SAP S/4HANA Conversion Services
Accelerating your journey to S/4HANA, the new digital core for enterprise transformation
Why Convert?
Why companies need to convert from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA?
Business benefits of SAP S/4HANA conversion:
- Optimizes enterprise applications to make the best use of the SAP HANA database capabilities
- Removes redundancy by unifying functionality (one functionality for one objective)
- Offers responsive user experience design and lowers data footprint.
- Enables enterprises to process real-time data efficiently
- Tremendous advantages over older SAP ERP software, including simplified architecture and increased performance
- Allows organizations to keep up with the latest technologies SAP offers and experience intelligence through their systems
Hiring the services of a certified SAP partner will allow you to define the best course of action for your specific business.
How do they differ?
Differences between SAP S/4HANA conversion and migration
Migration
- Takes into account both the sender and receiver systems
- Migration is performed table by table using a central system
- Central system reads the data in the sender system without changing it in the sender system
- Original data is changed in the central system before migration to the receiver system
Conversion
- Happens only in one client of a system, that is, execution system
- A conversion program is generated for every table to be changed
- Data is not duplicated, but changed in the database directly
- Old data records are fully replaced by new ones
Pros & Cons of S/4 HANA Conversion
Benefits and challenges of SAP S/4HANA conversion
Benefits
- Ownership and maintenance cost controls
- Accelerates digital transformation initiatives, including digital core
- Speed, scale, agility, flexibility, and innovation
- Line-of-business process improvements
- Faster development lead times with restructured data models
- Accurate forecasting with real-time analytical insights
- Plenty of opportunities to apply data and pivot to new business models
Challenges
- Inconsistent and unreliable data at the time of SAP S/4HANA conversion
- Complexities in migrating custom codes to S/4HANA
- Choosing between a big bang migration or a phased approach
- Negotiating partner terms and agreements
- Identifying technical issues during the planning stage itself
- Assessing functional issues for the conversion roadmap
- Complexity of data transfer in the source system
Factors to Count
Key aspects to consider during SAP S/4HANA conversion
Landscape assessment and preparation
- Database conversion & migration as well as technical conversion & migration
- SAP S/4HANA implementation without disrupting existing processes
- Modifying current business processes to unlock better value
- Evaluating the technical and functional aspects and the number of systems to be converted
Planning S/4HANA conversion journey
- Pre-conversion processes to detect any issues in the early phase of the project
- Actual system conversion including adaptation to new business processes, validation, and testing
- Post-conversion support and follow-up activities to ensure users get maximum value from SAP S/4HANA
- Enabling users to align with these phases throughout the SAP S/4HANA journey
Choosing the best conversion method
- Determining if current databases should move to a new version
- Greenfield migration to move data from old SAP system into new S/4HANA environment
- Brownfield conversion to upgrade live systems and reuse existing elements selectively
- Smart brownfield conversion for selective migration and process retention
Identifying the right deployment option
- Choosing between on-premise or S/4HANA cloud deployment based on business needs
- Evaluating each deployment option against specific organizational needs
- Managing conversion costs in line with budgets and timelines
It’s important to plan your transition to the digital core with a trusted SAP partner. An experienced SAP consultant provides your enterprise both business and IT value from SAP S/4HANA conversion.
S/4HANA Conversion Stages
Important phases of SAP S/4HANA conversion journey
S/4HANA conversion journey divides into pre-conversion, conversion and post-conversion phases.
Pre-conversion phase
The first phase includes analyzing the current usage of your system and its degree of customization, focusing on the system’s critical areas. An impact analysis is done to determine the relevance of conversion for your system and identify the functional efforts and the business process redesign needed for the conversion. It’s also important to assess the compatibility of custom objects with SAP S/4HANA and evaluate the insights on existing master data and transactions.
Pre-conversion stage involves:
- Planning and system requirements
- Maintenance planner
- SAP readiness check and simplification item (SI) catalog
- Cross-application and application-specific preparation activities
- Custom-code analysis
Conversion phase
After ensuring that your system is well-suited to SAP S/4HANA, it’s important to run the SUM (Software Update Manager). All your database migration (optional), software update, and data conversion happen during this phase. Perform SAP Readiness Check and Simplification Item-Check to review data inconsistency, compatibility issues, or missing mandatory preparation activities.
