Currently, there is no shortage of content which helps organizations choose between the Greenfield and Brownfield approaches for SAP S/4 HANA migration. Even a simple search on around the ideal migration approach to SAP S/4 HANA will provide thousands of results.
However, after a certain point of time, one has to ask themselves if this entire debate around the subject is worth it.
Debating about these approaches somehow oversimplifies the entire roadmap for migrating to a new ERP system. Therefore, you need to understand that different organizations are equipped with different landscapes that evolved over time to cater to the organization’s unique requirements. Especially when an organization is planning to migrate to SAP S/4 HANA, chances are they have been using the SAP ECC solution until now, which was configured in a manner to serve the organization.
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Approach Towards SAP S/4HANA Migration
When an organization decides to migrate to a new ERP solution such as the SAP S/4 HANA, it means they are signing in for a huge undertaking. This transformation will impact every individual in the organization and require the accumulated efforts of everyone.
Therefore, the appropriate way to look at this transformation is to acknowledge this transformation will help enhance processes, enable the organization to drive augmented innovation, and leverage intelligent technologies to fuel growth. It would be best if one could replace the entire Greenfield and Brownfield approach with something else suited to cater to the organization’s unique requirements.
Accely is one of those few that enable you to customize the entire approach towards migration to SAP S/4 HANA. A tailored approach towards migration can help you access a practical roadmap that can help one drive effective transformation with minimal disruptions to business processes.
Principles To Consider For Such Transformation
There are many things that a business needs to consider before migrating to SAP S/4 HANA. However, there are certain principles one can consider to simplify their migration process and drive seamless transformation without any hassle. The principles to consider include:
- Agility: The word agility has certainly transformed into a buzzword for everyone involved with the IT or digitization of an organization. However, agility certainly deserves much more than simply being used as a buzzword because, in reality, things change as an organization experiences growth. This growth can vary based on different factors and also be influenced by many such factors.
For instance, no business could have predicted in 2019 that the world would come to standstill in 2020. However, a business with an agile approach towards change did manage to survive while many others perished. This is the same thing that one needs in the SAP S/4 HANA migration roadmap. Ensuring adequate flexibility can help a business facilitate transformation at its own pace, further increasing the chances of success.
- Smart Processes: When it comes to transforming an organization’s digital infrastructure, it is always recommended to focus on enhancing existing business processes. This can be done by leveraging the competencies of all the advanced technologies such as business intelligence, artificial intelligence, robotics process automation, predictive analytics, and more.
Businesses need to leverage these technologies to facilitate the effective automation of tedious and repetitive tasks. This will allow the organization to save valuable resources and spend them elsewhere to add value to the organization. Minimizing human intervention will help one eliminate human errors and drive effective results with a robust ERP solution such as the SAP S/4 HANA.
- Speed to Value: Gone are the days when an organization had to wait for about 36 months before they could see any tangible results from the SAP S/4 HANA implementation. This has always been an outdated approach that drained extensive patience and persistence from the organization. The world that we live in today is gruesome, and waiting for such a long period does not make any more sense. Therefore, organizations must focus on generating amplified returns on investment instead of waiting for the results to show and living with the uncertainty that comes with it.
- User Experience: User experience is much more than what one sees on their computer screen. Instead, this holistic aspect includes screen design, the flow of business processes behind the computer screen, and, most importantly, the value derived from these augmented processes. This is the approach every organization must have when discussing the user experience of a given solution, such as the SAP S/4 HANA. This is important because ineffective user experience can also result in increasing the time needed to acquaint and train the workforce for using a new ERP solution.
- Impact of Insights: An advanced ERP solution such as the SAP S/4 HANA is equipped with unrivaled analytics competencies. This means the solution will provide decision-makers with highly valuable insights, further helping them make a better and more informed business decision. Therefore, organizations need to focus their efforts on determining if these insights are actually adding any value to the organization as a whole. This will help determine any ineffectiveness beforehand and deploy corrective measures to enhance the overall situation for good.
Final Thoughts
Migrating to SAP S/4 HANA can be a hassle, but considering the aforementioned pointers can help one rethink their SAP S/4 HANA migration roadmap and choose the elements that serve them the best. Therefore, make sure to keep this in mind when planning your migration to SAP S/4 HANA.
Author Bio:
Eric Smith is an SAP professional providing consulting services for SAP solutions to his clients. With a knack for technology, he loves to write on the latest SAP developments and share his knowledge with the readers.
