LifeNet Health transforms ERP to advance global healing mission

The medical nonprofit modernized its ERP system with Capgemini to boost agility, enhance service, and expand its life-saving global impact.

Client challenges:
• The old ERP system had accumulated IT debt
• Extensive system downtime for upgrades was not an option, given the nature of the business

Our approach:
• Capgemini modernized the system and moved it from SAP ECC to S/4HANA
• The implementation occurred over a weekend to avoid any business disruptions

Business outcomes:
• Improved user experiences
• Increased operational efficiency and agility
• Greater capacity for digital transformation

“We wanted zero impact. We wanted the next day to be no different than the previous day and business as usual. Thanks to the partnership with Capgemini, we achieved it.”

Aju Paul, the Senior Director of Digital Transformation at LifeNet Health

LifeNet Health is in the business of saving lives. A global leader in regenerative medicine and life sciences, the US-based nonprofit facilitates organ and tissue transplants and delivers innovative, human cell-based solutions to researchers worldwide. Its mission – to saves lives, restore health, and give hope – is deeply embedded in its culture and in every employee’s work.

“LifeNet Health strives to give healing every advantage,” said Aju Paul, the Senior Director of Digital Transformation at LifeNet Health. “Today, we bring healing to more than 40 countries, and we are just getting started.”

Despite its leadership in biomedical innovation, LifeNet Health was working with a legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that had begun to show its age, creating IT debt and limiting business agility.

The organization had long planned to move from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA, deployed in the cloud. In 2023, the leaders decided that it was time. Evolving digital tools promised greater speed, precision, scalability, and flexibility, key enablers for expanding the organization’s global impact.

“SAP is foundational for us in terms of traceability, quality, and regulatory compliance,” said Meaghan Moody, LifeNet Health’s Director of Corporate Information Systems. “This project was about giving our business a more advanced, capable version of a system we rely on daily.”

Minimizing disruption during transformation

More than 700 employees depend on SAP to support nearly every business function, including procurement, finance, operations, distribution, and order fulfillment. The team needed to ensure minimal downtime to avoid interrupting the mission-critical services LifeNet Health provides to donor families, healthcare professionals, recipients, and researchers.  

“Every graft that we ship helps someone, and we never want to miss the opportunity to fulfill that need,” Moody explained. To keep that promise, Paul established a tight implementation timeline: “12, 36, 9.” The project would allow for only 12 hours of actual downtime, 36 hours to bring the new system online, and nine months for end-to-end execution.

Selecting the right partner

During the request-for-proposal process, LifeNet Health prioritized finding a partner that could go beyond a technical upgrade, one that understood the life sciences space and could deliver value while minimizing risk.

“It became clear early on that Capgemini had the expertise, a solid methodology, and the right team,” said Moody. “They were ready to support us every step of the way.”

Paul prioritized three key qualities: strong capabilities, shared goals, and alignment with LifeNet Health’s mission. “Capgemini was the one partner that met all three criteria. We took the journey with them, and I have no regrets,” Paul said.

No ERP implementation is without challenges. But the strength of the partnership allowed for honest conversations and effective problem solving, leading to what Paul described as a “boring go-live” – a compliment in the world of enterprise technology.

Capgemini Client Executive Dave Bartoli was inspired by the company’s unwavering dedication. “What they’re doing for society is making a difference in all of our lives,” Bartoli said. “Companies like LifeNet Health truly focus on their mission: helping patients in need with their healing solutions.”

Preparing for migration

Capgemini helped LifeNet Health achieve two major objectives: upgrade to S/4HANA through a brownfield conversion and transition operations to the cloud. A cross-functional team comprised of employees from LifeNet Health, Capgemini, and cloud partner Syntax crafted a precise migration plan.

Capgemini conducted a thorough analysis of business processes, identifying all touchpoints from legacy ERP to external applications and offline tools like spreadsheets. The team then modernized or replaced outdated functions, reducing IT debt and laying a foundation for future scalability.  

Syntax provided the target cloud-based environment, hosted on Microsoft Azure, while Capgemini utilized its Accelerated Migration Factory (AMF), an integrated delivery framework designed to guide clients through complex transition from ECC to S/4HANA.

“Ultimately Capgemini, LifeNet Health, and Syntax operated as one team to deliver the project successfully,” said Andrew Odlaug, SAP Project Manager at Capgemini.

Executing a seamless cutover

Given LifeNet Health’s indispensability to its customers, the cutover to S/4HANA needed to be completed over a weekend to avoid any service disruptions. The team conducted a series of dry runs to prepare for the actual deployment. The collaboration surpassed the goals of 12 and 36 hours and just went slightly over nine months.

The launch went so smoothly that some employees didn’t realize it had already happened.

“Our goal wasn’t just to reduce apprehension, it was to eliminate it altogether,” said Paul. “And we succeeded.” The next business day, employees resumed their tasks seamlessly but with a powerful difference: the new S/4HANA system was now live, enabling future growth and transformation.

Looking ahead: A platform for innovation

The July 2023 go-live was just the beginning. With a clean, cloud-based digital backbone, LifeNet Health is now positioned to respond more flexibly to emerging needs.  The organization is currently implementing SAP’s Integrated Business Planning (IBP) and exploring SAP’s Extended Warehouse Management (EWM) next.

S/4HANA’s agility is already driving innovation. Moody’s team is leveraging SAP Fiori to build user-friendly business applications in areas where the previous ECC fell short. The upgrade was also a strategic move to showcase the power of scalable, future-ready technology. Capgemini played a key role in bringing that vision to life.

“What stood out most about our experience with Capgemini was the strength of the partnership,” Moody said. With a project of this complexity and scale, the relationships we built and the way our teams worked together were critical to our success.”