Author: CONSILIO Consulting America · Published: May 6, 2026 · Reading time: 8 minutes ·
Topic: SAP S/4HANA, ERP replacement, mid-market manufacturing
Key Facts
| Company | W. L. Gore & Associates, privately held global manufacturer, $4 billion-plus revenue, 17 industry lines, regulated process plus discrete manufacturing. |
| Program | Replaced 25-year-old JD Edwards with SAP S/4HANA. Implemented Ariba for source-to-pay and SuccessFactors to consolidate 14 disparate HR systems. |
| November 2025 release scope | All of Europe plus one US plant. Three operating companies. Single global cutover weekend. 11-month program clock. |
| Total transformation | Multi-year enterprise program, finishes globally in May 2027. |
| Cost | Tracking 25 to 30 percent over original business case; drivers are timeline extension and mid-program corporate restructure. |
| Partner | CONSILIO Consulting America. Peak team of 45 to 50 consultants. Multiple SI partners with lead-partner model. |
| Methodology | SAP Activate, adapted. Target was 90 to 95 percent fit-to-standard. |
| Outcome to date | Six months post-go-live. Revenue gap into the January-to-March quarter, recovered by quarter end, with one plant posting a record shipping month 33 percent above prior peak. |
Tom McKee, Enterprise Transformation Leader at W. L. Gore, joined Dominik Karosser, CEO of CONSILIO Consulting America, on a 60-minute LinkedIn Live on May 6, 2026. The conversation covered Gore's November 2025 SAP S/4HANA cutover across Europe, the program's discipline and overruns, and what every CTO replacing a legacy ERP should take home. Tom's thesis: SAP is not an IT project. People, process, technology, in that order. Top-down endorsement that does not flicker is the precondition for the discipline of fit-to-standard. Business acumen is not optional. Partnership is part of the work.
Why did W. L. Gore choose SAP over Oracle and Dynamics?
The deciding factor was fit. Gore's executive leadership team and CEO selected SAP S/4HANA before Tom McKee joined Gore in 2022, with board approval. The decision considered Gore's size, the complexity of running both regulated process and discrete manufacturing in a single enterprise, and the breadth of capability the business needed.
Tom, asked whether he would make the same decision today, said directly: "I think it is the right decision. I don't see a need to change." Tom spent thirty years implementing, using, and sponsoring SAP programs before joining Gore. His view from inside is that the complexity, the capabilities, and the company's growth ambitions all point to the same answer.
What is fit-to-standard, and how did Gore hold the line?
Fit-to-standard means using SAP's pre-configured business processes rather than customizing the software. Gore targeted 90 to 95 percent fit-to-standard. Keep the core clean.
For each region coming up for deployment, Gore applied a three-step process:
- Adopt the standard SAP configurations where they fit the business as-is.
- Adjust the standard with light configuration where adoption was close.
- Add new processes only for legitimate localization requirements.
Common processes accumulate a flywheel benefit. Every plant doing the same thing means an improvement in one place lifts everyone.
The discipline was supported by a governance program, design councils, and architectural reviews. Plant requests that pushed the template toward customization were reviewed against business case and impact at those gates. Tom did not pretend it was easy: "If I made it sound easy, that wasn't the intent. It's a daily journey."
Dominik weighed in with a peer endorsement. "The way Gore is dealing with these situations is really the best I've ever seen in the last twenty years in the SAP business." That endorsement carries conditions: the discipline only works because the CEO is engaged, because enterprise transformation is one of Gore's top two priorities, and because the principle of adopting standard was established at the top from day one. Gore's flat lattice culture also helps. Ownership clarity travels faster when there is no formal hierarchy to route around.
Why is SAP not an IT project?
Tom returned to one phrase repeatedly: people, process, technology, in that order. SAP is not an IT project. Treating it as one is where most of these programs lose momentum, regardless of methodology.
Gore knows this firsthand. The transformation began around 2015 and went through several start-and-stop cycles before Tom joined in 2022. The change he was hired to make was structural. The CEO named transformation a top-two enterprise priority. Guiding principles were set. Every meeting, every escalation, every decision flowed back to that priority.
The two mantras that carried the program
"What will it take?" When team members came forward saying they needed more time, the response was a question back. What decision needs to be made faster. What scope needs to be cut. What resource needs to be added. The shift that question forces is the difference between a program that ships and one that drifts.
"Don't blink." Leaders running these programs will be told repeatedly, by good people with reasonable concerns, to stop. The minute leaders show that weakness, the program reverts to start-and-stop.
A third practice was about scale. Three or five years overwhelms a team. Break it down. What is owed today, this week, this milestone. Stack the wins. "Everyone wants to play on a winning team," Tom said. "As we got a few deployments behind us, there was an awareness that, wow, we can do this."
The inflection point
In his first 90 days at Gore, Tom heard the familiar resistance: we've tried this, this won't work here, we're different. The CEO's clarity, repeated and consistent, that this was a top-two priority and not an IT project, broke that pattern.
Where did Gore underestimate complexity?
Two places. Business acumen and organizational change.
Business acumen: the MRP example
Practitioners in the chat asked which business processes benefited most. Tom answered with a story any manufacturing CTO will recognize. "One of my favorite stories is, oh yes, we run MRP today. And then when you go into the details, people run MRP, but they don't actually take the output and use it."
The lesson is upstream of the technology. Before SAP goes live, the operators, planners, and supervisors need to understand the end-to-end process. Make-to-order versus make-to-stock. MRP outputs that are actually used to drive shop-floor priorities. The downstream impact of changing a customer order date. Tom's stated lesson learned: Gore should have invested more in business acumen earlier. Anyone running a similar program now still has time.
