Wondering if you should migrate to SAP’s New ERP, S/4HANA? Here is help for your decision

S/4HANA is SAP’s complete cloud ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution, centered around SAP’s HANA database, which allows you to perform real-time transactions and business data analysis and opens up new possibilities in your cloud infrastructure

Most likely, you already know what S/HANA is, but read our blog post about what S/4HANA is if you want more background information.

To help you decide if you should migrate to S/4HANA, we look at the following topics:

 

What Are the Benefits of S/4HANA for Your Organization?

Besides offering operational and analytical reporting in one system, S/4HANA provides you with these benefits:

  • S/4HANA is SAP’s future-ready ERP solution
    Support for older SAP ERP systems like Business Suite stops in 2030 and will become more expensive from 2027. With S/4HANA, your organization is safe and future-proof, as SAP guarantees further development and maintenance until 2040.
  • S/4HANA is simplified
    Meaning it’s faster than current SAP ERP systems, better supports data analysis, and increases productivity. As a result, your organization is innovation ready.
  • S/4HANA works on any device
    S/4HANA works with the Fiori user interface, which runs on any device—making your organization more flexible and efficient.

Points of Interest Regarding Migrating SAP licenses to S/4HANA

We know from practice that customers who are considering migrating face the following questions:

  • My SAP system is not compatible with S/4
  • It is a technical upgrade, how can I convince business users?
  • I just get sales information, how does an S/4 transition really happen?
  • What are the costs?
  • Do I have to freeze ongoing projects?
  • Which transition path is the most suitable for us?
  • How long will such a S/4 transition take?

And we can help you with these questions. One thing we want to say right now is that migrating your existing licenses to S/4HANA isn’t just a technical upgrade. It’s a business and organizational upgrade providing you with the earlier-mentioned benefits.

Furthermore, it’s important to know that S/4HANA is a mature system, as it was launched in 2015. So, you can take advantage of the extensive migration and implementation experience already available to avoid the pitfalls and exploit the benefits and opportunities.

Which Migration Path Suits Your Organization Best?

There are several paths to migrate licenses to S4/HANA, and you can select the path that best suits your organization:

  • A ‘Green field’ migration

    This migration path starts with a new and out-of-the-box optimized S/4HANA system. With all S/4HANA features at your disposal right from the beginning.

    When to apply?
    We recommend this path if you comply with the S/4HANA standard. And if you want to benefit from SAP Best Practices and pre-installed S/4HANA content, which improves your migration efficiency.

  • A ‘Brown field’ migration

    This path starts with converting your existing licenses within SAP ERP with the great advantage that you retain your SAP customizations and development work.

    When to apply?
    We recommend this path if you rely on SAP customizations and development work. But also, if you want to phase the migration and convert ERP processes one by one. While converting your existing ERP, its processes run together with S/HANA processes, enabling you to phase out ERP processes and implement S/4HANA processes as it suits you best.

    One caveat, however, is that not all SAP ERP functionality can be converted to its existing state.

  • A selective data transition migration

    This path starts with converting multiple SAP ERP licenses into one S/4HANA system.

    When to apply?
    We recommend this path if you’re a large company and use SAP ERP throughout your organization.

While migrating licenses, you can continue your ongoing projects. But it’s most efficient to keep your change request as low as possible.

Should You Run S/4HANA in the Cloud or On-Premise?

In the chart below you will see the key differences between running S/4HANA in the cloud or on-premise.

As you see, the key difference is your amount of on current commissioning of SAP licenses. So,  if there is a need to customize and/or upgrade licenses in S/4HANA, Initially evaluating on-premise license metrics is your best option. . If you want to apply S/4HANA best practices and easy maintenance, running in the cloud is the way to go. Note that if you select running in the cloud, you can choose a private or a public cloud, depending on impact and capability of solutions.

 

A Smooth S/4HANA Migration for Your Organization

Whichever migration path you choose, a S/4HANA migration is a significant effort. For your business, because your people need to adapt to new processes. And for your IT, because you need to support new technology. But as mentioned before, you can benefit from the extensive S/4HANA experience already available.

And our experts at Blackbelt XP can help you make the best decision for your situation to conquer the future, as it is our mission to make your organization innovation ready.

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