Case study: Reckitt

At a glance:

• Database reduced by close to 8TB following Proceed’s archiving project
• Significantly better system performance and stability
• Business now well-positioned for a smoother, faster move to S/4HANA

About Reckitt

Reckitt is a British multinational consumer goods company headquartered in Slough, United Kingdom. The company manufactures some of the world’s best-loved and trusted hygiene and health brands including Dettol, Lysol, Durex, Finish, Harpic, Vanish, Mucinex, Nurofen, Gaviscon, Veet and Strepsils.

Over 30 million Reckitt products are sold each day worldwide. With 186 years of heritage, Reckitt’s powerbrands are trusted by consumers to protect, heal and nurture families across the globe.

The challenge:

Before the SAP ILM Archiving project, Reckitt was experiencing rapid data growth across its core SAP ECC system, which supports critical business operations globally. Over time, multiple market rollouts and the migration from JD Edwards to SAP had caused the database to expand at a significant rate.

As the database grew, the IT team had to regularly increase system capacity to keep up with demand, driving higher infrastructure costs. The larger system also began to affect day-to-day performance. Backup and restore activities took longer, system refreshes slowed project delivery, and development and testing cycles were delayed.

This combination of increasing size, higher costs and slower performance created operational risk and made it harder for Reckitt to maintain the system efficiency needed to support its ongoing business growth.

The solution:

Reckitt partnered with Proceed to address the growing size and complexity of its SAP systems by implementing SAP ILM with SAP IQ and introducing a structured approach to reduce unnecessary data and improve overall system performance. The project was delivered in two phases to limit disruption while delivering measurable benefits.

The first phase focused on removing outdated technical information that had built up over time, which reduced database size and improved system stability. The second phase targeted operational and business data, such as records from finance, materials, production and sales, ensuring that active data was retained while older, inactive information was safely archived in line with policy and compliance requirements.

Action taken:

• Set up a secure environment to safely carry out archiving activities
• Cleared technical data that no longer needed to sit in the live system, freeing up capacity
• Archived business records from finance, materials, production and sales to streamline day-to-day operations
• Followed strict internal governance and compliance processes throughout the project
• Delivered a leaner, faster and more responsive SAP system that better supports business operations

By taking this phased and structured approach, Reckitt maintained normal business operations while improving performance, reducing system costs and creating a more stable foundation for future SAP developments.

The impact:

• Faster query execution and better end-user responsiveness 8TB of data archived in total including 3TB technical data, 5TB functional data
• Reduced database footprint decreased storage and compute requirements
• Faster query execution and better end-user responsiveness
• Shorter backup, restore and refresh times accelerated development and testing
• Lower likelihood of system slowdowns and outages
• A leaner system supporting a smoother and faster S/4HANA transformation

Future focus:

The SAP ILM Archiving project has given Reckitt a scalable and flexible ERP environment. By reducing the size of the database, the team has removed unnecessary risk and made the future move to S/4HANA and SAP Cloud ERP simpler to manage. The repeatable archiving process now in place will support ongoing business growth, and the leaner system makes it easier to deliver new projects and maintain performance across the organisation.

If you would like to talk through any of these areas and understand what best practice might look like for your organisation, get in touch with the Proceed team.