Businesses often have trouble integrating new technologies. While SAP ERP systems like ECC are widely used, upgrading to S/4HANA presents unique challenges. When SAP stops supporting ECC in 2027, business leaders will be forced to switch to S/4HANA. Most people are concerned about the potential for bottom-up disruption, as well as the cost, complexity, and volume of data transfer associated with it.
Organizations have three options for migrating to the new enterprise management suite based on their level of readiness for S/4HANA. Greenfield implementation is an option for customers moving away from SAP ERP. When moving from SAP Business Suite to S/4HANA, a Brownfield Approach is favored by some. Finally, Selective Data Transition can combine many local SAP systems into a single global SAP S/4HANA system or integrate specific processes from multiple local SAP systems.
There are pros and downsides to each possible migration approach; to pick the best one, company leaders must consider factors including data quality, database, platform, and configuration. For instance, s4hana migration with SOA people may be a viable approach if you would like to speed up your transformation project.
This article describes all three strategies to facilitate the transition from legacy ERP systems to SAP S/4HANA. The document also highlights why businesses should construct a data conversion plan before executing the strategy and why clean and lean data is necessary for a successful transfer.
Migration Strategy
Critics quickly labeled SAP’s latest attempt as part of a series of challenges to market leaders Oracle, Microsoft, and Salesforce. Some market researchers think it could backfire if the company tries to force its clients to buy.
In response, SAP argues that using SAP S/4HANA will increase customer value and efficiency. The repercussions, for whatever cause, are genuine and will last a long time.
Given SAP’s massive user base and the fact that 75% of all global transaction income passes through an SAP system, it’s likely that SAP plays a crucial role in your operations.
However, your company will need to undertake a project that might take years and cost millions of dollars if it wants to continue reaping the benefits of SAP. This project will entail the following:
- Mapping and prototyping essential business processes for conversion;
- Identifying what should be moved and how by analyzing the SAP system and its modifications like tables, programs, front-ends, mobile apps, and user interfaces;
- Modifying non-S/4HANA-compatible older programs.
Successful migration requires devoting critical resources to the effort for an extended period. Because your most valued teams’ expertise will be diverted to ensuring your business processes are implemented correctly, this might seriously hamper your company’s capacity for innovation.
You may also need to make significant adjustments to your unique, custom processes because SAP 4/HANA has fewer customization options than previous SAP offerings.
Migration Options
Although SAP and other industry leaders might offer several different approaches to migrating to SAP 4/HANA, the three most popular are as follows.
Only one of these is a viable migration strategy. Instead, it is a ground-up S/4HANA deployment. Starting over on undeveloped terrain is known as “greenfield” in architecture and environmental engineering. In the case of S/4HANA, this means either performing a data-only migration or performing no migration at all. You’re eliminating unnecessary modifications and working to standardize procedures.
In a full migration process, often called a “lift-and-shift,” an existing SAP system is converted to SAP S/4HANA. Any business not already utilizing SAP HANA as its database should consider using SAP Software Update Manager with the database migration option presented in this case. The SAP cloud and SAP partner development tools can help businesses with application customization.
Analyzing the current SAP system and identifying the customized apps, functionality, and interfaces not part of the core is essential for a successful hybrid migration.
Before switching, businesses can use a low-code platform to create the custom components and programs running on the new system. By preparing the SAP core in advance, the migration will go more smoothly.
Following this, your company will leverage S/4HANA for enterprise resource planning, where SAP excels, while employing other applications for the functions it does not.
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