Apsen Farmacêutica boosts ERP automation, avoids costly migration

Rimini Street and ServiceNow have partnered with Apsen Farmacêutica to deliver workflow automation as an alternative to a vendor-mandated migration from SAP ECC 6 to SAP S/4HANA.

The collaboration has enabled Apsen Farmacêutica, a Brazilian pharmaceutical manufacturer, to implement automation and intelligent workflow across its existing SAP ECC 6 ERP platform, aiming to improve operational efficiency and reduce information silos without migrating to a different ERP system.

According to Apsen Farmacêutica, prioritising business requirements over technology has underpinned their strategy.

The company adopted a flexible, modular approach to its ERP environment that allows for continuous innovation and greater control over IT investments. The initial step involved reducing dependencies on individual technology vendors and platforms, beginning with its SAP ERP systems.

Renan Santos, Chief Information Officer at Apsen Farmacêutica, explained, "The core of the strategy, designed three years ago, was to bring in a team with the capacity to transform IT, adopting the concept of 'Make, Buy or Blend' and connecting all of the company's systems in an orchestrated manner. In the middle of the process, the topic of SAP came up."

Santos continued, "With SAP's announcement that they will no longer support SAP ECC 6 after 2027, we had a choice to make – take on the cost, disruption and risk of migrating to S/4HANA or reimagine our existing system to become an innovation platform. That's when we partnered with Rimini Street to implement ServiceNow's ERP modernisation solution."

Seth Ravin, Chief Executive Officer of Rimini Street, commented, "We are very excited to partner with ServiceNow and Apsen Farmacêutica to deliver this next-generation technology – which was easily layered on top of their existing SAP ECC 6 ERP and other current enterprise software platforms, with no costly, risky and unnecessary upgrades or migrations required."

Ravin added, "We are proud to have helped Apsen self-fund its innovation investments by redirecting the savings from upgrade and migration avoidance. Apsen saw immediate benefits in streamlined processes, reduced operating costs and better operational efficiency."

Peter Russo, Vice President, Core Business Workflows, Product and Solutions Marketing at ServiceNow, said, "ServiceNow is excited to partner with Rimini Street to deliver our combined solution and next-generation ERP modernisation vision to Apsen Farmacêutica – with Apsen realising value from the solution just weeks after the project started."

Russo continued, "ERP and other enterprise software upgrades and migrations generally don't provide strong ROI compared to innovation investments. Apsen is a great example of how ServiceNow and Rimini Street together can deliver value, savings and an accelerated path to innovation, modernisation, and agentic AI to organisations around the world."

The integrated solution brings together the ServiceNow Platform with support and services for enterprise software such as SAP, Oracle, Infor, and Microsoft. Rimini Street's offering is intended to replace software vendor support for underlying ERP and enterprise software, with claims to reduce total support costs by up to 90 percent, while extending software and release lifespans for a guaranteed minimum of 15 years without required upgrades or migrations. The deployment of ServiceNow enables automation and integration across existing ERP and other SaaS platforms, delivering a single view of the organisation and powered by enterprise artificial intelligence.

Santos described the desired outcomes, "As a technology professional, it is very frustrating to have two very different experiences as an individual and as a corporate employee – despite the large investments made by companies. Aligning these two worlds is the goal I share with my team."

Santos added, "We were looking for an agile solution that would deliver value quickly and avoid the costs, complexity and risks inherent in any large software migration project, and Rimini Street's innovative solution with ServiceNow was the fastest and surest path to achieving our transformation vision."

With comprehensive support for Apsen Farmacêutica's critical SAP ECC system, the company reports it successfully transformed SAP tasks and customisations into intelligent ServiceNow workflows integrating different systems and teams. The adoption of low code and no code tools, along with embedded artificial intelligence capabilities, has allowed real-time operational analysis and process automation.

The reported outcomes of these changes at Apsen Farmacêutica include automation of 70 percent of processes that previously required manual intervention, a notable reduction in development cycle time from months to weeks for new processes, and a reduced dependency on specialised teams. The company also cited lower operational costs and increased speed and efficiency as direct results.

Commenting on the organisational shift, Santos stated, "We have assembled a strong internal team, which now has the capacity to rethink processes, suppliers and architecture in a strategic way."

"What began as a next-generation vision and a pilot has become a model for the entire company."

As part of ongoing activity, Apsen Farmacêutica intends to expand automation to other areas such as logistics, quality, and finance. Santos highlighted the expertise of the project partners by saying, "Our focus remains on keeping current systems stable and protected, while at the same time creating a structure that allows for continuous and agile innovation."

"This partnership is strategic so that we can grow with security, scalability and increasingly efficiency."