From SAP Chaos to Decision Intelligence: Primient's Data-Driven Growth Story

Plant-based ingredients manufacturer Primient was drowning in legacy SAP systems and 4-week forecasting delays. Using Incorta with Workday Adaptive Planning, they achieved the impossible: forecasting cycles collapsed from 28 days to 4 hours, costing accuracy jumped to 99.7%, and they saved $1M annually by sunsetting legacy systems.

Industry
Department
Company size
Technology
$1M

Annual Savings (from retiring legacy systems)

88%

Reduction in IT Data Requests

75%

Faster Month-End Close

The Objective

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. While they excelled at turning crops into sustainable ingredients for global brands, their data landscape told a different story. Despite sitting on a goldmine of SAP data, critical business insights remained locked away in complex legacy systems inherited from their parent company separation.

The Challenge

Following their separation from their parent company, Primient inherited a digital nightmare that threatened their growth ambitions. Despite having valuable SAP data, critical insights remained trapped across hundreds of legacy systems and custom BW reports. The company faced 4-week forecasting delays from fragmented data that left teams reactive instead of proactive. A staggering 70% of FP&A time was wasted on data collection rather than analysis, with no single source of truth—finance, supply chain, and operations worked from entirely different datasets. This led to endless reconciliation debates over whose numbers were correct, while IT bottlenecks mounted as data requests piled up faster than they could be fulfilled. The company's forecast-driven operating model demanded precision and speed—qualities their fragmented infrastructure simply couldn't deliver.

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

The Solution

Primient's transformation began with establishing one version of the truth through the strategic partnership between Incorta and Workday Adaptive Planning. While other vendor evaluations dragged on for months with minimal results, Incorta delivered immediate impact—in just four days, their entire SAP test environment was running live.

"In just 4 days, I had my entire SAP test environment. Incorta was the easiest selection I've ever made; it was just such a quick win."
— Tom Kirkham, CIO, Primient

The timing proved perfect as Workday and Incorta had just announced their strategic partnership, creating an integrated finance stack. Incorta's direct data platform approach eliminated complex ETL processes, delivering real-time SAP data access without SAP-level complexity. The seamless integration with Workday Adaptive Planning provided comprehensive financial planning capabilities, while unified data foundations connected previously siloed systems and enabled self-service analytics that eliminated IT bottlenecks.

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

The Results

  • 99% Faster Forecasting (28 days → 4 hours)
  • 99.7% Costing Accuracy (up from ~85%)
  • $1M Annual Savings (from retiring legacy systems)
  • 88% Reduction in IT Data Requests (120/month → 14/month)
  • 75% Faster Month-End Close (12 days → 3 days)
  • 4 Days (SAP integration time during POC)
  • 70% Time Savings (FP&A now focused on analysis vs. data collection)
  • "No more arguing over numbers—everyone works from the same data."
    — Anastas Harizanov, Director of FP&A, Primient

    Beyond metrics, the transformation enabled organizational change—finance teams shifted from data collectors to strategic business partners, cross-functional alignment improved as reconciliation debates dropped - operations managers even caught previously missed costing errors during annual planning.

    "We found a costing error during AOP because the system flagged an SKU overestimation. That's the power of accurate, real-time data."
    — Anastas Harizanov, Director of FP&A, Primient


    Most importantly, Primient now operates with a clean, centralized data foundation that positions them for AI and machine learning initiatives, creating a sustainable competitive advantage in their forecast-driven business model.

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

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