Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) / Food & Beverage · Supply Chain Planning Platform Migration · Nestlé S.A.
Supply Chain Planning Platform Migration Project Manager Simulation — Nestlé S.A.
Lead a CHF 22M SAP Integrated Business Planning rollout for Nestlé — the world's largest food company. What looks like a straightforward APO-to-IBP migration unravels as you discover that demand planners abandoned APO years ago for shadow Excel models, master data quality is far below IBP thresholds, and five years of historical demand data is unusable for IBP's machine learning algorithms. Navigate the gap between the project everyone approved and the project that actually needs to be delivered. Gain hands-on project management experience over 27 days of real decisions, stakeholders, and PMO deliverables — no prior experience required.
The scenario
Nestlé S.A. — a CHF 93B revenue CPG company with 270,000 employees across 188 countries — has approved a CHF 22M programme to replace its legacy SAP APO (Advanced Planning & Optimization) system with SAP IBP (Integrated Business Planning) across its European and Americas zones. The migration covers three IBP modules: Demand Planning, Supply Planning, and Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP). The business driver is twofold. First, SAP APO is approaching end-of-mainstream-maintenance — extended support is available but increasingly expensive and provides no new functionality. Second, Nestlé's Chief Technology Officer, Filippo Catalano, has championed IBP as the foundation of a 'Digital Supply Chain' initiative that promises ML-driven demand sensing, real-time supply-demand balancing, and integrated S&OP dashboards for zone leadership. On paper, this is a like-for-like system replacement with a well-defined SAP migration path and an experienced SI partner (Accenture). In reality, the project conceals layers of hidden complexity that will surface progressively: demand planners who abandoned APO years ago in favor of sophisticated Excel models, master data quality far below IBP requirements, corrupted historical time series data, and integration challenges between IBP's cloud architecture and Nestlé's on-premise S/4HANA extensions. What was approved as a technology migration is actually a planning process transformation — and nobody scoped it that way.
What you'll do as the project manager
- →Migrate demand planning, supply planning, and S&OP processes from SAP APO to SAP IBP across 30+ markets in European and Americas zones
- →Deliver ML-driven demand sensing capability in IBP that matches or exceeds current forecast accuracy (target: MAPE ≤ 28% at SKU-market level)
- →Establish real-time integration between IBP (cloud) and S/4HANA (on-premise) for material master, sales history, and production planning data
- →Achieve Wave 1 go-live for 5 European pilot markets (Germany, France, UK, Switzerland, Spain) within the programme timeline
- →Decommission SAP APO for migrated markets — eliminating CHF 3.2M annual maintenance cost and reducing planning system fragmentation
Project management skills you'll build
The challenges you'll navigate
- •APO-to-IBP migration path assumes standard SAP data structures — any market-specific customizations in APO may not have a direct IBP equivalent
- •Demand planner adoption risk — IBP's planning UX is fundamentally different from APO's transaction-based interface
- •Cloud-to-on-premise integration latency — IBP requires near-real-time data feeds from S/4HANA that may not be achievable via standard CPI connectors
- •Master data quality has not been independently assessed — the assumption of 'clean enough' data is based on S/4HANA go-live validation, not IBP-specific requirements
- •Market demand planners have significant informal autonomy — mandating IBP adoption without their buy-in risks shadow system proliferation
Technology & stakeholders
You'll manage 7 stakeholders, including Filippo Catalano (Chief Technology & Digital Officer), Rémi Petit (PMO Director, Supply Chain Technology), David Rennie (SVP, Head of Strategic Supply Chain), and more.
What you'll walk away with
A verified, shareable record of a completed enterprise project — plus the PMO deliverables you produced along the way (charter, project plan, SteerCo deck, closure document). It's real, demonstrable project management experience you can put on your resume and speak to in interviews.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need project management experience to start?
No. This simulation is built for aspiring and practicing project managers alike — you learn by doing. You make real decisions and get feedback, with no PMP or prior PM job required.
How long does this simulation take?
It runs over 27 days, roughly 27 minutes per day, covering the full project lifecycle from initiation to closure.
What will I learn?
You practice the core of project management — stakeholder management, budget and schedule control, risk, scope, and PMO governance — in the context of supply chain planning platform migration in consumer packaged goods (cpg) / food & beverage.
Is this based on the real Nestlé S.A.?
It's a realistic scenario inspired by Nestlé S.A. and the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) / Food & Beverage sector. Details and names are fictionalized for training — it's a simulation, not a record of any actual project.
What do I get at the end?
A verified project completion plus the PMO deliverables you produced (charter, plan, SteerCo deck, closure) — proof of hands-on experience you can show employers.
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