Relevant checks during the conversion phase helps in:
- Managing technical downtimes
- Performing user validations
- Reconnecting to landscape quickly
- Unlocking users during the conversion process
Post-conversion phase
It’s important to perform all the mandatory checks during the post-conversion phase, including Custom Code Adaptation, Functional Adaptation, Performance Tuning, obsolete data cleansing post-conversion, cross-application follow-on activities, and application-specific follow-on activities. Leveraging the data archiving and data aging functionalities in SAP S/4HANA will allow your platform to always remain usable and presentable.
Benefits of post-conversion services offered by an SAP partner:
- Reduction in conversion efforts, costs, and risks
- Standardized processes combining all conversion activities
- End-to-end support through designing, sizing, planning, procuring, deploying, and testing processes
- Knowledge, experience, assets, tools, capabilities, and methodologies to accelerate the conversion process
Timely guidance from a certified and experienced SAP consulting services provider will make your transition to S/4HANA seamless and hassle-free.
Getting Your System Ready
Preparing for SAP S/4HANA conversion
SAP S/4HANA conversion preparation process includes the following steps:
- Review the system requirements and examine its compatibility related to OS, DB, and Stack.
- Maintenance Planner (MP) verifies if the installed components, add-ons, and business functions are compatible with S/4HANA. If no valid path for conversion is available, the MP prevents the conversion.
- SI-CHECKS (Simplification Item check) will identify simplification items relevant to conversion. It means that it checks data inconsistency or missing mandatory preparation activities.
- The Custom Code Migration process describes the tools and necessary activities that help you to migrate custom code. The process consists of preparatory analysis (Custom Code Analysis) and Custom Code Adaptation after the technical conversion.
- Once these preparations are done, the conversion phase begins.
The Winning Formula
Best practices for successful conversion to SAP S/4HANA
- Identify the right deployment option and conversion method that will address your business challenges, requirements, budgets, and timelines.
- Make informed decisions by finding answers to the questions and concerns about SAP S/4HANA conversion.
- A preparatory activity of cleansing data is crucial to avoid risks such as unwanted licensing and subscription costs and downtimes.
- Engage a certified SAP partner to accomplish a successful transition to SAP S/4HANA. Being a Silver Partner of SAP, Fingent is adept at this.
- Prepare a detailed roadmap for your business and ensure end-to-end technical support services from your SAP partner during implementation.
- Critical and systematic conversion planning that follows high industry standards and recommended SAP regulations.
- Create SAP Sandbox environment initially as a proof of concept (POC) to test the workarounds, learn how the solutions deliver results in real-time settings, and finalize decisions before making any changes or enhancements to your original system.
There is no one-size-fits-all strategy when it comes to S/4HANA conversion. Discover how you can unlock value from SAP by connecting with an SAP strategist.
Case Studies
SAP S/4HANA conversion: Fingent’s success stories
1. SAP S/4HANA system conversion for a high-tech manufacturer
Fingent enhanced the operational efficiencies and capabilities of a leading high-tech manufacturer by helping them convert from SAP ECC 6.0 to SAP S/4HANA. Conversion to SAP S/4HANA 1709 was performed by following the Lift and Shift Methodology along with comprehensive Fit-Gap Analysis.
- Digitized the organizational core, enabling 30-40% reduction in data footprint
- Testing, training, and hyper care support to ensure the stable functioning of the client’s SAP S/4HANA system
- Tremendous improvements in terms of operational efficiency, customer service, and ROI
2. SAP S/4HANA implementation for improved business automation
By implementing SAP S/4HANA, a leading business in the Exploration and Production Industry achieved a process driven solution to handle day-to-day operations with less personnel intervention, reduced paperwork and enhanced preventive maintenance.
- Optimized resource utilization and improved user experience
- Better analysis of costs and profitability with enhanced payroll and costing systems
- Real-time actionable insights with accelerated financial processes
- Single integrated system across legal entities to achieve short term revenue goals