Atea Logistics: Replacing the Heart of a Logistics Giant

Susie, if we take a step back to the beginning of this journey. What did your day-to-day system environment look like at Atea Logistics in Växjö before you decided to make the switch?

– It was a system that had been around for twenty years. It was so heavily modified and over-coded that there were no developers left who could manage it. We simply could not develop our business any further. We needed a modern standard platform to enable growth, and the choice fell on SAP and Pearl.

A comprehensive system change like this often brings a lot of uncertainty for an organization. How did it feel in the days right before you pushed the button to migrate the entire operation?

– I remember having a knot in my stomach. We shut down the old system on a Thursday, and by the following Monday, we were expected to run at full capacity in the new one. We are talking about massive volumes. If the warehouse in Växjö stands still for three days, it affects operations in the whole Nordics. It was an incredible amount of tension for everyone involved.

Yet, you were in full operation after just one week. What happened during those critical days?

– We sat together in a large control room, both our own team and the consultants from Pearl. What saved us was an exceptional team spirit. When problems arose, and they always do, nobody pointed fingers. We just solved it. After a few days, transactions were flowing as they should. Two months later, the employees on the warehouse floor had almost forgotten how the old system even worked.

Susie Bjelkvik, Project Manager, Atea Logistics

The success in Växjö became the starting point for an even larger collaboration. Right now, you are rolling out SAP for sales, finance, services and procurement across Atea Sweden, a project four times larger. How have the experiences from Växjö influenced that work?

– It provides an immense mental security for the entire organization. We have already proven that it can be done. This allows us to bring the exact same methodology and way of working into the large-scale Sweden project. Our employees can look at Växjö and see that it actually works in reality.

Atea has previously attempted similar journeys with global consultancy giants. What would you say is the biggest difference in how Pearl approaches a project?

– In the past, it was difficult to understand each other on a deeper level, especially when explaining complex process details in English to consultants based in another country. With Pearl, we can have the dialogue in Scandinavian. It is also a matter of culture. Pearl’s consultants come in and quickly become part of the team. There is no prestige.

How does that lack of prestige manifest in day-to-day work?

– It comes down to shared responsibility. There are consultancy firms that shift all the responsibility onto the customer as soon as things get difficult, but Pearl never shies away from accountability. If a challenge comes up, we sit down and find the solution together. That mindset is absolutely spot on.

You have signed a ten-year PearlCare contract for application management. What does that kind of long-term continuity mean for your digital roadmap moving forward?

– It means that the journey does not end just because a project goes live. Knowing that we have a partner who stays with us, and who actually knows our business from the inside, is crucial. The consultants who built the system are the ones supporting us today. We do not have to start from scratch every time we need to adjust something.

Looking ahead, Atea is planning further rollouts across the rest of the Nordics. How does this current project set the standard for your international platform?

– The work we are doing right now serves as the blueprint for everything that follows in Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Baltics. By building a solid, scalable core now, we ensure that the upcoming rollouts will be significantly smoother. We are establishing a common way of working for the entire Nordic region.

If a industry colleague at another large Nordic enterprise asked you why they should choose Pearl as their SAP partner, what would your spontaneous answer be?

– I would tell them that they will get a partner who stands by their side through thick and thin. You get deep technical expertise combined with a local cultural understanding, but most importantly, you get a team that takes genuine ownership of the result.