Mead Johnson accelerates multidimensional cloud migration, reinvents the value chain with Azure

Mead Johnson Nutrition Company started in the United States in 1905. Its corporate mission has always been to give babies a better start in life right from day one, resulting in a dedication to scientific product research, development, and innovation as it provides science-based nutrition to infants and young children around the world. The company makes over 70 nutritional products, with 20 of those being special formulas for those with special nutritional needs and metabolic issues. With sales in more than 50 countries and regions, Mead Johnson’s products are trusted by families, nutrition professionals, and healthcare workers worldwide.

Having been in the Chinese market for years now, the nutritional benefits of Mead Johnson baby formulas such as Enspire, NeuroPro, Chunguan, Enfagrow, Gentlease, Quanyue, EnfaCare, and Lactose Free have been scientifically proven at the level of clinical medicine. With a professional focus on the healthy growth of babies in China, Mead Johnson is widely trusted and welcomed by families, nutrition experts, and medical workers in the country.

Mead Johnson China Business Group was formally established in September of 2021. The group has a well-developed sales network and decades of insight into the markets in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Management personnel on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are excellent, and the mutual trust built up with the company’s business partners is complemented by the broad consumer base it has created. World-class production facilities are located in the Netherlands, Guangzhou, and Tianjin. The company has a rigorous quality control system, extensive global supply chain resources, and an outstanding Chinese research and development center supported by a global network of scientific research. Forging a uniquely innovative path in its identity as a top institutional investor in China, a well-known century-old international brand, and a localized independent operation all at once, Mead Johnson has now begun a new chapter featuring local ownership, localized management, multifaceted local services, and independent operations.

Positive history of collaboration with Microsoft

Having had a long-term strategic relationship with Microsoft, Mead Johnson attaches a great deal of importance to the digitization of its operations, and began adopting Microsoft cloud services early on.

• When it comes to the intelligent office, Mead Johnson has been using a wide range of highly regarded Microsoft services, including Office 365 (now known as Microsoft 365) and Power BI. These have greatly increased productivity and efficiency for global employees.

• For its security needs, the company has been using Microsoft Azure Active Directory and Windows AutoPilot to simplify the administration and handover of user devices while strengthening control over secure access to corporate resources.
   

Its business in China is developing rapidly, necessitating a shift from overseas regions to Hong Kong for tenants. The migration was highly successful and went smoothly with Microsoft’s help. Microsoft Azure offers group employees faster and easier access.

Fast reconstruction of traditional IDC model and constrained value chains

The pace of innovation never stops. Mead Johnson is facing new challenges, including pressure from competing products and the impact of marketing channels such as online shopping and live streaming as they evolve. Competition in the market can shift in the blink of an eye. The traditional local deployment model lacks flexibility and cost-effectiveness, making it difficult for companies to maintain permanent competitiveness.

Mead Johnson China Business Group came into being on September 9, 2021, when Mead Johnson’s baby formula and children’s nutrition business in Greater China was acquired by Primavera Capital. With this done, Mead Johnson officially unveiled its localization strategy with a plan to separate its IT system in China from the global platform. As a key business system, Mead Johnson’s SAP system was limited by the fixed mode of the original local IDC deployment, which no longer met the group’s rapidly developing business needs. The outstanding flexibility, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of cloud deployment served to solidify Mead Johnson’s determination to deploy in the cloud.

Deepening collaboration with the choice of SAP on Azure

Mead Johnson’s IT development strategy was an important supportive focus for the empowerment of customers by Microsoft. Combining the key transformative goals of building an independent IT system in China and migrating SAP to the cloud would improve agility and reduce the burden on operations and maintenance. The migration of the SAP system to the cloud was the first step in accelerating Mead Johnson’s digital transformation.

Mead Johnson trusted Microsoft cloud services, and a comparison of the solutions from leading cloud service vendors led the company to adopt the Azure-based SAP PE software as a service (SaaS) solution recommended by both Microsoft and SAP. The decision was made to migrate existing SAP and non-SAP peripheral systems (for example, GLIMS and GWINS used internally) to Azure and to build a cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) system using the SAP PCE solution based on the Azure platform.

The solution depended on the technical strengths of SAP and Microsoft to optimize the technical architecture and resolve concerns about system integrity and subsequent operations and maintenance. The unified identity verification, effective data integration, and ease of use of Microsoft products and solutions allowed Mead Johnson to reduce the complexity of the cloud adoption process, inspiring confidence and making the company determined to use the Microsoft cloud platform for deployment on the SAP cloud.

Azure data services and commercial intelligence provide better business insight

Mead Johnson’s employees have abundant experience using Office 365 and Power BI due to the company’s long-term relationship with Microsoft. The unified nature of the Microsoft intelligent cloud stack helps Mead Johnson’s employees in multiple lines of business to use Power BI’s flexible reporting capabilities to comprehensively integrate, clean, and calculate sales data while allowing them to obtain daily, weekly, and monthly sales reports and signboards. The solution completely replaces manual operations offline and provides users with more time-sensitive and accurate reports and data.

AMMP program ensures project success within a limited time frame

The Azure Migration and Modernization Program (AMMP) from Microsoft accelerates the cloud migration journey by providing best practices resources, technical support, and expert guidance at each stage of the enterprise customer’s cloud migration by means of seminars and proofs of concept. With the help of these excellent resources, Mead Johnson was able to complete planning and design in compliance with best practices and sound architecture at the early stages of the migration. The company worked closely with professional partners to successfully complete the SAP on Azure migration, using a proven end-to-end approach to optimize costs and achieve sustainable results.

Customer benefits 

Mead Johnson’s brand-new digital base on the Azure platform, along with Microsoft 365 and Power BI, are now servicing over 2,500 users throughout the company and helping to enhance the agility of Mead Johnson’s business in China while better adapting to development needs in the new era.

Transforming into a data-driven business

Migrating the SAP system to Azure and using the hybrid capabilities of Azure to build a hybrid cloud meant that Mead Johnson could link up and unify different IT systems, resulting in better information sharing.

The cloud deployment model lets Mead Johnson obtain the necessary hardware resources quickly to effectively develop and deploy independent business systems around SAP’s ERP and supply chains in a relatively short period of time.

Providing employees with seamless access

Adopting the cloud model greatly expanded the office flexibility of Mead Johnson’s more than 2,500 employees. Employees using computers, mobile phones, and tablets can obtain business data and insights quickly and easily, anytime and anywhere. This lightens the workload and improves efficiency.

In summary

Through this transformation, Mead Johnson has successfully achieved its goal of a digital upgrade by obtaining the required IT resources in the form of services. Not only was it completed in a shorter period of time, but the company managed to successfully establish an independent and dedicated IT platform for its business in China by means of cloud services. The SAP solution and peripheral systems, indispensable for business operations, are uploaded to the cloud to seamlessly unite local and cloud systems.

The Microsoft SAP on Azure solution has helped Mead Johnson live up to its motto of “A Century of Heritage Starts with Caring” by virtue of its flexible platform support, nimble intelligent services, convenient data sharing capabilities, and the in-depth business insights it has gained.

Please go to https://www.meadjohnson.com.cn/ if you require more information about Mead Johnson Nutrition (China) Ltd.