Peoples Natural Gas Adopts SAP S/4HANA® as the Foundation for Future Transformation as Part of Essential Utilities

May 4, 2020 – SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) announced that Peoples Natural Gas has completed its conversion to SAP S/4HANA®, laying the technical groundwork for ongoing innovation and business transformation.

Acquired by Essentials Utilities in March, Peoples provides natural gas to about 740,000 homes and businesses in Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky. The company has been running SAP® ERP-based systems since 2010 and wanted to adopt the latest Intelligent ERP innovations and convert to SAP S/4HANA without disrupting its business and while maintaining its industry-leading safety standards and customer satisfaction scores.

“Peoples’ SAP S/4HANA migration was not just a technical conversion but a critical step in laying the groundwork for ongoing innovation and growth,” said Ruth DeLost-Wylie, Peoples’ former CIO and current senior vice president of Business Transformation for Essential Utilities. “We’re now set up to do more, faster — including embedded analytics, improved financial reporting and hardware optimization. This will be critical, not only as part of a larger organization but also to keep pace with what our customers expect.”

SAP’s Professional Services team led Peoples’ conversion to SAP S/4HANA1809, with the immediate aims of simplifying the company’s finance solution and optimizing its business operations. Since the successful conversion in November 2019, Peoples’ year-end closing process has been faster and seamless. In addition, its nightly batch loads finish several hours faster.

“Peoples Natural Gas’ successful conversion to SAP S/4HANA is an excellent case study of taking a measured approach to digital transformation,” said Michael O’Donnell, SAP national vice president for Utilities. “By starting with a foundational migration of its systems, the company is now well positioned to evolve — and scale — at a pace that works for its teams and business objectives.”