Osram successfully implements highly ambitious IT project

• Successful carve-out of the lamps business completed with an IT ‘big bang’
• “We are now playing in the Champions League” - Olaf Berlien, CEO of Osram
• “We separated more than 320 systems in the go-live” - Kian Mossanen, CIO of Osram
• “It was a mega transformation project” - Yasser Eissa, Vice President IBM Cloud
• “This was a world-class achievement” - Alexander Rombach, delivery manager at SAP

Osram has successfully implemented one of the most ambitious IT projects in German corporate history. The IT systems of Osram and the carved-out lamps business were completely separated in a ‘big bang’ approach during a busy final week of the project. This marks the successful completion of the Ledvance spin-off.

“We have clearly demonstrated our capabilities in one of the world’s most complex IT projects and are now playing in the Champions League. We are fully equipped for our continuing journey toward becoming a high-tech provider,” said Olaf Berlien, CEO of OSRAM Licht AG.

Osram carved out the general lighting lamps business with effect from July 1. Approximately 9,000 of Osram’s 33,000 employees now work for this company, which is called Ledvance. “In the global go-live, we separated more than 320 systems – including for human resources management, purchase orders, ordering, accounting, logistics and production systems, and the website: The entire IT landscapes of Osram and Ledvance are now completely separate. After months of preparatory work, the systems and their interfaces were separated within five days,” said Kian Mossanen, CIO of Osram.

Around 350 internal and 120 external IT employees were involved in the project. At 267 terabyte, the volume of data transferred equals that of 64,000 large encyclopedias of 30 volumes each. This number of books, put next to each other, would cover a distance from Munich to Bremen. We were supported by strong partners who helped to ensure that the IT split ran smoothly,” added Mossanen.

“The businesses of Osram and Ledvance were separated worldwide from both a logic and a system perspective; the system landscape was split completely and, at the same time, transferred to the cloud. And this was all done within twelve months – a world-class achievement,” said Alexander Rombach, delivery manager for the IT carve-out at partner SAP.

“Osram exemplifies how the cloud is becoming established as a core IT resource, particularly for global companies working in high-tech industries,” said Yasser Eissa, Vice President IBM Cloud for Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The transfer of company data into the cloud was a highly complex project in itself. Together with a split of the entire IT landscape in such a short time it was a mega transformation project, for which it is hard to find another example. At the same time, the cloud opens up manifold opportunities for Osram to implement additional innovative issues rapidly.”