Hela rolls out SAP S/4HANA to deliver enhanced biz value for global enterprise

As part of its drive towards digitalisation for enhanced productivity, efficiency and sustainability, Hela Apparel Holdings completed the first phase of its global implementation of SAP S/4HANA, an enterprise application suite developed by SAP, recently.
With this, Hela becomes the first company to implement SAP S/4HANA for fashion and vertical business in Sri Lanka.  

As a leading apparel supply chain solutions provider to global brands, Hela is continuously investing in digitalisation initiatives to strengthen its capabilities to innovate faster and better serve its portfolio of clients. The implementation of the SAP S/4HANA platform is the centrepiece of these efforts and in 2021, the company partnered with attune, a Rizing company and leading SAP solutions provider, for fashion and lifestyle industries, to support this process.  

Following a 16-month preparation period, the digital solution has now been taken live in the Hela Kidswear cluster and is expected to be fully implemented across all parts of the business by March 2023. This will transform the company’s operations by enabling real-time inventory visibility and order confirmations and is expected to further improve on-time delivery performance.  

Hela Kidswear CEO Sanath Amaratunga said, “We expect our digital transformation journey to help us be more data-driven and agile, placing us in a stronger position to navigate the challenges ahead while strengthening our value proposition. The implementation of SAP S/4HANA at Hela Kidswear offers greater opportunities for continuous innovation and cloud readiness.” 

The SAP S/4HANA platform will serve as a robust digital core for Hela, which can be seamlessly integrated with other applications to further streamline processes across its operations. To this end, Hela signed an enterprise agreement with H-One to host SAP S/4HANA on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform earlier this year, while Atria will provide the company with a cutting-edge suite of business analytics by connecting SAP with Microsoft Power BI through a Microsoft Azure Data Factory. 

Hela Chief Information and Process Officer Ruwanthi Fernando said, “Our IT platform is key to driving our strategy by supporting innovation, digitalisation and scalability. Digitising end-to-end processes with a digital core empowered by SAP S/4HANA and other integrations has given us the transparency and flexibility we need to future-proof the business and support our continued growth. We look forward to rolling out these solutions to the rest of the company in the coming months. This will allow us to facilitate greater innovation and help us meet the rapidly evolving market conditions and global supply chain disruptions that require real-time decision-making.”