SAP S/4HANA Migration: An Effective Approach

With the rapid pace of adoption of SAP S/4HANA, this intelligent ERP solution is proving to be an invaluable asset in helping organizations meet the rapidly changing demands of business in an always-on, digitally connected world. Considering its ability to address today’s challenges and meet tomorrow’s opportunities with flexibility, speed, and insight—SAP S/4HANA is, undoubtedly, an innovation that can help businesses become agile and connected.

However, when it comes to migrating your legacy business suites to SAP S/4HANA, the right approach is still up for debate. Neither the Greenfield nor the Brownfield approaches seem to offer the complete migration satisfaction. And, it’s time when businesses should consider resorting to a new migration approach—Valuefield^TM.

The Valuefield^TM approach transcends both the Greenfield and the Brownfield approaches of migrating to S/4HANA, in innumerable ways.

But before we proceed, let us briefly review the benefits of migration to SAP S/4HANA.

The Benefit Factor Digital transformation enables businesses to evolve at a faster pace. SAP S/4HANA, the Digital Core, is a true enabler in this transformation journey. Whether deployed on-premise or in the cloud, SAP S/4HANA can help your business:

• Improve the decision-making process with the help of real-time insights
• Increase performance through streamlined reinvented processes
• Achieve higher productivity with the help of the personalized Fiori user experience
• Lower total cost of ownership through simplified architecture
• Enable seamless integration with mobile platforms, Big Data, the Internet of Things (IoT), and more

Why Should You Migrate to SAP S/4HANA?

According to an SAP co-founder, Hasso Platner, “speed is of the essence for intelligent enterprises.” The faster you can simulate in a highly integrated system of open applications with agility and innovation, the sooner you will be in a position to lead and dominate your industry. With that being said, a move to S/4HANA is not an option, but a decision about optimizing time and resources.

General misconceptions we hear from clients, for not taking a step forward, are:

• HANA migration is a technical/infrastructure play and has no significant business value
• The need to move to SAP S/4HANA is hype  and can be disruptive to businesses
• There is no easy/non-disruptive middle ground. So staying on the current version is the best strategy

On the contrary, S/4HANA enables your organization to re-imagine business operations, as it brings the best of breed architectures and solution components to enable dynamic, real-time, in-memory computing and crystal clear visibility across all lines of business.

Kellton Valuefield^TM approach helps you seamlessly migrate to SAP S/4HANA

The first question all existing SAP customers running on some version of ECC ask is,“Where do I start with SAP S/4HANA?”

The answer is SIMPLE. Start by mobilizing your business users and help them prepare for transformation. Then, prepare a deployment team to decide your deployment destination.

The second most critical question is, “What path do we take to move to SAP S/4HANA? “

Everyone talks about the Greenfield approach, the Brownfield approach, and Landscape transformation, but what are the pros and cons of each of these approaches and what are the options available?

Let us start by summarizing the options and share with you our proprietary approach to a seamless SAP S/4HANA migration.

Greenfield Approach

The Greenfield approach involves starting fresh with SAP S/4HANA best practices and leaving the “past behind.” This approach is typically used when companies realize their processes are old, highly customized and difficult to maintain and sustain. Businesses also follow the Greenfield approach when they find that their IT solution is not agile enough to support their ever-changing dynamic business needs. However, this approach to migrate legacy suites to SAP S/4HANA has its own drawbacks. All the customizations done, over the years, in order to run business and perform diverse functions are lost. Companies are forced to preserve such data and changes in a different platform, or by some other feasible means.

Brownfield Approach

On the other hand, lies the Brownfield approach, which is also referred to as system conversion/technical upgrade. This option enables you to convert to HANA quickly and easily while keeping all your customizations intact. Although this approach is definitely less disruptive, it does not allow you to take advantage of the process enhancements and simplicity of SAP S/4HANA.

Kellton Proprietary Approach—SAP S/4HANA Valuefield^TM

Kellton proprietary Valuefield^TM approach enables you to get the best of both the worlds. Our approach allows you to retain your system customizations as well as your existing data and processes while enabling you to take full advantage of the simplification and enhanced business processes provided by SAP S/4HANA. With Kellton Valuefield^TM approach businesses can migrate to a new/optimized platform and experience the full benefit of improved business processes in one go.