Is corporate memory disrupting S/4 projects!

If I had to say what the biggest difference between putting in S/4 and putting in ECC, I would say it’s the experience of the partners and the clients doing the work… Back in the day, the majority of clients putting in ECC were doing it for the first time (on the client side) and probably the first few times for the partners (though this was not always true especially in the early days where experience was normally limited or theoretical) but now everyone is an expert.

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This has two reasonably profound effects, one positive and one negative:

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1. The positive one… The project is far more likely to be successful, the core cleaner, the best practice better defined, the estimates/plans more realistic and the re-use much higher.?

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1. The negative… Everyone knows what is coming - the hard work, the long hours, the debates/arguments, the use of key resources etc. and the mild panics in the days before and after go-lives.?In recent weeks, I have a number of discussions with key stakeholders in clients where these issues have surfaced, these can be summed up in the following attitudes, I abridge to protect my sources etc.

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‘I have spent 20 years making this system perfect… I am not going to spend 20 years making the new one work this well’

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‘I don’t want to take key resources out of my business for 3 years’

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‘The previous CIO lost his job when the project overran, that is not happening to me’

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‘I am old and tired’ (that’s from me)

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There are many more similar comments…

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Many of these attitudes only surface when it comes to signing off the project or when the first call goes out for project resources, I think it is really important that project teams realise the CXO’s signing off the project were probably involved in the original ECC project and have memories of what it took (they don’t realise/believe we have all learnt a lot of lessons) or they have worked in other organisations some of which struggled. I don’t think this is anything to do with SAP software, I think this is all to do with complex transformations, but they don’t see it that way. And, they also tend not to realise that having done the hard work - moving to a single source of truth and integrated solution - a lot of the hard work was done by them but they are still hard to budge.

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So, what can be done if these issues are going to occur (and its worth checking before you start anything)?

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1. You have to appear to do things in a different way, the agile way, use of reference models, and the promise to go to standard, RISE, BTP can all be presented as a fresh start and a new approach, but be sure that you need to make sure they are bought in, and then you need to deliver on the time lines and resources plans you promised else the old doubts will surface
2. Or if you are not confident, it inevitably means that an upgrade (brown) or a selective data migration with a renovation of the solution are the way to go

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Purely a personal point of view but with 2027 and the end of standard support coming up, can you afford a false start…?