PUNE | 15 September 2026: Overhauling legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems has transitioned from a routine IT upgrade to a mission-critical prerequisite for artificial intelligence. Reflecting this urgency, Hitachi Digital Services and global specialty chemicals manufacturer allnex have formalized a strategic partnership, establishing a joint IT Global Business Services (ITGBS) hub in Pune. This co-located capability center is specifically mandated to drive allnex’s massive, multi-year transition to SAP S/4HANA, standardizing the chemical giant’s global manufacturing footprint ahead of a broader AI rollout.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

  • The Hybrid Execution Engine: Rather than attempting to scale an internal technology organization in isolation, allnex is embedding its proprietary business process knowledge directly alongside Hitachi’s technical delivery squads. This co-located operating model dramatically reduces operational friction, ensuring that engineering teams intimately understand the chemical manufacturer’s core supply chain and financial workflows to improve overall productivity.
  • Calculated Geographic Proximity: The decision to anchor the ITGBS in Pune extends beyond general talent acquisition. The capability center is strategically positioned near allnex’s India corporate headquarters in Mumbai and its expanding manufacturing facility in Mahad. This physical proximity guarantees that backend system architecture remains deeply tethered to localized, on-the-ground production demands.
  • The 2027 S/4HANA Milestone: The partnership operates on a structured, risk-mitigated timeline. Hitachi Digital Services is aggressively driving the migration away from allnex’s sunsetting SAP ERP Central Component (ECC), executing a transition toward a single, unified SAP S/4HANA global instance. This massive global standardization program is officially projected for completion in 2027.
  • Executive-Led Governance: The strategic weight of this alliance was validated by the direct involvement of senior leadership, including allnex Global CIO Jilles Eissen and Hitachi Digital Services COO Rajashekar Reddy Busani. Their mandate strictly positions the ITGBS not as a basic IT support desk, but as the foundational engine required to eliminate technical debt and architect a standardized platform for the company’s long-term AI integration roadmap

Hitachi Digital Services: Operating as a specialized subsidiary of the Japanese multinational conglomerate Hitachi Ltd., It is a global systems integrator and digital transformation provider headquartered in Santa Clara, California. The firm operates uniquely at the intersection of Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT), helping asset-heavy industries modernize their mission-critical infrastructure. By leveraging deep expertise across cloud engineering, IoT, data science, and ERP modernization, Hitachi Digital Services functions as the architectural engine enabling legacy enterprises to transition into AI-native, intelligent operations.

Allnex: Headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, allnex is a global specialty chemicals manufacturer and a dominant worldwide supplier of coating resins, additives, and crosslinkers. Operating as the chemical flagship under the umbrella of PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC), the enterprise generates approximately €2 billion in annual revenue and commands a massive industrial footprint with over 4,000 employees and a production network spanning 35 countries. The company provides highly specialized chemical solutions that are critical to the mobility, transportation, packaging, and infrastructure markets globally.

THE TECHNICAL MANDATE: PAYING THE TOLL FOR AI READINESS

At the core of this joint venture is a structural infrastructure modernization program. For industrial manufacturers, deploying generative or predictive AI is functionally impossible without clean, unified enterprise data.

  • Sunsetting Legacy Systems: The Pune hub is actively orchestrating allnex’s migration away from its legacy SAP ERP Central Component (ECC)-a platform that is rapidly approaching the end of its mainstream support lifecycle.
  • Unifying Global Operations: The S/4HANA deployment is specifically designed to eradicate technical debt and eliminate isolated data silos. It will enforce cross-site data consistency and permanently standardize critical corporate workflows across finance, the global supply chain, and industrial manufacturing.
  • The AI Foundation: The transformation is not merely viewed as a routine software upgrade. Both organizations explicitly recognize that pristine data quality and standardized process excellence are absolute prerequisites for integrating future AI-driven factory operations.

Industry Insights

The Hitachi-allnex ITGBS deployment provides a sharp diagnostic of the current state of global manufacturing technology, highlighting several macro-level trends:

  1. The S/4HANA Deadline as a Catalyst: As SAP aggressively phases out legacy ECC support, multinational corporations face a hard deadline. However, forward-thinking manufacturers are utilizing this forced migration not just for compliance, but to radically flatten and modernize their entire IT architecture.
  2. AI Cannot Be Bolted On: The industrial sector is collectively realizing that artificial intelligence cannot fix broken or fragmented data. The intensive, multi-year investment required to build a single, unified global SAP instance is the mandatory “toll” enterprises must pay today to unlock the true value of predictive maintenance, automated logistics, and smart production tomorrow.

FUTURE OUTLOOK

The formation of the joint ITGBS in Pune represents a highly sophisticated approach to enterprise modernization. By intertwining Hitachi Digital Services’ deep technical execution with allnex’s core business operations under a unified capability center, the organizations are bypassing the high failure rates associated with legacy IT upgrades. Ultimately, this partnership validates a crucial industry reality: the path to an AI-enabled industrial future requires the painstaking, complex standardization of foundational ERP architecture today.

Curated by SSF Global

Tracking the shifts shaping GCCs, enterprise ecosystems, and the future of global business.

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SSF Global is a Global Community for Enterprise Function Leaders and serves as a research & advisory platform focused on Global Business Services (GBS), Global Capability Centres (GCCs), and the evolution of enterprise innovation in India and beyond. We track, publish, and partner in narratives that shape how capability centres transform into hubs of trust, intelligence, and sustainable growth. We also evaluate, assess and benchmark the GCCs for their performance, maturity and other parameters using our proprietary tools built from the knowledge gained from direct interaction with our members (GCCs & GBS).