Open Sesame! Enter a new level of opportunity with your move to SAP S/4HANA.

How did we get here?

IT evolves in eras. The same holds true for SAP systems.

In the 90s, the era of the mainframe computing was coming to an end. SAP R/2 was largely replaced by SAP R/3 as a client/server-based solution.

R/3 evolved to SAP ECC and, most recently, to SAP S/4HANA in the cloud with an entirely new application architecture and real-time data access.

Many organizations evolved their SAP landscapes through these eras by way of upgrades and migrations. Now they’re facing big questions: why move to SAP S/4HANA and how? Greenfield, brownfield or something hybrid in between?

And it’s important to note something else: The era of SAP R/3 and SAP ECC wasn’t just about client/server-based solutions. It also became what I would call the “era of the SAP-centric world”.

Back then, many of the organizations we work with were following an “SAP first” strategy. And I still remember some of them saying something like: “No matter what we need, the answer always seems to be SAP. But it takes years and lots of resources to implement!”

In other words, their SAP ECC systems were growing in functionality and process coverage. But they were also adding to IT complexities. Extensive customization meant that they were gradually moving further and further away from the SAP standard.

Maintenance of these monolithic SAP systems became more and more cumbersome and expensive, sometimes consuming almost all the resources of our customers’ SAP application teams.

Where have we got to?

Fast forward to today, and we’re in the middle of the transition from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA. Common trends include:

• Increasing interest in brownfield and hybrid migrations — what we call Smart()field
• Converging requirements for SAP system consolidation, journey to cloud and mandatory process changes
• Greater pressure on time and cost to complete S/4HANA migrations
• Challenges identifying and realizing value from moving to S/4HANA (and a lack of clarity over “What’s next” after the migration) and
• Intense focus on flawless delivery: no business can afford business continuity risks in today’s volatile environment.

We’re also seeing growing interest, particularly among large enterprises, in deploying SaaS-based ERP solutions.

It can all feel overwhelming. That’s why so many organizations pursue technical conversion projects to get to S/4HANA with the least risk, as quickly as possible.

But this approach has an opportunity cost. Or to put that another way, you only go as far as your ambition.

If you’re only asking, “Can you take me to S/4HANA?”, then the answer may be limited to “Yes, we can.” While I believe that there is merit in such an approach, and we’re very experienced at helping organizations put it into practice, I feel that it leaves something important on the table.

Tomorrow and beyond

I want to challenge the question “Can you take me to S/4HANA?” Is it the right one to ask? Is it the right problem to address?

As I said at the start, IT evolves in eras, each one lasting around 10 to 15 years. This means organizations are now determining their SAP architecture for the next era with the move to S/4HANA. So what will this new SAP landscape look like? I believe it will be:

1. Characterized by a leaner, cleaner S/4HANA core. This core will be supported by SAP Industry Cloud solutions, Line of Business solutions (eg. for HR, CX or intelligent spend management) and SAP Business Technology Platform for integration, extensibility and innovation with new business capabilities in the cloud.
2. Based on a distributed environment with cloud-based application stacks.
3. Supported by a logical, single-instance, integrated SAP solution, with an underlying agile, composable application architecture.
4. Operated in a SaaS-like model to pay for and run the SAP estate end-to-end, including infrastructure and application management.

A pure brownfield migration risks freezing the status quo: processes and systems with all their strengths and weaknesses from the SAP ECC or even SAP R/3 era are carried over to S/4HANA.

Wouldn’t it be better to use the S/4HANA momentum to think about what this new era might look like for your organization and what effect it might have on today’s systems?

In that way, moving to S/4HANA becomes an opportunity to define and develop your transformation journey into the new era — with the future SAP landscape as the North Star.

We come prepared to help, with solutions including:

• RISE with SAP. SOAR with Accenture — to drive business transformation and move towards SaaS-like operations
• Smart()field — to complete the migration to S/4HANA
• Extensibility — to clean the core and innovate with flexible add-on capabilities
• Business Process Management — to identify inefficiencies and streamline processes
• Security — to safeguard before, not after the problem
• Sustainability — to embed sustainability into core business operations across the value chain.

If you want to discuss the next era for your SAP landscape, please get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.

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