Case Study | Albemarle
Navigating SAP Transformation to SAP Cloud ERP Platform with Confidence:
The Power of Choosing the Right Partner
Case Study | Albemarle
Navigating SAP Transformation to SAP Cloud ERP Platform with Confidence:
The Power of Choosing the Right Partner
critical applications migrated
cost avoidance
Month migration
Headquartered in Charlotte, NC, Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB), employs approximately 7,800 people worldwide and serves customers in approximately 70 countries.
Albemarle Corporation is a global leader in transforming essential resources into critical ingredients for mobility, energy, connectivity, and health. Albemarle's products include bromine and derivatives, catalysts, and other chemicals used in consumer electronics, automotive, pharmaceuticals, crop protection, and more.
Albemarle partnered with Protera to successfully navigate a complex transition to SAP on RISE and Microsoft Azure—avoiding costly missteps and minimizing business disruption. Acting as a trusted advisor, Protera aligned the solution architecture, ensured close coordination with SAP’s Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS) team, and kept the program firmly on track. The result was a seamless migration, reduced risk, and a modern, scalable foundation on SAP Cloud ERP and Microsoft Azure to support future innovation across both SAP and non-SAP workloads.
Challenge
Albemarle was at a critical inflection point, needing to modernize a highly complex SAP landscape while ensuring uninterrupted support for mission-critical operations.
Rapid growth introduced significant scale and complexity across Albemarle’s more than 25 integrated applications, placing increasing strain on the existing environment. With core SAP systems still running in a private data center, the organization faced limitations in agility, scalability, and access to innovation.
At the same time, the planned transition to SAP Cloud ERP (RISE with SAP) and Microsoft Azure required a carefully designed, future-ready architecture with the right service coverage and alignment to business requirements. Working closely with Albermarle IT, SAP ECS, and Microsoft Azure engineering teams, Protera developed a migration strategy that mitigated risk and reduced downstream rework, supporting tight timelines and competing priorities, including critical carve-out initiatives.
Solution
Protera partnered with Albemarle as a strategic advisor, bringing clarity, control, and technical depth to every phase of the transformation.
- Delivered a comprehensive assessment of the existing SAP landscape, aligning it with the standard architecture for SAP Cloud ERP (RISE architecture) and SAP-provided services
- Enabled a large-scale SAP Cloud ERP migration involving 25+ applications, 50 servers across two data centers, 150+ interface updates, and 1,000 printer migrations
- Leveraged Protera’s proprietary ProDiscovery and ProMigrate to accelerate migration timelines and deliver a controlled, low-risk transition
- Facilitated close alignment between SAP, Azure, and Albemarle through deep technical expertise and rapid issue resolution
- Leveraged best-in-class infrastructure from Intel & NetApp on Azure as part of the RISE environment
- Ongoing managed services, including Azure cloud management and SAP technical support provides Albermarle with end-to-end stewardship & expert support of the RISE landscape
Realized Benefits
Leveraging Protera’s expertise, proprietary platform, and partnership-driven approach, Albemarle achieved a seamless go-live with zero disruption to daily operations, completing an accelerated cutover and restoring systems 4.5 hours ahead of schedule.
Through meticulous planning and close coordination among global teams from Albemarle, Microsoft, Protera, SAP, Hitachi, and oXya, all planned downtime targets were achieved without disrupting business operations.
This transformation created a modern foundation for Albemarle to consolidate and optimize its SAP Cloud ERP footprint (S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition), while adopting the latest SAP GTS (E4H 2023) and SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM) capabilities in a unified environment.
Beyond execution, the project delivered meaningful outcomes in both speed and cost control. The migration was completed in approximately six months, despite its scale and complexity. By identifying and addressing architectural gaps early, Albemarle avoided over $1M in potential unplanned costs and prevented multi-month delays that could have significantly impacted business timelines and strategic M&A initiatives.
The move to RISE also optimized operations, simplifying the SAP landscape under a single-contract, single-point-of-contact model with Protera. This reduced IT overhead, improved supportability, and enabled internal teams to focus on higher-value, strategic initiatives.
With a modern, cloud-based foundation now in place, Albemarle is better positioned for greater scalability, faster innovation, and access to advanced capabilities such as AI and machine learning—enabling the business to move with greater speed and agility in an increasingly competitive landscape.
Looking Ahead
With a stable and modern SAP foundation in place, Albemarle is now focused on unlocking the next phase of value.
Key initiatives include S/4HANA upgrades, transformation of the Fiori user experience, and modernization of SAP GTS to the latest HANA edition. Albemarle is also expanding its use of SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) and implementing SAP’s Integrated Toolchain, including SAP Cloud ALM, which integrates with Protera’s CloudVantage platform to enable unified observability across both SAP RISE and non-SAP workloads. In parallel, the organization is exploring the use of SAP Business Data Cloud across SAP and non-SAP systems, strengthening its foundation for advanced analytics and AI-driven insights.
The Cloud ERP migration was only the first step. With Protera’s continued partnership, Albemarle now has a clear path forward—one that turns a successful migration into a platform for ongoing transformation, innovation, and long-term competitive advantage.
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