Transforming the Management Foundation through ERP Renewal and Business Process Reform — Reducing Add-ons by Approximately 60% with BPR and SAP S/4HANA® Standard Functionality

INPEX implemented its core ERP system in 2008 to support its then management strategy of expanding reserves and broadening its business portfolio. However, over the subsequent 15 years, the company’s strategic direction evolved significantly. As a pioneer in Energy Transformation (EX), INPEX repositioned itself to lead a "responsible energy transition," pursuing low-carbon initiatives such as hydrogen and ammonia, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and renewable energy, while continuing to ensure a stable energy supply.
Because the legacy system had been designed to support the company’s earlier strategic objectives, it became increasingly difficult to keep pace with changing business needs. Operational complexity increased, maintenance costs continued to rise, and the system lacked the agility required to support INPEX’s evolving business landscape. At the same time, with support for the legacy ERP system approaching its end, INPEX faced the need for more than a simple system replacement. The company sought a fundamental transformation of its business platform that could simultaneously achieve three objectives: strengthen its data-driven management foundation to enable faster and more informed decision-making, build a highly flexible system capable of adapting to a rapidly changing business environment and diverse business developments, and improve operational efficiency while enabling employees to focus on higher value-added activities through digital transformation.
Against this backdrop, INPEX selected ABeam Consulting as its implementation partner based on the firm’s extensive experience and proven track record in supporting transformation initiatives within the energy industry. The project was launched in August 2023. Drawing on its deep understanding of INPEX’s business operations, corporate culture, and existing systems gained through years of supporting the legacy ERP environment, ABeam Consulting provided end-to-end support, leading the initiative from business process reform through system design, implementation, deployment, and user adoption.

In this project, SAP Cloud ERP Private was selected as the core platform for its reliability, cloud-enabled flexibility, and readiness for emerging technologies such as AI. A key factor behind the project's success was the rigorous adoption of SAP standard functionality through a "Fit to Standard" approach, combined with the strategic use of SaaS solutions to optimize the overall system architecture.

First, the project optimized the overall system architecture to strengthen INPEX's data-driven management foundation. By effectively integrating SaaS solutions such as Coupa, SAP SuccessFactors®, ProPlus, and Concur®, the team established an optimal application landscape. In particular, centralizing the entire procure-to-pay process within Coupa accelerated the digitization of procurement operations and enabled more effective analysis of procurement-related data. In addition, SAP was equipped with dynamic, user-friendly reporting capabilities, allowing a wide range of analytical reports to be generated on demand. Key master data structures, including general ledger accounts, cost centers, and work breakdown structures (WBS), were also redesigned to provide a data foundation capable of adapting to future business and organizational changes.
Second, the project embraced a "Fit to Standard" approach to build a more agile and maintainable system. Rather than following the traditional Fit & Gap methodology, which addresses business requirements through custom add-ons, the team aligned business processes with SAP best practices wherever possible. Numerous product-specific sales processes were reviewed and streamlined, while procurement, fixed asset management, and cost accounting processes were standardized using SAP's out-of-the-box functionality. By maximizing the use of SAP standard features and leveraging specialized SaaS solutions where appropriate, INPEX reduced custom add-ons by approximately 60% and achieved a "Clean Core" architecture capable of lowering future maintenance and enhancement costs. The project also simplified a highly fragmented and manually managed authorization model, reducing the volume of authorization settings by 90%.
Third, the project leveraged the latest technologies to improve operational efficiency and enable employees to focus on higher-value activities. Technologies such as Fiori, SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), and Forms by Adobe enhanced user experience, system maintainability, and IT governance. Across multiple business domains, the project streamlined workflows, digitized paper-based processes, and expanded the scope of automation, creating an environment where employees can devote more time to strategic and value-added activities.

In this project, ABeam Consulting provided end-to-end support across all phases, from business process redesign and functional design through implementation, testing, user training, cutover, and post-go-live hypercar. By formulating a feasible plan and managing the overall project, including coordinating activities across INPEX and multiple vendors, ABeam Consulting successfully delivered the system on schedule while maintaining a high level of quality despite the large scale of the project. Stable system operations have continued since full-scale go-live in January 2026.

Behind these results is ABeam Consulting's deep understanding of INPEX's operations and systems, developed through years of supporting the operations and maintenance of INPEX's previous core system. Leveraging this knowledge, ABeam Consulting led the full scope of work from the design of the ideal business processes to system construction across a wide range of areas, including financial accounting, purchasing management, and human resources management. The project achieved concrete operational improvements in each area, including the digitalization of invoices and purchase orders, reduction of duplicate input with peripheral systems, and significant automation of human resources work.

Going forward, ABeam Consulting will work with INPEX to explore business data and AI use cases, such as interactive reporting using AI and operational improvement proposals based on data analysis, contributing to the acceleration of digital transformation across the entire group.