For years now, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have been the backbone of infrastructure for every company globally. However, the needs of the new market for immediate visibility, predictive analytics, and hyper-agility expose a key fact: that the Legacy ERP systems are now operational impediments. When it takes days to roll up transactional data and analysis is always in retrospect, decision speed falls behind change speed by a perilous amount.
For organisations aiming to break free from structural limitations, transitioning to or implementing the next-gen SAP Cloud ERP is not just a technical upgrade; it's a strategic move for your business transformation towards sustainable growth and future-proofing your business.
However, this significant shift requires careful execution, guided by SAP experts and the implementation of proven strategies. In this blog, we'll explore the benefits and strategic best practices essential for ensuring your SAP S/4HANA implementation reaches its full potential.
What are the benefits of using best practices for SAP S/4HANA?
Most business leaders are uncertain about whether they need to migrate, when to do so, and how to do it.
The reply lies in the tangible return on investment (ROI) that S/4HANA facilitates for your business by eliminating the persistent problems of data latency, complexity, and slow decision-making associated with legacy systems.
Migration or implementation to S/4HANA, based on the game-changing SAP HANA in-memory database, directly equates to bottom-line gains for your business:
1. Faster Financial Performance:
- S/4HANA eliminates batch processing, enabling real-time financial closures, reporting, and analysis. This speed fosters agility.
2. Operational Efficiency:
- Processing data in real-time along the supply chain, from procurement through manufacturing, reduces cycle times, enabling more rapid and efficient operations.
- Indeed, research has indicated that organisations adopting S/4HANA have an average five-year ROI of 547% with a payback period of 11 months, primarily due to enhanced efficiency and cost savings on IT.
3. Data-Driven Leadership:
- Integrated next-gen analytics and the SAP Fiori user experience enrich leaders with real-time, actionable insights.
- Executives can shift from reactive analysis to proactive, predictive decision-making.
4. Future-Proofing and Innovation:
- The infrastructure is designed to accommodate intelligent technologies, including advanced business AI, such as SAP Joule, Machine Learning, and Robotic Process Automation (RPA).
This rapid innovation liberates employees from tedious tasks, enabling your business to quickly leverage new business models.
5. Simplified Complexity and Expense:
- By simplifying the system landscape, S/4HANA reduces excess customisations, lowers hardware and support expenses, and transforms capital expenditures (CapEx) into more flexible operating expenses (OpEx) through cloud deployment.
Your Roadmap to Success: 4 Implementation Strategy Pillars for your SAP S/4HANA Implementation
The following implementation strategy pillars integrate the best practices of the industry, acting as a roadmap for decision-makers.
1. Strategy, Scope, and Assessment
Strategic clarity is paramount before getting started.
Complete a Full Readiness Assessment:
Set specific, measurable goals that align with your unique business objectives. Determine system compatibility, data quality, and most importantly, organisational skill gaps. Being aware of your current situation helps avoid scope creep and aligns with your objectives.
At AG, we recognise the importance of this preparatory stage. That's why we offer a free SAP S/4HANA Readiness Assessment. This connects your business with SAP experts who provide personalised guidance based on your specific business needs and goals. It's like having a roadmap to ensure your ERP journey is smoother and more confident.
Are you ready to begin? Let's work together to make your transition to SAP S/4HANA as seamless and impactful as possible. Get your Free Assessment today!
Select the Proper Implementation Strategy:
Approach selection determines project risk and complexity.
- Greenfield Implementation: A start-from-scratch approach, best suited to organisations wanting radical process redesign and optimisation.
- Brownfield Migration: A reimagining of your current Legacy systems, such as SAP ECC environments, with minimal disruption and retaining existing process decisions.
- Hybrid (or Bluefield): A balanced approach that allows for selective high-value process redesign to occur and migrating others, striking a balance between innovation and continuity.
2. Methodology and Execution
Execution needs to be disciplined, iterative, and focused on delivering value.
Enforce the SAP Activate Methodology
This hybrid approach marries agile delivery with SAP best practices to provide an end-to-end method. By segmenting the project into phases (Discover, Prepare, Explore, Realise, Deploy, Run), it maintains regular testing, ongoing user participation, and faster time to value.
Take Advantage of SAP Best Practices
Avoid the tendency to over-customise. Use the pre-delivered templates and guided configuration tools provided by SAP. Standardising processes not only accelerates deployment but also streamlines future upgrades and maintenance, significantly lowering your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
3. The Data and People Mandate
Data and change management are the two most frequent causes of failure for projects to achieve anticipated benefits.
Prioritise Data Quality and Migration Excellence:
Validated, clean data powers the real-time strengths of S/4HANA. Perform robust data cleansing and validation before starting your SAP S/4HANA migration or implementation. Incorrect data will make the best analytics useless.
Involve Stakeholders and Drive Change Management:
Engage executive sponsors, department managers, and end-users from the outset to ensure effective change management. Hands-on, role-based training and open communication are necessary to gain buy-in, enable user adoption, and counter resistance within the organisation.
4. Future-Proofing and Governance
The go-live marks the end of the implementation phase but not the end of the transformation journey.
Leverage the Power of Cloud and Automation:
Leverage SAP S/4HANA Cloud for its built-in scalability, flexibility, and lower infrastructure burden. Go beyond your core ERP capabilities to find the spots where embedded AI and RPA can mechanise repetitive tasks to free up human capital for more value-added activities.
Embrace Phased Rollouts and Ongoing Testing:
Phased deployment of the system enables early problem detection and reduces user disruption. After go-live, define distinct Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to monitor system performance as well as business process effectiveness, creating a culture of ongoing optimisation backed by data insights.
Conclusion
For contemporary businesses, the transition to SAP S/4HANA is no longer a choice; it is a necessity for competing in the digital world.
With 60% of large businesses already adopting and actively implementing S/4HANA, it's time for you to make the right choice for your company.
Through the pairing with SAP Experts guidance and strategic planning, based on a robust SAP S/4HANA readiness analysis and adherence to methodology, combined with profound change management and data governance, your organisation can effectively implement its business model transformation.
S/4HANA investment is an investment in your business's digital core, fueling growth, driving continuous innovation, and gaining a defining competitive edge.
Begin today with our free SAP S/4HANA readiness assessment, led by our SAP experts.