What's your SAP Digital Transformation going to look like?

Many companies believe the journey is simply moving to the cloud, others believe it is getting into S/4 HANA and some believe it is adopting the latest UX practices. Transformations are mostly being fuelled by a need to reduce expenditure in traditionally high $$ IT investments. 

It is all of these together. The synergies from adopting all of these is greater than adopting them on their own. This is a true case of where the whole is greater than the sum!

The cloud offerings over the last few years have provided many benefits to those that have taken it up. These benefits have mainly been centred around shifting the cost equation from Capital expenditure to Operating expenditure. This allows for low initial investment in renewing of IT hardware landscapes and thus redirection of these funds into other worthwhile causes.

The move to S/4 HANA has mainly been fuelled by deadlines on support for existing SAP software and little by the value of moving to S/4HANA, and there are many benefits, especially if you need a system with plenty of grunt under the hood.

Many companies have been resisting this move until absolutely necessary. Others have looked at other offerings in the market. Regardless of whether you truly believe in the benefits of S/4 HANA or not there is a requirement at some stage in the near future to retire older versions of SAP and adopt software that is modern and has the latest best practices built in.

The latest UX practices by SAP have seen great benefits delivered to the end user in terms of streamlined and simplified user interaction. These benefits are now not only being delivered to the desktop but to the multitude of devices we interact with every day, whether they be mobiles, tablets, desktops or laptops.

 The benefits of undertaking a digital journey that includes all of the above strategies may seem unsurmountable, but not if you break them up into achievable chunks. Below I will list points to consider in each of these journeys that will help you get them across the line:

CLOUD

• Plan your strategy well ahead of time;
• Plan your Architecture;
• Plan the project;
• Plan the resources;
• Plan your business.

S/4 HANA

• Start planning early;
• Analyse your current system;
• Learn all you can about S/4 HANA, functionally and technically;
• Architect your Landscape;
• Design the right migration approach, yes there’s more than one
• Plan your Testing strategy;
• Plan your Resourcing requirements, vendor, customer, Third parties;
• Security - Take the opportunity to review your current strategy;
• Integration - Start early and use whatever tools are available to carry out discoveries.
• Stakeholder management - Ensure the project has the right structure and buy in from management.

SUMMARY

• It’s not only about the technology, it’s about the journey;
• Look at alternate approaches whether it’s about moving to cloud, S/4 or adopting a new UX, you need to be flexible and look at all possible approaches and Investigate all possible tools available;
• Partner with companies that have done it before, companies that have the credentials and the right partner eco system that will bring the right mix of skills to the table.
• Don’t lock yourself into a long journey that translates into huge $$ and lower ROI.
• Build your business case around the amalgamation of multiple strategies, not individual ones. It makes sense!

My Equation:

SUCCESS = Move to cloud = reduction in costs = $$ for your conversion to S/4 HANA = adoption of latest best practices.

One final word

Don’t let them tell you it’s too risky, all that means is they haven’t done it before!

To connect with me to discuss this or any other topics in the SAP space, please go to my LinkedIn page at: Frank Magliozzi

To learn more about the services offerred by Acclimation, please visit: https://www.acclimation.com/au/