Is Your DevOps Capability the Key to Speed Up Your Transition to S/4HANA?

August 17, 2020/
shutterstock_448603489

Automate to Facilitate Lower-Risk, Lower-Cost Change

The speed with which you transition to S/4HANA could depend upon your DevOps capability. Though the deadline for transition has been extended, the speed with which you make the move could determine its success. Automating the process with DevOps will accelerate and de-risk your transition.

The Danger of a Failed Transition

Transitioning to S/4HANA is a time-consuming project. It can be costly, and if not executed effectively can be damaging to revenues and reputation. Even large, well-capitalized companies have suffered because of poorly executed SAP programs and S/4HANA transitions. Notable examples include:

Stories like these may be among the reasons for the S/4HANA transition deadline extension beyond 2025. They may also be to blame for the low transition numbers to date. A 2019 Q3 update from SAP noted that only 12,000 of its customers were using S4/HANA.

As SAP has more than 12 million users worldwide, the number of customers yet to make the transition is enormous. Those who continue to wait to make their move could find they can’t hire the technical talent they need when they need it, or that the cost of that talent has exploded because of the sudden demand for it – from companies all rushing to transition to S/4HANA.

Why Are You Waiting to Transition to S/4HANA?

Transitioning to S/4HANA is not going to become cheaper as we head toward the deadline. Yet many companies are reticent to transition. We believe that the major reason for this is the complexity of transitioning.

Especially in large organizations, current ERP exists across a labyrinth of software and databases. You can’t simply switch to S/4HANA. SAP recommends a staged approach:

  1. Value Discovery: SAP recommends assessing your readiness. A good place to start is the Business Scenario Recommendation (BSR) tool. This will help you determine how and where S/4HANA will have the greatest impact.
  2. Planning: Develop a strategy and roadmap, planning your migration to the SAP HANA database within new technical architecture.
  3. Technical Implementation: Prepare for implementation, testing, and quality control. The production environment must be mapped out. This stage also includes landscape transformation.
  4. Functional Implementation: Including new innovations such as S/4HANA Finance.
  5. Run, operate, and support: You will need to consider if you would benefit from managed services to support your platform.

This process of transition can take years. It’s likely that you will need to upgrade existing systems to enable a smoother transition. You’ll also need to consider whether to move from on-premises to the cloud – a cloud migration may be the easier option with added benefits.

You may also need to maintain legacy and new landscapes as you transition so that you avoid disruption to your business.

The Advantage of Automating Your Transition

The manual processes involved in transitioning to S/4HANA are both time-consuming and risk errors. Developers collaborating manually risk code overwrites, lockouts, and dependencies that were not envisaged. When required to maintain two systems during transition, these risks are multiplied.

Automation tools, combined with high-level DevOps, enable you to significantly reduce risks and the time it takes to deploy changes. This reduced risk and time translates into more robust transition and lower costs. You can also adopt DevOps and automation at any time during the transition process. You’ll benefit from time and effort savings in planning, testing, deploying, and managing the change.

As you move toward deciding your strategy for transitioning to S/4HANA, you must consider the people you need to make your transition happen as smoothly and seamlessly as possible. For the strategic help you need, connect with TotalTek now. Our seasoned and skilled, specialized engineers will ensure your S/4HANA transition project is executed efficiently and effectively, and that your business makes the SAP HANA transition smoothly.