PPG’s three-pronged IT transformation strategy combines shared customer-facing platforms, a consolidated back office and a cloud-only architecture. The goal is to reduce technology fragmentation built up through decades of acquisitions and create a foundation for more scalable customer tools and manufacturing innovation. One major milestone is now reported complete: by the end of 2025, PPG said all its IT operations were managed through cloud providers and its physical data centers had closed. That does not mean the broader transformation—or its ERP consolidation—is finished.
Why PPG needed a transformation strategy
PPG is a more-than-140-year-old paints and coatings company whose growth included more than 60 acquisitions and divestitures over roughly two decades, according to CIO Bhaskar Ramachandran’s 2024 interview. Those transactions left the company with several dozen enterprise resource planning (ERP) and general-ledger systems. Even basic finance definitions and processes were not consistently standardized.
The consequence was more than a sprawling technology inventory. Duplicated systems and inconsistent data made reporting and integration harder, while each acquired business could bring its own processes and applications. PPG’s challenge was to create common capabilities without making its distinct businesses less responsive to their markets. The three-part framework was Ramachandran’s IT modernization strategy, not a claim that it represents every part of PPG’s corporate strategy. CIO’s 2024 interview with Ramachandran describes the original plan.
Pillar one: a shared foundation for customer-facing technology
PPG has nine business units serving both business-to-business and consumer customers. Its strategy is to consolidate customer-experience technology on common enterprise platforms, then allow business units to build products and services suited to their markets.
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In principle, shared identity, customer data, integration, commerce infrastructure and workflow can reduce duplication and make capabilities reusable. A customer-facing application for automotive refinishing, for example, may need different features from one serving architectural coatings, even if both rely on common platform services.
The trade-off is where to draw the boundary: standardize the underlying capabilities, but preserve flexibility in the products and experiences customers actually use. The 2024 interview describes this as a strategic direction; it does not establish that every customer-facing system has already been consolidated.
Pillar two: consolidate the back office
Ramachandran described a multiyear effort to consolidate PPG’s several dozen ERP systems into a single instance using a global process template, starting with finance. A common template can make financial definitions, controls and reporting more consistent, and may make acquired businesses easier to integrate.
That work is as much about process and data as software. Local tax, legal and commercial needs can complicate a global template, while harmonizing data and changing established workflows can be harder than installing a new system. A single instance can also concentrate operational risk if it is not carefully governed.
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The available later reporting confirms PPG’s cloud milestone, but does not establish that the ERP consolidation is complete, what it cost or what return it has produced. “Single instance” is the CIO’s description of the objective, not a verified statement of completion.
Pillar three: a cloud-only architecture
Ramachandran chose “cloud-only” rather than “cloud-first” to make the intended direction less ambiguous. He said the rationale was flexibility—not cloud adoption for its own sake—including the ability to support acquisitions, divestitures, product innovation and cost management.
At the time of the 2024 interview, PPG had eight data centers worldwide, had shut four, and reported that 78% of its systems were completely on the cloud. Its stated aim was to exceed 90% by the end of that year. Those figures are historical, not the current status.
PPG’s sustainability reporting says that by the end of 2025, 100% of its IT operations were managed through cloud providers and all physical data centers had closed. The company estimated that the shutdowns reduced annual energy consumption by 1,642 MWh and greenhouse-gas emissions by 829 metric tons of CO₂ equivalent. These are reported environmental effects, not quantified financial savings. PPG’s cybersecurity and data privacy reporting also describes its internal AI policy, including acceptable and prohibited uses and employee obligations for developing and deploying AI models and applications.
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Cloud-managed operations do not necessarily mean every application is cloud-native, modular or free of legacy constraints. Nor does closing data centers demonstrate that ERP and customer-platform programs are complete. Cloud is an infrastructure milestone within the broader transformation.
What the modernization can enable
Digital color matching for collision repair
In the 2024 interview, PPG’s CIO described a software-enabled photo spectrometer that measures a vehicle’s color at multiple points, angles and lighting conditions, then recommends a paint formula. PPG served more than 45,000 U.S. auto body shops, according to the same interview.
