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SAP S/4HANA is one of the most preferred ERP suites, with a choice of on-premise, public, and private cloud deployments. A study by DataCaptive1 indicates that SAP has a vast customer base of 480,000 customers globally in 2024, with a revenue of $34.43 billion. With pre-configured solutions and bundled offerings such as GROW with SAP and RISE with SAP, SAP has made it simpler for small and medium businesses to harness the immense potential of the SAP ERP suite.
Let’s explore the best practices for SAP implementation services, in tune with your business requirements, specifically for SAP S/4HANA. SAP S/4HANA is the core ERP solution that can be hosted on-premises, or in a public or private cloud. The suite contains different modules for Finance, Procurement, Supply Chain, Sales, and Manufacturing, amongst others.
Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA Implementation
1. Pre-assessment stage
The foremost best practice of SAP S/4HANA implementation is to assess the current business needs and existing technology landscape. For example, a potential new implementation might be necessitated to have better operational processes, streamlined reporting, and an integrated ERP system that is agile and flexible.
- The assessment needs to include a detailed gap analysis to identify legacy processes that can be optimized using S/4HANA, along with customization options to suit specific business requirements.
- You can leverage the vast SAP S/4HANA integration services for seamless connectivity between your applications, data, and systems.
- Your strategy needs to ensure that the S/4HANA implementation costs and timeline are pre-defined, as there is a scope for running over budget and beyond schedule.
- You also need to include a change management strategy right from the assessment stage. This will help you determine the right approach to increasing the solution's adaptability.
- Do consider AI-driven tools such as WalkMe or OnScreen which will help your end-users with guided online navigation to make usage simpler.
- Have a comprehensive testing mechanism in place at every phase.
- You need to engage all stakeholders and define the SLA’s, and KPI’s that align with the business needs, providing the required flexibility for future growth.
It’s often seen that some SAP S/4HANA implementations do not accrue the right ROI due to inefficient change management, which is why having a comprehensive strategy is one of the best practices for SAP S/4HANA implementation.
One of the best practices for SAP S/4HANA implementation services is to strategize the exercise by using the SAP Activate methodology.
While implementation partners do customize certain steps, the methodology gives a phase-wise approach for different constituents of the process.
2. Building a Competent Project Team
One of the most important best practices for SAP S/4HANA implementation is building the right project team, which needs to include technical experts as well as business stakeholders to ensure that the exercise aligns with the required objectives.
You need to assign key roles and responsibilities and have a comprehensive mechanism for tracking progress. If you wish to engage a third-party service provider, the best practices for an outsourced SAP S/4HANA implementation include the below aspects.
Evaluate technology partners based on their experience with SAP S/4HANA implementations, and industry and domain-specific expertise. Do look at their success stories and customer testimonials, and the way they handle communication and collaboration.
Choose a partner who provides end-to-end services including planning, execution, migration, and post-go-live support within the SAP S/4HANA implementation costs allocated. You can also opt for a technology partner who provides flexible SAP Managed Services for the right SAP implementation support and resources required to maintain the new implementation.
3. Dealing with Data and workflows
Use the Fit-to-Standard approach to standardize current operational processes. SAP offers pe-configured processes that streamline business workflows, along with ample scope for customization that needs to be done judiciously
Factor the choice of an on-premise or cloud-based hosting platform, which can either be a public or private cloud. The GROW with SAP offering provides a public-cloud hosted platform that is managed by SAP.
Choose between the below three approaches for dealing with existing data and workflows.
- Greenfield Approach: The Greenfield SAP S/4HANA implementation is a fresh deployment in which existing data and applications are discarded, and the entire operational workflow is overhauled. The Greenfield approach suits net-new users or where the existing ERP system does not completely support the business requirements.
- Brownfield Approach: The Brownfield SAP S/4HANA implementation approach suits scenarios where a migration is required from an older version of SAP ECC to S/4HANA. The Brownfield approach is well-suited in scenarios where there needs to be a continuity from existing operational processes, with minimal modernization.
- Bluefield Approach: The Bluefield approach suits scenarios where certain processes need to be discarded and others retained. This option gives the flexibility to optimize processes and leverage new features of SAP S/4HANA while selectively retaining existing data.
Conduct a thorough data audit to identify and clean up inconsistencies, duplicates, and obsolete data before migration.
Use a phased data migration approach to ensure critical data is moved first and validated for accuracy.
Perform repeated migration tests to ensure that the migrated data aligns with the business processes and reporting needs by using SAP S/4HANA integration services.
4. Security and Compliance
SAP S/4HANA implementations often involve handling sensitive data and making security and compliance critical aspects of the project. Organizations must meet all regulatory requirements and safeguard their data from potential security threats.
- Strategize a comprehensive exercise in the early stages to assess risks and implement ways to mitigate them.
- Do perform a thorough security audit during each phase of implementation to identify vulnerabilities.
- You need to ensure statutory compliance with relevant regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, or industry-specific standards, such as those that are required in the Pharma, Medical Devices, and Health Sciences. One of the best practices for SAP S/4HANA implementation is to have a technology partner who is well-versed in vertical-specific compliance requirements.
In addition to the above-mentioned best practices for SAP S/4HANA implementation, you also need to include the below aspects.
Ensure the required SAP implementation support is available after the post-go-live phase. This phase is crucial for resolving issues, optimizing system performance, and ensuring that end-users can work effectively with the system. This can be met by having a dedicated post-go-live team to monitor the performance with regular audits to identify, resolve, and optimize.
Conclusion
A successful SAP S/4HANA implementation drives your business towards greater efficiency, improved decision-making, and the ability to adapt to future challenges in a competitive digital world, all within your allocated SAP S/4HANA implementation costs.
The above set of best practices for SAP S/4HANA implementation is specially curated from our 20+ years of experience in ERP implementation, rescue and recovery solutions, and managed services. If you are looking for a competent and reliable implementation partner, or for SAP S/4HANA managed services, do contact us to leverage the complete potential of the suite.
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