Colombina Moves to SAP S/4HANA Cloud: Faster Delivery, Stronger Security, AI Ready

Colombina - 99 Years from Candy to Global Digital Transformation

Ninety-nine years ago, in the fertile valleys of western Colombia where sugar cane is plentiful, Don Hernando Caicedo imagined turning the colors, shapes, and flavors of tropical fruits into luscious hard and soft candy treats. His dream led to the founding of Colombina and a colorful corporate logo inspired by a character from an Italian opera.

Today, Colombina is a multinational food group with a portfolio of 19 categories including confectionery, cookies, chocolate, sauces, preserves, ice cream, and coffee, along with a global workforce of more than 8,000. From seven processing plants and 39 distribution centers in Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, and the U.S., Colombina serves 750,000 customers in more than 90 countries worldwide and generates annual sales of almost US$1 billion.

The Challenge of Fragmented ERP Systems

With a global footprint spanning manufacturing, distribution, and retail, Colombina had to continually review and adapt specialized technology solutions for each market segment. This fragmented approach made it difficult to ensure the integrity, availability, and confidentiality of business information at scale.

Colombina's leadership recognized that the company needed to standardize processes across dozens of markets while continuing to grow sales and manage costs. Key areas in need of standardization included finance and supply chain management, where a unified technology foundation was critical to sustaining growth and operational efficiency.

RISE with SAP - Simultaneous Migration Across 16 Countries

A long-term SAP customer, Colombina signed up for RISE with SAP, migrating from SAP ERP Central Component (ECC) to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition in a full, simultaneous migration executed across 16 countries.

The solution covers key business functions including finance, asset management, manufacturing, supply chain, and sales. Beyond that, Colombina integrated its cloud ERP with a broad ecosystem of SAP solutions including:

• SAP Fiori - modern user interface
• SAP SuccessFactors - human resources management
• SAP Integrated Business Planning - integrated business planning
• SAP Analytics Cloud - analytics and reporting
• SAP Ariba - procurement management

Multi-Layer Security and Significant Downtime Reduction

The new system provides protection at different layers including the operating system, applications, and users, while delivering low downtime and quick, thorough resolutions. Before implementation, system downtime was a significant issue for Colombina; now, with double the number of application servers, downtime has been reduced and most customer issues can be resolved within 45 minutes.

Colombina's IT team also reports high confidence when looking ahead to updates, with reduced concerns thanks to predictable update windows that typically take place at the weekend. The new system also provides early watch alerts, enabling the IT team to get in front of potential risks on a day-to-day basis.

Tangible Results: Next-Day Delivery

The impact has been tangible: Colombina now offers next-day delivery and has improved average customer response times by more than a third. Workload distribution has improved dramatically, while the business has seen fewer customer returns, stronger demand planning, and more efficient HR management.

AI-Ready for the Future

But the company is not stopping there. Having introduced Joule for SAP SuccessFactors, Colombina is preparing to activate Joule Agents across its business and is implementing SAP Databricks for data models, working with SAP Business Data Cloud to build the right data foundation for future AI capabilities.

John Carlos Jaramillo, an IT project manager at Colombina for over 20 years, highlighted the value derived from strategic advisory on key initiatives including clean core, SAP Cloud ALM, and Joule Base, supporting the exploration of AI-driven capabilities and accelerating the organization's journey toward business innovation.

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Source: Colombina’s Cloud Move with SAP Delivers Faster Delivery, Stronger Security, and AI Readiness — SAP News Center, September 18, 2026