SAP Without the Complexity: Primient's Path to Real-Time Financial Intelligence

Primient stands as a leading force in sustainable manufacturing, transforming crops into premium plant-based ingredients for global giants like Coca-Cola and Pepsi. With over 1,800 employees across operations in the U.S. Midwest and Brazil, this renewable innovation company had mastered the art of sustainable production—but their data landscape told a different story.

The Challenge: Drowning in Data Silos

Following their separation from their parent company, Primient inherited a digital nightmare that threatened their growth ambitions. Despite sitting on a goldmine of SAP data, critical insights remained locked away across hundreds of legacy systems and custom BW reports.

The reality:

• 4-week forecasting delays from fragmented data left teams reactive instead of proactive
• 70% of FP&A time wasted on data collection rather than analysis
• No single source of truth meant finance, supply chain, and operations worked from entirely different datasets
• Endless reconciliation debates over whose numbers were correct
• IT bottlenecks when data requests piled up faster than they could be fulfilled

"We were drowning in spreadsheets and shared drives," recalls Tom Kirkham, CIO at Primient. "It was impossible to be consistent, and impossible to make real-time decisions."

The company's forecast-driven operating model demanded precision and speed—qualities that their fragmented data infrastructure simply couldn't deliver. Excel workarounds had evolved from temporary fixes into a complex labyrinth of manual processes.

The Solution: Building a Modern Data Foundation

Primient's transformation began with a clear vision: establish one version of the truth that could power intelligent decision-making across the entire organization.

Lightning-Fast Proof of Concept

While other vendor evaluations dragged on for months with minimal results, Incorta delivered immediate impact. In just four days, Kirkham had his entire SAP test environment running live in Incorta—making it "the easiest selection I've ever made."

Strategic Partnership Advantage

The timing couldn't have been better. Just as Primient was evaluating enterprise planning solutions, Workday and Incorta announced their strategic partnership. This alignment of technology partners created an integrated finance stack that would prove transformative.

Seamless Integration, Powerful Results

Incorta's direct data platform approach meant no complex ETL processes or data modeling delays. The solution delivered:

• Real-time SAP data access without SAP-level complexity
• Unified data foundation connecting previously siloed systems
• Self-service analytics eliminating IT bottlenecks
• Seamless Workday Adaptive Planning integration for comprehensive financial planning

"The great thing about Incorta is that we get detailed data—down to each transaction—without having to deal with SAP's complexity," explains Anastas Harizanov, Director of FP&A. "You just log into Incorta and get exactly what you need."

The Results: Transformation at Every Level

The impact was immediate and measurable across multiple dimensions:

Accuracy Breakthrough

• Costing accuracy jumped from ~85% to 99.7%—enabling precise product-level profitability analysis
• Real-time error detection caught previously missed SKU costing errors during annual planning
• Eliminated manual topside adjustments through automated month-end processes

Hard Dollar Savings

• $1M annual savings from retiring two legacy systems
• Reduced infrastructure costs while dramatically improving capabilities
• IT efficiency gains freeing resources for strategic initiatives

Organizational Transformation

Finance Evolution: "Incorta allowed us to put the 'A' back in FP&A," notes Harizanov. The team shifted from data collectors to strategic business partners, with 70% more time for analysis and insights.

Cross-Functional Alignment: With everyone working from the same data source, reconciliation debates dropped by 80%. Finance, supply chain, and operations teams now collaborate from shared insights rather than competing spreadsheets.

Operational Insights: Cost accountants, plant managers, and operations teams gained unprecedented visibility into granular performance metrics, enabling proactive decision-making at every level.

Hidden Value Discovery

During their first annual planning cycle with the new system, operations managers caught a costing error that would have previously gone unnoticed—demonstrating the power of accurate, real-time data to surface insights that manual processes simply missed.

"We found a costing error during AOP because the system flagged an SKU overestimation," Harizanov explains. "That's the power of accurate, real-time data."

AI-Ready Foundation for Future Growth

Perhaps most importantly, Primient's clean, centralized data foundation positions them for the next wave of innovation. The company is already leveraging AI tools like Microsoft Copilot for predictive forecasting and plans to expand machine learning capabilities across demand planning and scenario modeling.

"AI will essentially become our analyst," explains Kirkham. "We're building for scale without the need for massive headcount, and Incorta gave us the foundation to use it effectively."

The Competitive Advantage

Today, Primient operates with the agility and precision their forecast-driven business model demands. Financial scenario modeling that once took weeks now happens in near real-time. The company can instantly "financialize" supply chain scenarios, running complex what-if analyses in minutes rather than months.

For a commodities-based business where corn prices change every thirty seconds, this real-time analytical capability represents a fundamental competitive advantage.

A Blueprint for Manufacturing Transformation

Primient's journey demonstrates that even the most complex SAP environments can become engines of insight and growth. By establishing a modern data foundation first, they've not only solved immediate pain points but created a platform for continuous innovation.

For manufacturers drowning in spreadsheets and legacy complexity, Primient offers a clear roadmap: invest in the right data infrastructure, partner with proven technology leaders, and transform your organization's relationship with data from obstacle to advantage.

The result? A sustainable, scalable foundation for growth that turns data chaos into competitive intelligence—proving that the deeper you dig into your data, the more value you can create.

"Incorta gave us SAP-level detail without SAP-level complexity."
— Anastas Harizanov, Director of FP&A, Primient

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