Royal Greenland, with more than 40 factories and production sites along the coast of Greenland and the Atlantic provinces of Canada, has a clear goal in mind: a more standardized, cloud-based landscape with significantly reduced complexity and a technological foundation that can support future AI strategies.
Royal Greenland, headquartered in Nuuk, Greenland and wholly owned by the Government of Greenland, is looking to modernize its SAP platform and move from an on-premise solution to Cloud ERP to future-proof core processes and leverage integrated AI capabilities across all of its SAP enterprise applications.
“We are moving from our existing configuration to SAP Cloud ERP and SAP Business Data Cloud because we want to have access to the functions that can be used on a cloud platform,” explains Lars Bo Hassinggaard, Chief Information Officer and with Royal Greenland for more than 25 years.
The company distributes high-quality wild fish and mussels from the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans worldwide. Royal Greenland has been using SAP systems since 1998, but is now facing its biggest undertaking yet: The fishing and fish processing company wants to migrate from SAP ERP Central Component to SAP Cloud ERP and at the same time convert its business intelligence landscape (BI landscape) to SAP Business Data Cloud, followed by the transfer from BI to SAP Datasphere.
The project follows the structured “RISE with SAP” methodology, where the platform transformation, operational processes and innovation cycle are combined under one contract.
Simplified transfer of selected data: Reduce the data to be migrated by 90 percent
As part of the migration, Royal Greenland applies the “Lean Selective Data Transition” methodology to significantly reduce the data volume.
“We keep data and cleaned data for ten years. This way we avoid outdated company codes and historical data that no longer have any added value,” says Hassinggaard. “We were able to reduce the data that needs to be stored and migrated by 90 percent. This methodology brings together data analysis, scoping and standardized mapping objects in a guided process. This ensures that Royal Greenland only transfers the data that is really necessary. In this way, the costs of the transformation project become more predictable and unnecessary complexity can be avoided.”
Technology first, followed by innovation
The productive start is planned for March 1, 2027. The migration of the platform itself is due in 2026. In 2027, Royal Greenland will begin making business-focused improvements based on the standardized core – for example, through new user interfaces and optimizing processes with simple AI agents in finance and administration.
“Royal Greenland and SAP have been working together since 1998 and we look forward to starting the technical part of migrating the platform this January,” shares Hassinggaard. “We are keeping the transformation as simple as possible for the time being and will focus on unlocking benefits in 2027, such as improved data analysis, greater user-friendliness and more efficient work processes.”
Royal Greenland uses a classic waterfall model and has already set up a target system, the so-called “Golden Shell”, as a basis for further configuration and retrofitting.
SAP is responsible for implementing the cloud solution, which will initially be operated in Sweden on Microsoft Azure. There is the possibility of later switching to a Danish data center. The external consulting firm Spektra Analytics took over the contract review.
From internal experiments to standardized AI solutions
Royal Greenland has already successfully experimented with its own AI solutions, for example as part of machine vision projects in production. However, the company’s future strategic direction envisages using integrated and standardized AI data products from SAP as well as models based on the SAP Business Data Cloud and its semantic data layer.
“We are a company that prefers to use existing AI solutions to derive benefit“Instead of developing them ourselves,” stresses Hassinggaard. “It’s much more efficient for us. There’s no reason for us to use resources to reinvent what SAP already offers. The initial focus will be on process optimization within administrative functions such as finance – for example with simple AI agents that can make daily work easier.”
Invest more time and understand the methodology of Cloud ERP
Hassinggaard makes it clear that the “RISE with SAP” contract and the associated methodology and preparation require time and a certain level of maturity. His advice to other companies facing a similar decision regarding cloud ERP: “You have to proceed carefully – and invest more time than you think. The methodology, pricing and contracts must be carefully examined. And you must bring a competent consultant on board.”
Ellen Vig Nelausen is an Integrated Communications Expert for SAP Regional Communications.
