Key Considerations to Keep-in-Mind When Migrating to SAP S/4 HANA

SAP came up with S/4 HANA in February 2015 as a successor to the SAP Business Suite ERP. Since its launch and several benefits that it offers to the enterprises. It has emerged as one of the premium flagship products of SAP.

Talking about the enterprises, they have been continuously under the dilemma of whether they need to migrate to S/4 HANA or continue using the legacy SAP platform.

In the early days of its launch, S/4 HANA was available as an on-premise implementation option only. However, in March 2017, SAP came up with the SAP S/4 HANA’s Cloud implementation model.

SAP S/4 HANA has offered businesses with a wide range of benefits ranging from aligning their business data models to optimize their daily transactions and make faster strategic business decisions, be it any form of deployment. 

All the added benefits of SAP S/4 HANA give rise to a concern that- is SAP S/4 HANA making the previous SAP ERP an out-dated solution. The answer to this quite complicated and may vary with every business.

However, the following considerations that any business should consider when they’re making from the traditional SAP ERP to SAP S/4 HANA solution-

1) SAP’s Support Deadlines

SAP has decided to offer traditional and limited maintenance to the existing standard SAP Business Suite-based applications upto 2025. As an extended measure, it is asking all its present customers to switch to the latest SAP S/4 HANA, be it an on-premise or cloud-based solution. 

2) Make it Simple

SAP S/4 HANA comes out with regular quarterly upgrades that are completely compliant to the industry standards, benefiting a particular section of businesses.

However, these upgrades bring low customizability options since they are more relevant to the public clouds. This can also be perceived as a beneficial opportunity for smaller businesses that can customize SAP ERP as per their needs. 

Also Read: How to Support Customers Via Social Media in SAP Cloud for Customer

3) Controlled Budget and Timeframe

Business leaders and other key decision-makers in the IT industry have stated their concerns regarding the implementation procedure of S/4 HANA.

The migration process is often overseen to be not very strong, with several underlying requirements offering no clarity for business to prepare for the S/4 HANA migration.

Thus, managing the implementation timeframe has always been a challenge for enterprises. Along with timeframe control, the costs related to purchasing the new licenses are also quite high.

4) Getting in Touch with Tech Consultants and Systems Integrators

Businesses have faced high failures when they migrate from the traditional ERP Systems to SAP S/4 HANA. Sometimes, the migration process can be a challenge for carrying out the successful S/4 HANA implementation.

Lack of appropriate planning and implementation techniques followed have emerged as the primary reasons behind failures of SAP S/4 HANA migration.

To avoid such shortcomings, businesses must carefully choose a trusted migration provider and leverage the importance of selecting the system integrator carefully for a hassle-free migration.

5) SAP S/4 HANA On Cloud or On-Premise?

An on-cloud or on-premise S/4 HANA model- is one of the most common questions that enterprises today face when they opt for SAP S/4 HANA migration.

With everything heading towards the cloud, enterprises are now slowly understanding the underlying benefits of SAP S/4 HANA on-cloud solution. On the other hand, some mature modules are present with an on-premise deployment as compared to the cloud.

One such module is the joint venture accounting model that has proven to be more efficient with the on-premise deployment, whose certain features and functionalities are not present in the cloud model.

Thus, the enterprises must consider the key differences that distinguish both the deployment models before heading for the migration from legacy systems. 

Also Read: Cloud Migration: 5 Tips on How to Do It

Concluding Remarks

Various considerations should be taken before making the migration from legacy SAP ERP to a modern SAP HANA Cloud. Enterprises must overlook SAP S/4 HANA migration as a significant migration process for themselves.

A successful S/4 HANA migration is only possible when the enterprise resources understand their significance towards the business growth and carry out a successful transformation of the business with a trusted migration partner.