SAP S/4HANA Migration Services
Turning SAP’s latest innovation into your company’s unique advantage
Why Migrate?
Why business leaders should care about migrating to SAP S/4HANA ?
- Better speed to market with rapid addition of new apps and functions
- Streamlined business operations, via embedded analytics and automation
- Improved app performance through modern code, automatic updates, and baked-in security
- Enhanced business agility with flexible deployment options
- Cost-efficiencies attained through process automation and choice of deployment
- Integration of new technologies, like artificial intelligence and machine learning, via the SAP platform
- Greater cost and effort savings on hardware/ software maintenance
Pros & Cons of S/4HANA Migration
Benefits and challenges of SAP S/4HANA migration
Benefits
- Access to the latest technology, including AI, chatbots, and IoT
- Real-time analytics on consolidated data
- A simpler UI
- Automatic updates every quarter
- Process automation
- Easier-to-update business models
- Faster period-end financial closings
Challenges
- Data corruption and validation issues during migration
- Selecting the right architecture: cloud or on-premise
- Balancing between standardization and customization
- Overcoming resistance to change
- Lack of in-house competency and resources to handle migration
- Difficulties to respond effectively to changes (e.g. statutory, legal)
Engaging a certified partner for performing SAP S/4HANA migration will help you achieve the desired business outcomes.
Methods to Migrate
SAP S/4HANA migration approaches
Organizations that move their ERP to S/4HANA can complete their migration process by choosing any of the four methods: Greenfield, brownfield, RISE with SAP, and landscape transformation.
1. Greenfield Migration
If you are migrating from a legacy, non-SAP ERP system or an older version of SAP like ECC, you can implement a fresh start using the Greenfield approach. In some cases, greenfield deployment helps implement an organization’s very first ERP. This type of wholesale move is the best way to get all of S/4HANA’s advantages, such as predictive analytics, AI modeling, process automation, and real-time reporting.
- Lower TCO and faster speed-to-innovation
- Elimination of infrastructure constraints and software dependencies
- Customizable, scalable, and compatible migration approach
- Optimization of infrastructure and processes
2. Brownfield Migration
If you are currently using an older version of SAP and want to migrate to SAP S/4HANA while continuing to retain some legacy components, Brownfield migration is the best approach to opt for. Brownfield takes a gradual, cost-effective, less-disruptive, and risk-averse approach to using S/4HANA
capabilities.
- More affordability with selective migration
- Freedom to use existing on-premise infrastructure
- Eliminates re-implementation and disruption to business processes
- Improves existing technology and reuses code to add new features
3. RISE with SAP
RISE with SAP is a subscription-based, single offering that bundles the top SAP assets to provide customers with Business-Transformation-as-a-Service. RISE with SAP can transition your current ERP data and processes to the cloud with less risk and without compromise. This approach enables you to quickly get up and running on S/4HANA Cloud and its broader ecosystem.
- Sustainable, innovative, and value-driven way for enterprises to migrate to the cloud
- Maximizes value, reduces transformation risks, and saves migration costs
- Long-term sustainability with purpose and operational resilience
4. Landscape Transformation
Landscape transformation allows you to integrate various SAP ERP systems into a shared SAP S/4HANA system and migrate selective parts of your business process to S/4HANA. This approach simplifies and harmonizes your business processes. Unified master data lowers operational costs. If you have many SAP and non-SAP ERP systems and want to consolidate everything into one global SAP S/4HANA system, Landscape Transformation is the most suited approach.
- Performance optimization, secure and practical implementation
- Improved functionality and agility, competent and compliant infrastructure
- Supervised implementation reduces downtimes, risks, and costs
- Uninterrupted data transfer and modernization of IT processes
How to choose the right SAP S/4HANA migration approach?
- Evaluate your current system to assess migration readiness
- Review the architecture to gauge the impact of migration
- Analyze the future state to envision what the new ERP should do
A stitch in time saves nine. A certified SAP partner helps you choose the right S/4HANA migration approach.
Making a Choice
SAP S/4HANA cloud vs. on-premise deployment
The two important SAP S/4HANA deployment options are: on-premises and SAP S/4HANA
cloud.
Cloud Deployment
- Built on SAP HANA, SAP’s high-performing, in-memory database
- Integrates multiple business applications
- Powered by SAP CoPilot, Machine Learning, and predictive analytics
- Highly desirable ERP solution for small and medium businesses
On-Premise Deployment
- Built on SAP’s in-memory database, SAP HANA
- Can be managed internally by an organization
- Control functions, data, HANA database, applications, systems, networks, servers, etc.
- SAP outsourcing partner takes care of deployment and maintenance
Partnering with a certified SAP consultant allows you to create and follow a well-crafted SAP S/4HANA cloud migration roadmap.
Points to Consider
Business imperatives to consider when migrating to SAP S/4HANA
- A comprehensive data management strategy to support SAP workloads comprising all possible environments, workloads, and applications that the business may use.
