Your Future Project you CAN Re IMAGING

AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca is a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company that focuses on the discovery, development, and commercialization of prescription medicines, primarily for the treatment of diseases in three therapy areas - Oncology, Cardiovascular, Renal & Metabolism, and Respiratory & Immunology.

white textile on brown wooden table

Needs

AstraZeneca required a robust and globally standardized approach to tax data management and compliance as part of its S/4HANA finance transformation. Key objectives included harmonizing legacy tax structures across multiple geographies, ensuring adherence to evolving digital tax mandates like "Making Tax Digital" (MTD), automating tax reporting processes, and embedding tax requirements deeply into its data governance framework to maintain audit readiness and data integrity. Furthermore, there was a need to leverage advanced analytics for proactive tax risk management and forecasting.

Our vision

We want to live in a world where people can buy homes that match their needs rather than having to find a compromise and settle on the second-best option. That's why we take a lot of time and care in getting to know our clients from the moment they reach out to us and ask for our help.

Achievements

  • Standardized Tax Data Model: Defined and implemented unified S/4HANA tax data standards across diverse regions, significantly reducing reconciliation errors (e.g., achieving a 32% reduction in similar contexts). Mapped GL/AR/AP tax codes (FI-GL, FI-AR, FI-AP, FI-TAX) consistently.

  • MTD Compliance & E-invoicing Automation: Successfully implemented SAP MTD modules, automating tax reporting for high-volume transactions (e.g., 100K+ monthly). Integrated EN16931 e-invoicing, drastically cutting manual tax adjustments (e.g., by 70%).

  • S/4HANA Data Governance Integration: Embedded tax requirements into the S/4HANA Data Governance Framework, ensuring alignment with AstraZeneca's Global Data Standards and audit readiness for bodies like ECB/FCA. Ensured high accuracy (e.g., 99.7%) in pre-load validation for tax-critical fields like VAT IDs.

  • Predictive Tax Analytics: Leveraged SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) integrated with AWS Data Lake (S3, Glue, Athena) for advanced tax gap analysis and driver-based forecasting of transactional taxes.

  • Change Management: Successfully managed change impact assessments for transitioning from legacy ECC tax structures to S/4HANA, securing broad stakeholder buy-in.

Benefits

  • Enhanced Tax Compliance: Ensured adherence to MTD and other digital tax mandates, reducing compliance risk.

  • Operational Efficiency: Significantly reduced manual effort in tax reconciliation, reporting, and adjustments through automation.

  • Improved Data Quality & Governance: Established robust tax data governance and improved the accuracy and consistency of tax-related data.

  • Proactive Risk Management: Enabled predictive tax gap analysis and better forecasting, allowing for proactive identification and mitigation of tax risks.

  • Audit Readiness: Maintained a state of audit readiness through standardized processes and well-documented tax data within S/4HANA.