Why move to S/4HANA, and what are your options?

Posted by:
Manoj Narang

Publish Date:
4 Feb, 2021

SAP S/4HANA is SAP's next-generation business suite built on the advanced in-memory platform SAP HANA. The International Data Corporation (IDC) reported that 73% of SAP clients are planning on deploying SAP S/4HANA within the next five years.

Clearly, the end of standard support contracts for ECC in 2027 plays a major role here. But we are also seeing SAP customers bring forward their system upgrade plans because they’re keen to acquire the benefits an ‘Intelligent ERP’ can bring.

What are the benefits of moving?

When we help our customers define their priorities, and what they want to achieve from SAP S/4HANA, we find many of them want to take a fresh look at the business and modernise their processes. When they first implemented SAP ECC, 15 years ago or more, the world and their organisation was totally different.

The discussions I’ve been having this year with CIOs include the following benefits as key drivers to start their migration:

  • Gaining real-time analytics and predictive modelling to make better data-driven decisions.
  • Consolidating the IT landscape and getting greater visibility.
  • Increasing efficiencies and cutting costs through automation and machine learning.
  • Making the business more agile and resilient.
  • Optimising processes.
  • Becoming future-proof with a digital platform for innovation.

An energy company said of their move to S/4HANA, “Our IT benefits included simplification of our IT landscape and future savings as the system readies us for the future now, without additional migration and customisation costs. We now have mobile capabilities that our business loves, and we have also found benefits in optimisation, innovation, and agility in a few areas such as mobile workflows. The business has found efficiencies in all areas, but finance is a huge area.”

Green, brown or hybrid?

Once you are clear on your priority business outcomes, the next step is to define key milestones within a timeline and assess whether you want to go greenfield, brownfield or take a hybrid approach.

  • With greenfield conversions, we employ the industry best practices embedded within S/4HANA and see what the required deviations are, along with which processes you want to modernise.
  • A brownfield system conversion is where you re-use almost everything you currently have and just change the base, for example, from ECC to S/4HANA. This includes assessing and optimising any custom codes where needed.
  • A hybrid approach eases you into a full system conversion in a more measured way.

Our experts have created several templates to make this step-by-step strategy quicker and more cost-effective. Our S/4HANA conversion templates include software and services for a defined scope and price to deliver predictable outcomes and fast ROI.

Start your journey with our 10-day data assessment

Data is critical in any business. When moving from a legacy system such as ECC, the first step is to get a full picture of what data is sitting there, which other systems and business processes rely on it and how to ensure the right quality of data before bringing it into SAP S/4HANA.

We offer a 10-day initial assessment, using a combination of SAP and Invenio tools, to report on how best to approach the conversion to S/4HANA. We also do an advance custom code analysis where we identify which of your custom codes need optimising before moving to S/4HANA and which don’t need to be migrated because they are available as standard in the new system.

Now is the time to prepare

Most companies have custom codes, which can create implementation challenges and adversely affect timelines. To ensure a smooth transition, we recommend scoping out your move to SAP S/4HANA well ahead of time, so you have plenty of time to overcome any unforeseen hurdles.

To start planning your journey, or to find out more about our 10-day initial assessment and SAP S/4HANA conversion templates, contact us.

Blog Author

Manoj Narang

VP - Business Development

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