Ramachandran said the approach could reduce reliance on highly experienced painters and described an example in which the number of test panels fell from about ten to two. He also discussed potential automation of paint mixing. Those figures are an executive’s example, not an independently audited result or a universal outcome for every repair. PPG’s current refinish materials show an ongoing digital color-management ecosystem that includes ColorMobile, PaintManager, RapidMatch and TouchMix. PPG’s color-solutions overview lists these tools.
AI-assisted automotive coatings manufacturing
Ramachandran also described an AI system used to reach a target “golden batch” of automotive paint. He said operators might historically make eight adjustments, while the AI-supported approach reduced that to one or two in the use case he discussed. The intended benefits were improved throughput and lower overhead. The interview does not establish that result as a company-wide benchmark or provide independent validation.
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AI-supported product development and customer tools
PPG’s 2025 sustainability and financial reporting describes wider use of digital tools and AI to accelerate product development, reduce lifecycle impacts and waste, improve productivity and enhance customer experience. Examples include AI-designed coatings such as PPG Deltron NXT Premium Glamour Speed Clearcoat and the Color Visualizer. PPG’s reporting frames these as part of a broader digital and operational effort; it does not show that all innovation is AI-driven. PPG’s 2025 financial and sustainability overview provides that context.
For automotive refinish customers, PPG also reported integrating ADJUSTRITE with PAINTMANAGER XI. This is a concrete example of connecting digital tools across a customer workflow rather than treating infrastructure migration itself as the end product. PPG’s strategic milestones lists the integration.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.The operating model behind the technology
PPG described placing frontline IT teams close to business units so they can understand needs continuously, rather than waiting for formal requirements to arrive. Delivery-focused centers of excellence execute the work through those frontline teams, helping keep implementation connected to business context.
The company also described an approximately 2,000-person IT organization spread across time zones, a small change-management team staffed by former consultants, and learning curricula tied to new roles and capabilities, particularly cloud skills. This is evidence of an approach to workforce transition, not proof that every employee was reskilled or that resistance disappeared.
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PPG translated the same modernization program into different business cases for different stakeholders: faster time to market and scaling for business-unit leaders; reduced operational and technology risk for the board; less dependence on capital spending and eventual elimination of data-center costs for the CFO; and new cloud-career opportunities for IT staff. The interview does not quantify realized financial savings.
What PPG has demonstrated—and what remains unclear
The clearest current milestone is the reported closure of physical data centers and transition to cloud-managed IT operations by the end of 2025, alongside PPG’s estimates of associated energy and emissions reductions. The company’s 2025 reporting also points to continued work on ecommerce, customer experience, digital manufacturing and AI-supported product development.
Those facts do not establish completion of the ERP consolidation, full standardization of customer platforms, enterprise-wide deployment of the described AI systems, profitability of digital products or removal of all legacy applications. The 2024 color-matching and manufacturing figures come from PPG’s CIO interview, not an independent audit. PPG’s 2025 shareholder update reports that sustainably advantaged products accounted for 43% of sales; that figure is business context, not a measure of the transformation’s return on investment. PPG’s 2025 performance update provides the sales-share figure and current priorities.
Quick Recap
Lessons for companies growing through acquisitions
- Standardize the foundation, not every customer proposition. Shared data and platform services can reduce duplication, while business units retain room to serve different markets.
- Treat integration as an ongoing capability. Acquisitions, divestitures and temporary coexistence between systems need to be supported by architecture and processes, not handled as one-off exceptions.
- Measure more than cloud migration. Track application retirement, process consistency, integration time and operational outcomes alongside workloads moved.
- Design the operating model with the technology. Embedded business-facing IT and delivery teams can keep platforms connected to real operational needs.
- Make value legible to each stakeholder. Risk, customer experience, capital needs and employee skills are different parts of a transformation’s case, not interchangeable claims.
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