Tom also flagged the risk of getting attached to new tools too quickly. Detailed scheduling, advanced planning, embedded AI. "If you're managing your shop floor on paper today, start with the basics. Earn the right to do more advanced planning."
Organizational change
Tom's framing was direct: "It's not due to lack of governance or rigor. I underestimated some of the complexity of the organizational change." Mid-program, Gore restructured from a single corporate model to multiple legal entities and operating companies. The restructure forced central finance redesign and layered in intercompany transactions, transfer pricing, and VAT. Combined with timeline extension, the program is tracking 25 to 30 percent over the original case, finishing globally in May 2027 instead of the originally planned two-and-a-half to three years.
How did the cutover weekend actually go?
Well orchestrated. Tom's word.
Data loads and validations had started earlier. Lessons learned from prior waves were baked in. The number of high-critical defects was small, and the team resolved them inside 24 hours. Dominik added a detail practitioners will recognize: the team had food, drinks, and motivation in place at the cutover war room. Keeping people functional during a 72-hour window matters as much as the technical readiness.
The harder period started around day 30. Volume picked up. New process behavior had not yet settled. The company saw a revenue gap into the January-to-March quarter. Tom did not soften this. "We had revenue gaps. There were extra bodies thrown at it. As we traversed the learning curve, certain things got easier."
The story turned. By the end of the fiscal quarter, the operating companies closed their revenue gaps. A couple of sites posted record shipping months. The most operationally challenged plant shipped 33 percent above any prior month in March. Some of that was extra effort. Some of that was the new system finally being used the way it was designed.
How did the partnership with CONSILIO work?
CONSILIO had between 45 and 50 consultants engaged at peak, most full-time on the program. Multiple SI partners worked the same release with a lead-partner model per area. IBM led quality management, with CONSILIO consultants supporting. The lead and support partners ran joint preparation meetings, took the same content into plant workshops, and shared feedback in single-thread coordination calls.
Dominik attributed the program's working dynamic to openness. Weekly meetings. Issues surfaced as they appeared, not deferred. Resource and performance conversations had directly. "We never hid anything. Whenever there was an issue, we brought it up and discussed it openly. When we saw something on your side or the other way around, it was always, hey, can we have a short chat? Can we have a call?"
The discipline and the methodology are real. They only deliver inside a partnership willing to have hard conversations early.
What three lessons should other CTOs take home?
| Lesson | Practical implication |
| 1. The technology decision is the easy part | The order is people, process, technology. Treating SAP as an IT project is where most programs lose momentum, regardless of methodology. |
| 2. Fit-to-standard requires top-down endorsement that does not flicker | Without enterprise-priority status from the CEO, governance gates do not hold against plant pressure. |
| 3. Business acumen is not optional | Operators, planners, and supervisors need to understand end-to-end processes (make-to-order vs. make-to-stock, MRP outputs, downstream order impact) before SAP goes live. |
Partnership is part of the work.
CONSILIO and Gore showed what an open working relationship looks like across an 11-month sprint with multiple SI partners. The methodology is real. It only delivers when the partners running the program are willing to have hard conversations early.
Frequently asked questions
How long did W. L. Gore's SAP S/4HANA cutover take?
The November 2025 European release ran on an 11-month program clock from kickoff to single-weekend cutover. Gore's full enterprise transformation began around 2015, accelerated from 2022, and finishes globally in May 2027.
What ERP did Gore replace with SAP S/4HANA?
Gore replaced JD Edwards. Gore had been running JD Edwards for approximately 25 years, with extensive customization and significant ERP capability migrated into MES systems over time.
How much did the SAP S/4HANA program cost compared to the business case?
Tom McKee said the program is now tracking 25 to 30 percent over the original business case. Two drivers: timeline extension from a 2.5-to-3-year plan to a 4-to-4.5-year plan, and a mid-program restructure from a single corporate model to multiple legal entities and operating companies.
How many consultants did the program use?
CONSILIO Consulting America had 45 to 50 consultants engaged at peak, most full-time. The program also involved multiple system integrator partners under a lead-partner-by-area model.
Was the cutover weekend smooth?
Yes. Tom McKee described it as well orchestrated, with high-critical defects resolved within 24 hours. The hardest period began around 30 days post-go-live, with a revenue gap that recovered by the end of the fiscal quarter.
What is fit-to-standard SAP implementation?
Fit-to-standard means using SAP's pre-configured business processes rather than customizing the software. Gore targeted 90 to 95 percent fit-to-standard. The team applied a three-step decision process for each requirement: adopt the standard, adjust the standard with light configuration, or add a new process for legitimate localization.
Did Gore consider alternatives to SAP?
The decision was made before Tom McKee joined Gore in 2022. Gore's executive leadership team selected SAP S/4HANA based on fit for Gore's size, the complexity of operating regulated process and discrete manufacturing in a single enterprise, and the breadth of capability the business needed. Tom said today he would make the same decision.
What lessons did Gore learn from the SAP transformation?
Gore's stated lessons include: invest in business acumen and end-to-end process understanding before go-live, secure top-down enterprise priority from the CEO, hold fit-to-standard discipline through formal governance gates, and treat partner relationships as openness-first with weekly issue-surfacing.
Watch the full conversation
The 60-minute LinkedIn Live recording is available on the CONSILIO Consulting America LinkedIn page.
