The key to any investment is the return and being able to realise that return as rapidly as possible. In previous iterations SAP has carried a reputation, somewhat unjustly, of being complex, time consuming and resource intensive to implement. This is no longer true as we move into a cloud environment with a standard set of business processes. All new solutions come with a lead time to value as it is designed, built, tested and deployed. So how can you accelerate that process whilst maintaining quality.
As mentioned in our previous blog, the requirement gathering and subsequent design phase can be significantly accelerated by utilising the excelerated S/4HANA for Business Services solution. However, there are other areas to focus on when looking at speeding up the solution implementation:
- Data Migration – key to building a solution is population of data, whether that is customer records, financial ledger balances or unpaid supplier invoices. Having a coherent data strategy, identifying what to migrate and what to archive, and the interdependencies of data objects is key. As part of the excelerated S/4HANA for Business Services solution and based upon the standard solution business processes, we carry a templated approach to data migration. This starts with a proposed migration strategy which forms the foundation through to individual object migration models and their interdependencies. These are available from day one and can be shared early in the implementation. This avoids having to wait until the solution is designed before starting to look at how the data needs to fit into it.
- Broader System Integration – Where SAP S/4HANA may be the core of your future solution it will unlikely be a standalone system. Do we need to take customer details from your existing CRM system so we can invoice, for instance. Identifying each touchpoint in each standard business process is completed as part of the initial project scoping and standard APIs are available off the shelf. This helps in significantly reducing effort to integrate into the existing system landscape.
- Testing – Thorough testing of any new solution should be a priority. Again, this can be time consuming and resource intensive when you consider documenting and executing test scripts with enough coverage to make it worthwhile. As we have a templated approach we can provide predefined test scripts covering the whole solution. When coupled with relevant data these can either be run manually so as to aid knowledge transfer within the wider business or can be automated to further reduce effort. The automation tool is also included!
So what is the impact on the overall implementation timeline? The result of utilising standard business processes with the associated focus on time to value can mean an implementation of our Finance, Procurement and Supply Chain core package in as little as 16 weeks. This without sacrificing quality or solution capabilities.
No longer can SAP be seen as complex and time consuming.
Explore how SAP S/4HANA technology can drive digital transformation and innovation for your organization by downloading our eBook or requesting a Digital Discovery Assessment here: https://www.excelerateds2p.com/excelerateds4hana/
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