Alberdingk Boley, an independent, globally active medium-sized company, has been a partner to its customers for more than 250 years. Alberdingk Boley’s environmentally friendly binders refine, bond, enhance, and protect surfaces. In addition, Alberdingk Boley is Europe’s largest producer of castor oil, linseed oil, and their derivatives. These are used industrially as renewable raw materials for further processing in printing inks, PU systems, and the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. With production facilities in Germany, China, and the U.S., and branches in Italy and the U.K., Alberdingk Boley employs 500 people worldwide. Its revenue is approximately 350 million EUR. Alberdingk Boley has received numerous awards, including recognition as one of Germany’s “Hidden Champions” (WirtschaftsWoche).
The Private Cloud: A Path to the Future
The Krefeld-based chemical company decided to migrate to SAP S/4HANA in the private cloud in order to transition its outdated ECC system landscape to a future-proof and strategically viable platform. To do so, it was necessary to move away from its own on-premises infrastructure and transition to the benefits of a modern SAP architecture in the cloud. The brownfield approach made it possible to largely retain existing processes, data, and customizations while completing both the conversion to S/4HANA and the migration to the SAP Private Cloud (RISE) in a single major step.
The goal was to establish a solid technical foundation for future innovations—one that would serve as an advanced basis for additional modules to be integrated incrementally and allow room for process optimizations and new developments. From a holistic perspective, it was also important to preserve the proven production processes as much as possible, while identified opportunities for optimization were to be incorporated into the SAP standard either directly or in subsequent phases.
By migrating to SAP S/4HANA in the private cloud, we’ve done more than just modernize a system: we’ve laid the foundation for the future. Not even a nationwide power outage could stop the go-live - thanks to the calm, flexible, and solution-oriented efforts of the CONSILIO team.
In addition, the enhanced system security provided by the SAP cloud architecture played a key role. By migrating to the private cloud, the company reduces its own operational workload, ensures maintenance and updates, and simultaneously benefits from SAP’s managed services. Compared to the public cloud, the private cloud remains in a controlled environment.
Thus, for Alberdingk Boley, the migration was not merely a technical necessity but rather a deliberate strategic decision. In a nutshell: With the modern S/4HANA system in the private cloud, the company has laid the foundation for its digital evolution in the coming years—while minimizing risk through the brownfield approach.
The project began in the spring of 2025 and lasted approximately twelve months. Working together with the CONSILIO team, led by Sebastian Burkard, Principal Consultant at COSILIO, the new system landscape was implemented and stabilized, interfaces were connected, and critical processes were finalized in close coordination with the customer.
A Particularly Challenging Go-Live
The go-live took place over a long weekend and presented the team with unexpected challenges, as nationwide maintenance by the Internet service provider - which had been announced a week earlier - led to network issues and a delay of approximately 12 hours. Despite this external disruption, the project team successfully managed the situation through:
- High flexibility and agile crisis management
- Hourly coordination meetings and a professional “crisis management team”
- Excellent collaboration between Consilio and Alberdingk Boley at all levels
- Rapid re-planning and close coordination with the client’s business units
Conclusion - A Strong Foundation for the Future Has Been Laid
The Krefeld-based company has reached an important strategic milestone with its brownfield migration to SAP S/4HANA in the private cloud. Despite unforeseen challenges during go-live, the project was successfully completed on time. The result is a modern, secure, and future-proof platform that enables the chemical company to lay the foundation for further innovations and process optimizations.
With S/4HANA Private Cloud, Alberdingk Boley is laying the technical foundation for future innovations - with guaranteed maintenance, secure services, and a clear path for implementing optimizations into the SAP standard.