Choose the Right Approach to Deploy SAP S/4HANA

Many businesses that rely on SAP ERP to drive their critical processes are in a quandary. According to a survey conducted by the Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG), 56% of businesses have plans to move to SAP S/4HANA. As the core that drives your business operations, SAP is critical to your digital transformation strategy. To succeed in the digital world, you must optimally leverage the fast, secure, and scalable cloud.

However, when it comes to executing their SAP migration plans, most businesses need handholding. Moving to SAP S/4HANA is a complex process as it is different from SAP’s earlier ERP versions. It requires custom installations that need major retooling and investments. It is also time consuming. Enterprises also find it difficult to decide whether they want to migrate to S/4HANA or opt for a new implementation.

Is your business too in a similar quandary? Then read this blog as we discuss various approaches to S/4HANA transition and help you make an informed decision on the right approach for your organization.

SAP S/4 HANA is SAP’s new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software. It is built on an in-memory database and offers simplified data. It can perform complex calculations and handle large volumes of data in a short time span. An enterprise can choose to deploy S/4HANA either on-premise and in the cloud. It is available in both private and public cloud versions. The new ERP platform provides many strategic benefits to businesses, including:

• Business agility, via flexible deployment options
• Faster go to market by enabling quick inclusion of new apps and functions
• Supports new technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning
• Helps in process automation
• Helps in better app performance
• Streamlines business processes by leveraging automation and embedded analytics

Overall, SAP S/4HANA aligns with digital transformation and that’s why it is imperative for organizations to shift to S/4HANA at the earliest.

Any decision on SAP S/4HANA implementation or migration requires a comprehensive analysis of an enterprise’s business needs and technical assessment. And that’s why it makes sense to hire an SAP S/4HANA partner who can help you make an informed choice. Gemini with its strong experience and deep expertise in SAP solutions is perfectly positioned to help you take the right path. We can also help you with the execution of your decision. Click here to know more about our SAP services.

1. SAP S/4HANA Migration: It is also called system conversion. This is purely a technical conversion where you are converting your existing SAP ERP to S/4HANA. The migration facilitates a database migration to the SAP HANA database from your existing database on which the SAP ERP system was running on. It also migrates the ERP data model into the S/4HANA data model and replaces the present Application Code with a new SAP S/4HANA Application Code.

You should choose S/4HANA migration if you want to:

• Bring your existing processes to the new platform
• Keep your investment in custom code
• Mitigate the risk and investment by reducing the scope of the transition project and want to take a phased approach later.

2. SAP S/4HANA Implementation: This is also called the greenfield approach. The new implementation involves installing a fresh SAP S/4HANA system. You have the option to install either on-premises or in the cloud.

You should choose SAP S/4HANA Implementation if you want to:

• Reengineer or optimize your existing processes
• Migrate a non-SAP ERP
• Migrate a highly customized ERP
• Drive innovation in your organization

Of course, there are several points of consideration, both technical and strategic while making your decision. Simply, put, if you want some parts of your existing ERP to continue or want to do the implementation in a phased manner, then SAP S/4HANA migration is the right choice. You can also choose the migration option if you want to keep all the transactional data from the current ERP. However, if you are looking for a new ERP, then opting for the fresh S/4HANA implementation would be the right choice.

You need to remember that fresh SAP S/4HANA implementation is expensive and takes time. New implementation of SAP S/4HANA also requires the development of data migration strategies and their careful execution.