Merck KGaA announced that it will remain at its headquarters site in Darmstadt, Germany, and announced a plan to upgrade its enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems across its three businesses: healthcare, life sciences, and performance materials. 

“Darmstadt is a strong site with strong prospects. Our Group headquarters are and will remain in Darmstadt. We manufacture here for all three business sectors [healthcare, life science, and performance materials]. Important research activities are based in Darmstadt, and we meanwhile have more than 10,000 employees at the site,” said Stefan Oschmann, chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck KGaA, in a company statement. “Now, in a situation in which the company is doing very well, we want to strategically prepare the site for further growth in the three business sectors. To do so, we must link it better with other parts of our advancing world,” said Oschmann.

For this purpose, the company will relaunch the ERP systems of Merck KGaA. To date, these have primarily been optimized for the requirements at the Darmstadt site but only support global needs of the business sectors to a limited extent. Three customized ERP systems are to be set up for the three business sectors: healthcare, life science, and performance materials. To this end, Merck KGaA will also examine the company legal structures at the site, particularly the establishment of subsidiaries under the roof of Merck KGaA to run the individual businesses and their ERP systems.

The planned measures and their concrete form are still subject to further review and decision-making by the company’s Executive Board and other responsible bodies. According to the current status, implementation should largely take place in 2018.

Source; Merck KGaA