Severstal and SIBUR to develop solutions jointly to replace SAP

MOSCOW. May 21 (Interfax) - Severstal and SIBUR petrochemical holding are beginning joint development of target processes to replace the SAP landscape, Alexei Mordashov, chairman of the board of directors of the metals company, said at the plenary session of the CIPR-2024 conference. He did not rule out that a consortium of large Russian companies could be formed, and the project could be valued at billions of dollars.

"We assume that an industrial consortium consisting of a small number of players should be able to offer solutions to replace SAP within the next four to five years, which would take into account both the performance requirements of solutions of this class and industrial specifics," Mordashov said.

"Today I managed to talk on the sidelines with one very serious entrepreneur, who also expressed interest in looking at this project. We will probably form some kind of consortium of large Russian companies. We understand that amounts on the order of billions of dollars will need to be spent together on creating our own version of SAP in these five years; we have no other way. SAP is becoming obsolete; today we have been cut off from the supplier, and we cannot make updates which are primarily related to cybersecurity," the main shareholder of Severstal said; he also "asked for the possibility in advance" of contacting the government regarding state support for this project."

Mordashov recalled that today there is no full-fledged alternative to foreign ERP systems that meets the needs of large industrial enterprises.