Strategies to Safeguard your RISE with SAP S/4HANA Project
In the third blog in our Time to RISE blog series, we break down some aspects of the project that need to be considered to ensure a successful transition.
How to Safeguard a RISE with S/4HANA Project
When moving to RISE with SAP S/4HANA, many options and tools are available: a greenfield or brownfield approach or, indeed, a hybrid approach to implementation. While there are many technical aspects to assess, core risk factors and impacts must be carefully considered and planned for in every project. Whilst this list is not exhaustive, these factors will be common to every project.
Understanding the Risks
1. Operational Disruptions
It's important to understand that mandatory changes will be associated with the move to SAP S/4HANA. SAP continues to deliver innovation and improvements across all its solutions. Some of these changes may mean any business moving to S/4HANA will need to implement new mandatory elements of the S/4HANA solution. For example, SAP's new general ledger has replaced the classic general ledger. Additionally, the capability of S/4HANA offers an expanded list of new and improved processes that can be optionally implemented. Older solutions may have been deprecated and replaced by newer ones in some areas.
Mitigation Strategy: Planning and preparation are crucial. Taking steps to understand the business process and data impacts of a move to S/4HANA early will significantly enhance your planning. These steps can include impact assessments in the critical areas of your business or a trial migration, where the effects of the migration can be explored in a migrated copy of production. Whatever the route you choose, understanding the impacts will inform your planning, preparation, and timeline.
Engage with your implementation partner and/or SAP early to begin to understand the potential impact on your business.
2. Data Migration Challenges
With a brownfields move to S/4HANA, your data is converted to the new structures required by S/4HANA using tried-and-proven tools. For example, S/4HANA has a simplified data model that consolidates into the ADOCA, Universal Journal, and Material Ledger. New Integrated Business Partners require the synchronisation of the Vendor and Customer data with the Business Partner object.
By and large, the data migration process associated with a move to S/4HANA is not a traditional extract, transform, and load process, and as such many of the risks associated with that process are not relevant. However, some of the mandatory changes we discussed earlier may require an element of data cleansing in restructuring. As a business you may take the opportunity to cleanse and rationalise your existing data in advance of the move.
Mitigation Strategy: Understand the impacts of mandatory changes on your data. Assess the quality of your existing master and transactional data and plan to address any issues early in the process.
Several data tools are available to ensure a smooth, reliable migration while maintaining data integrity. Data management tasks, including data cleansing and validation, can also be completed prior to the commencement of the RISE project.
3. Change Management
Implementing any project invariably involves an element of change. Depending on the approach taken in a move to RISE, the change impacts may be minor, as in the case of a purely technical move, or major in a whole-of-business transformation, where significant process and user impacts may be in play. When deciding on your approach to a move to RISE with SAP S/4HANA, these change impacts are a key consideration.
Mitigation Strategy: Proactively assessing and planning for the impacts on people and processes is paramount to success. Understanding the full lifecycle of the project, including future planned innovation and adoption, will enable concise and effective communication to all users and stakeholders. A move to RISE with SAP S/4HANA will often be a multi-stage journey, and we must ensure a whole-of-business understanding of the project's stages and objectives. Businesses should also ensure the right level of training and user support is available at key project stages.
4. Cost and Time Considerations
A move to RISE with SAP S/4HANA can be a big-bang transformational exercise where innovation and process change are adopted in a single project. However, it can also be an incremental journey starting with an initial platform move with mandatory changes only, which an innovation stage can follow.
Each approach will have very different time and cost considerations. A transformational project will require significant business investment internally and externally over the duration of its lifecycle. Due to its nature as a purely technical exercise, a platform move will have a much lower investment profile.
Mitigation Strategy: Each business must clearly understand the rationale, desired outcomes and objectives of a proposed move. This understanding will inform our approach and a realistic baseline for the investment required. A number of strategies are available to help inform your decision making including functional impact assessments, trial migrations, and general consulting advice.
Businesses should engage with SAP and partners early in the planning phase to obtain the latest advice. This will ensure that their approach, planning, and cost considerations are based on the specifics of their landscape and usage and will meet their desired outcomes.
In determining your budget for a move to RISE with SAP S/4HANA, you should not forget to take into account that a portion of your investment will be offset by the opportunity to reduce ongoing costs in many areas, for example, by removing hardware and infrastructure expenditure, simplification and standardisation of business processes which will introduce greater efficiency and reduction in the overall total cost of ownership brought about by the removal of custom code and reports and the simplification of interfaces and integrations. Ongoing access to the latest innovations will continually provide options for further rationalisation and reduce the necessity to fund third-party solutions and workarounds.
5. Partnering Effectively
Choosing the right SAP partner can significantly mitigate risks associated with transitioning to S/4HANA. Experienced partners bring in-depth knowledge and proven methodologies, facilitating a smoother transition with minimal disruption to operations.
Partners like DyFlex Solutions utilise proven methodologies and expertise to understand the current and future state landscape, ensuring your outcomes and objectives are met whilst minimising impacts on your people and processes.
Conclusion
Transitioning to SAP's S/4HANA is a pivotal step toward modernisation, enhancing operational efficiency and competitiveness. While the journey may seem complex and daunting, DyFlex is here to help. We can guide you with expert advice and experience on the options and recommendations that best align with your unique circumstances, desired outcomes and objectives.
Remember, SAP is the business technology, and DyFlex is the difference. We aim to partner with you on your journey to RISE with SAP S/4HANA and beyond.
Are you prepared to de-risk your RISE with S/4HANA and unlock the full potential of your ERP transformation?
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