is utilizing the latest tools and SAP technology to ensure regulatory compliance, speed up time to market, and drive innovation with shared development and standardized process across different teams. The successful SAP S/4HANA implementation has future proofed the company’s technology landscape in support of commercial success.