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What Is SAP Migration Strategy?
With the last major release of SAP ECC, version 6.0 EHP 8, made available in 2016, the question facing SAP customers is around the move to SAP S/4HANA. While SAP has extended mainstream maintenance for the ECC 6.0 platform until the end of 2027, with an optional premium maintenance available for an additional three years, those running these solutions need to decide on the move to SAP S/4HANA. The three biggest factors around this move are when they will move, and how they will move, and where they will move.
What Is SAP Migration Strategy?
With the last major release of SAP ECC, version 6.0 EHP 8, made available in 2016, the question facing SAP customers is around the move to SAP S/4HANA. While SAP has extended mainstream maintenance for the ECC 6.0 platform until the end of 2027, with an optional premium maintenance available for an additional three years, those running these solutions need to decide on the move to SAP S/4HANA. The three biggest factors around this move are when they will move, and how they will move, and where they will move.
The when is a question that is up to each organization. However, with the majority of organizations taking between 12 and 18 months once the business case has already been made, the period before mainstream maintenance ends can approach very quickly. Once the decision has been made when to move, organizations must then determine what approach they will take to their SAP migration. Will they simply move everything as is into SAP S/4HANA? Will they start from scratch to produce as clean a system as possible? Or will they take an intermediate route? The last factor is where they will move. With most organizations moving SAP workloads to the cloud, this may be the route of choice. However, others will want hybrid environments or entirely local infrastructure.
Key Considerations for SAPinsiders
- Understand what other organizations are saying about their SAP Migration Strategy. These include: 1) the fact that the biggest challenge is often building the business case, 2) moves to a new ERP system are both resource intensive as well as expensive, 3) newer versions of SAP S/4HANA include significant business benefits, and 4) the move to SAP S/4HANA represents a major opportunity to improve business operations.
- Ensure that you have planned effectively for the migration. When migrating from your existing ERP system, there are important tips that you can follow to ensure that processes are successful. First, engage your business teams in the process. While this is an investment in resources, there will be more success with the overall project if your business teams are involved from the beginning. Second, remove unnecessary custom code. Limiting what you have to move forward will make the process much easier. And lastly, plan for a phased approach. You will want to have dry runs and even maintain both systems in parallel to ensure that they are working correctly.
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Moving to Cloud First, Then to SAP S/4HANA May Reduce The Impact of DisruptionJul 16, 2021 — By Fred Donovan, Senior Editor, SAPinsider SAP customers are increasingly deploying cloud computing first before they undertake their SAP S/4HANA migration, observed Shoeb Javed, Chief Strategy and Product Officer at Worksoft. Javed was a panelist at SAPinsider’s keynote session, “Decisions and trends for your SAP S/4HANA deployment,” which aired during the July 14 SAPinsider Deployment […]
4 minute read
6 Solutions to SAP S/4HANA Migration ChallengesJul 28, 2020 — Digital transformation is the process of undergoing multiple changes—internal and external—and leveraging digital technologies to become more agile, optimized, and efficient. In order to keep pace with digital transformation, organizations must adopt modernized IT such as SAP S/4HANA—a significant investment that requires preparation. This article reveals six challenges that may prevent businesses from moving forward with a SAP S/4HANA migration, and six solutions to ensure that companies can solve these challenges.
After reading this article you will be able to:
- List six important considerations for migrating to SAP S/4HANA;
- Understand best practices for undergoing a migration to SAP S/4HANA, including how to create a strong business case and what kind of training users will require; and
- Explain why migrating to SAP S/4HANA is necessary for businesses to transform in today’s digital environment.
10 minute read
Vodafone Sets New Benchmark on Its Intelligent Enterprise Journey with SAP S/4HANA Migration and Strategic Business ModelJun 24, 2020 — Before going live with one of the largest SAP S/4HANA systems in the world in just 18 months, Vodafone operated a multinational technology communications company supported by a core business model in a single instance of SAP ECC. To better support the company’s 93,000 employees, it needed to increase process automation and standardization, achieve a faster month-end close, improved user experience, and achieve better data insights. To help them enter the next digital era and achieve its goals, Vodafone created a benefits-driven business case driven by measurable key performance indicators (KPI) to support its migration to SAP S/4HANA. Read this case study to learn how Vodafone:
- Aligned middle management behind agreed upon, measurable KPIs to build a strong business case;
- Experienced minimal business disruption when migrating one of the largest single SAP instances in the world to SAP S/4HANA; and
- Implemented multiple other SAP solutions in parallel with the SAP S/4HANA migration — including SAP Concur, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP Ariba, and SAP Fieldglass — and integrating those solutions with SAP S/4HANA
9 minute read
What To Expect When Migrating Finance From SAP ECC To SAP S/4HANAMar 6, 2020 — SAP has announced that they will no longer support ECC ERP systems beginning in 2025 and from that date, will only offer and support SAP S/4HANA ERP systems. In the ensuing years, the majority of companies will need to migrate from their soon-to-be-obsolete ECC systems to SAP S/4HANA, and this includes transitioning their finance operations. […]
1 minute read
Redesigning Roles and Analyzing Custom Transactions to Prepare for SAP S/4HANA MigrationFeb 3, 2020 — Naturally, companies that have been in business for decades have decades worth of user roles amassed in their systems landscape. When preparing for the upgrade to SAP S/4HANA, not every company will need to remediate all of their security roles, however this is the approach that one long-time SAP customer decided to take as part […]
2 minute read
Case Study: Preparing your ECC for SAP S/4HANAJan 24, 2020 — For customers who are planning for the migration to SAP S/4HANA, ensuring that you are prepared can be just as significant a task as doing the migration. What is needed to ensure success is an understanding of the tools that are available to help with that preparation, and good advice from someone who has already […]
2 minute read
Key Considerations When Planning Your SAP S/4HANA MigrationAug 26, 2019 — With so many SAP customers entering the planning phase for their SAP S/4HANA migrations due to the upcoming 2025 deadline to make the move, questions abound on precisely steps companies need to take and in what order. Customers left and right are in dire
1 minute read
Best Practices For Migrating To SAP S/4HANAMay 31, 2019 — Moving to SAP S/4HANA represents an opportunity for organizations to reimagine their central IT functions for modern business needs. Thousands of SAP customers have already begun the migration to take advantage of the speed of its in-memory database platf
1 minute read
Prepare for an SAP S/4HANA MigrationApr 1, 2019 — SAP S/4HANA (S/4HANA) provides businesses with a suite of applications that run on the SAP HANA database and can help the business become an intelligent enterprise, but there any many questions an organization needs to consider before migrating. What fact
1 minute read
Migrating to SAP S/4HANAMay 8, 2018 —
Savings, new business models, and competitive advantage are a few of the benefits offered by SAP S/4HANA. See why SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications is a leading platform for SAP solutions on Linux technology, which is required for harnessing SAP S/4HANA.
2 minute read