SAP S/4HANA, which is the 4th ERP suite developed by SAP  is quickly becoming SAP’s most successful ERP system across the world.

Since the time that SAP launched SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA (SAP S/4 HANA), SAP customers have been very to arrive at the decision to implement it. The reason for this is fairly evident – the current technology environment continues to evolve at a rapid pace and businesses want to keep up in terms of agility, accessing reliable real-time information, and acquiring the capability to leverage benefits provided by new technologies. Business leaders are realizing rather quickly that this transformative event of migrating to SAP S/4 HANA, can be leveraged to bring about opportunities for introducing digital technology and process improvements into their organizations.

The benefits of SAP S/4 HANA have been a focus point for SAP and they have left no stone unturned in allowing customers to understand and witness the transformation that the next generation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) will be undergoing and most importantly, how well it will address customer challenges and generate expected return on investment (ROI).

Experts predict that by 2025, SAP S/4 HANA will have replaced the current SAP ERP software suite.

In 2017, there were several new approaches to migrate to SAP S/4 HANA successfully and profitably. As businesses around the world became more aware and forward thinking, and began to see that the technology has generated expected outcomes, there was a subsequent shift in their perspective. This led to a drastic increase in implementations, and a discovery of real benefits to their business.  

However, despite the rapid rise in the number of implementations, there are still a massive majority of the SAP install base, that have yet to embark on their journey to SAP S/4HANA.

In order to help you navigate this barrage of changes happening in the marketplace, we will be addressing strategies you can implement to ensure that your migration to SAP S/4 HANA is smooth, quick and without too many interruptions.

1. Have a clear vision of what you expect from your SAP S/4 HANA journey

You will have to clearly define exactly what your business goals in order to define the right roadmap for the SAP S/4 HANA transformation. Whether your goal is a complete overhaul of current processes, or a slower technical approach, it is important to define it as meticulously as possible, with the help of the right professionals, before you get started on identifying the optimal approach. Your goals of the transformation will determine if/to what extent the implementation will impact your business.

Also, consider what business benefits you are expecting to obtain from this initiative.  Your investment into SAPS/4 HANA journey should be planned around your business case – in order to ensure it is delivering expected ROI. Having this clarity on your ultimate business goals will also ensure that all of management is on the same page and is better informed to make intelligent decisions.

2. Take advantage of preconfigured solutions

SAP S/4 HANA implementations are executed at a rather speedy rate today compared to the early 2000s. This savings in time and cost has been achieved by leveraging strong preconfigured solutions. They drive adoption of standard SAP functionalities, and also enable agile in SAP programs.

3. Adopt an agile methodology

Leveraging an agile methodology has brought about a drastic shift in the quality and approach of transformations. Although agile sounds good on paper and has worked wonderfully for several organizations across the board, it is still important to ensure that it will work for you. Having a great coach combined with an experienced team is absolutely critical to a successful implementation.

4. Leverage SAP activate

Although businesses are very keen on getting started with the implementation, it can be a complicated path. SAP Activate is specifically designed to help companies migrate to SAP S/4 HANA as quickly and risk free as possible.

Embarking on your journey to switch from traditional ERP solutions to SAP S/4HANA is bound to create innovative new processes, automate functions, introduce artificial intelligence and allow your business to become more agile.

We have enabled our customers to go-live on SAP S/4HANA within 8 weeks. If you are looking to get started, or you want to discuss strategy or an implementation roadmap or a migration/conversion roadmap that would work for your business, do get in touch with us.