- The data fabric must enable data to be accessed from any infrastructure, applying the same consistent governance regardless of where the data resides.
- Choose a data platform that is purpose-built for hybrid environments and unified in terms of its architecture, in order to ensure high performance and lower total cost of ownership.
- A full-featured data platform that allows your data to be stored and moved anywhere it’s needed.
- Data leveraged by SAP workloads should be flexible enough to move freely, while still ensuring the highest levels of protection.
Next Steps
Best practices for accelerating SAP S/4HANA Migration
The c-suite can accelerate migration and time to value for SAP S/4HANA by establishing policies that enable digital success and innovation.
Change resilience: Set the tone for your organization and employees to become change-resilient. Help them understand how SAP S/4HANA will allow the company to quickly and easily manage software changes big and small, and evolve into a fully cognitive enterprise.
Hybrid/multicloud strategy: Adopt a hybrid or multicloud strategy that prioritizes critical workloads to become cloud-ready and facilitates optimal workload placement. One of the top benefits of a hybrid cloud is the ease of migration across public cloud and premises environments.
Save development time: Replacing cumbersome versions of SAP Business Suite with flexible SAP S/4HANA allows businesses to free up developers’ time, so they can focus on innovative products and services that will provide a competitive edge.
Planning and accountability: Ensure the availability of team members and budget when planning SAP S/4HANA implementation. Be sure all business leaders are accountable for meeting deadlines and assigning resources to the project; for example, assessing workloads, establishing governance policies, testing interfaces.
Engage a certified SAP partner: Choosing managed and professional services from certified SAP partners will ensure you achieve greater business value, faster from SAP S/4HANA migration. Engaging an SAP partner allows you to improve and optimize the performance of SAP and predictably manage IT costs.
Six steps to ensure success with SAP S/4HANA Migration
#1 Get the senior leadership on the same page
#2 Align budget and staff resources
#3 Engage a certified SAP partner
#4 Set timelines for key milestones
#5 Track your project’s progress
#6 Communicate regularly with employees
With the right SAP partner by your side, planning your step-by-step migration to S/4HANA will be like a walk in the park.
Investments & Returns
Cost and ROI considerations influencing SAP S/4HANA migration
Cost elements
- Software licensing and capital infrastructure costs
- Implementation and integration costs, app migration costs
- Maintenance and support costs of applications, hardware, and networks
- Change management, training, improvement, and adoption costs
- Cost of staff to design, build, and manage transition
Return on investment
- Working capital improvements & operational cost reduction
- Simplification and process harmonization savings & benefits
- Optimization of procurement, transportation, and logistics
- Reduction in app maintenance and service costs
- Reduction in revenue loss due to stock outs
- Increased customer retention
How we approach?
Simplifying the migration to SAP S/4HANA
Our SAP experts follow a set of tried and tested practices when planning our clients’ S/4HANA migration roadmap.
- Analyze the right deployment option (On-Premise or Cloud) that fits your business requirements and budget
- Evaluate if cleansing of data is required to avoid the risks of licensing and downtimes
- Create a detailed business roadmap to provide end-to-end technical support for seamless data migration in S/4HANA
- Create SAP Sandbox environment initially as a proof of concept (POC) to test the workarounds in real-time
- Methodical and systematic execution from planning to migration, that is, successful migration of legacy SAP system to SAP S/4HANA
- Provide ongoing support and maintenance to ensure that your SAP S/4HANA environment functions without glitches
Case Studies
SAP S/4HANA migration: Fingent’s success stories
1. Migration from legacy ERP to SAP S/4HANA
Fingent helped Sonic Biochem, a global manufacturer and supplier of processed food items, to seamlessly migrate from their legacy system to SAP S/4HANA.
- Faster GST adaptation with 100% legal & statutory compliance
- Sustained business continuity during the entire transition phase
- Migration covers all taxable scenarios and requirements
2. Migration from SAP ECC 6.0 to SAP S/4HANA
Thermo Pads, a leading manufacturing firm, enhanced their sales and purchase processes and streamlined their finance models by migrating from SAP ECC 6.0 to SAP S/4HANA.
- Seamless integration with third-party software, such as bank process servers for payment processing and EBRS
- Upgraded from ECC to S/4HANA to fulfill the business requirements
- Streamlined workflows by importing catch-up transports from non-HANA systems to HANA systems
3. SAP S/4HANA implementation for improved business automation
By implementing SAP S/4HANA, a leading business in the Exploration and Production Industry achieved a process driven solution to handle day-to-day operations with less personnel intervention, reduced paperwork and enhanced preventive maintenance.
- Optimized resource utilization and improved user experience
- Better analysis of costs and profitability with enhanced payroll and costing systems
- Real-time actionable insights with accelerated financial processes
- Single integrated system across legal entities to achieve short term revenue goals
Our SAP S/4HANA migration stories spell out how your peers are keeping their brand relevant in these fast-changing times.
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