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SAP S/4HANA – Migrate to SAP's Prime Business Suite

You want your company to be more productive, agile, and open for the integration of future innovations? Achieve all of this with a simple ERP upgrade to SAP S/4HANA and choose between 3 flexible SAP S/4HANA transition paths.

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An SAP S/4HANA Transition Future-Proofs Your Business

In the age of digitalization, staying ahead of the competition only becomes possible when your business lives up to its full potential – day in and day out. In these accelerated times, however, keeping up this resolution seems to be easier said than done and it turns out to be a challenge for companies across all industrial sectors.

To prevail in this data-driven period, an efficient and future-oriented ERP implementation has become an absolute necessity. Yet, many companies shy away from making an ERP upgrade and rather stick to older and less productive systems, since they dread a long, problematic integration process.

All these concerns are nullified, when it comes to an SAP S/4HANA migration: not only does an ERP implementation of SAP’s most powerful platform provide businesses with extraordinary performance in data processing and analysis as well as forward-looking expandability. The SAP S/4HANA transition is also easy and customers have the choice between 3 suitable migration paths:

Each approach can be adjusted to the specific requirements of every company in order to guarantee a smooth system integration.

When Should You Consider an ERP Upgrade?

Clinging on to less productive legacy ERPs, for instance an SAP ECC, does not only impair the efficiency of your company in the present – in the long run, your competitiveness on the market will also be in jeopardy. There are a couple factors which indicate that a new ERP implementation would make sense in your situation:

You can’t keep up with business growth

A growing business always goes hand in hand with more work that you need to take care of – and, in consequence, a lot more data that your IT has to process. If you intend to expand your product range, go out to explore new markets and offer your services to a bigger number of customers, you have to be able to manage more transactions. The increasing data volume quickly pushes older legacy systems to their performance limits.

An ERP upgrade, however, puts your business on a sound basis as you obtain the necessary processing power to cope with additional as well as more demanding tasks.

You are unable to leverage innovations

If your current ERP is in place for a couple of years, a considerable number of innovations, which have come into the market in the meantime, can only be added to your system landscape with lots of complications, or these solutions are completely incompatible with your IT setup. However, technologies such as blockchain, big data or the Internet of Things do not only boost your corporate-wide efficiency, but also reduce the workload of your IT department.

With a new ERP implementation, your digital environment becomes open for these productive innovations – and with a forward-looking SAP S/4HANA transition the process of integration is easy and adaptable.

You’re struggling to comply with regulations

Every industry undergoes changes over time, hence, staying informed of legally binding market regulations is crucial for modern businesses. Especially in highly regulated industries such as life sciences or the insurance sector, it is essential to know about most recent regulatory developments, because failures to comply have drastic consequences. Fast data access is essential here, but older ERP systems are compromised in this regard.

With an ERP migration to a newer system, these risks can be avoided, since modern platforms are capable of providing real-time data insights, with which you keep all your departments up to date in terms of industry-specific statutes.

You’re piling up maintenance costs

Keeping legacy ERPs up and running is a challenge for your IT staff since these outdated systems are more error-prone and therefore require more time and effort for the maintenance. As a result, costs quickly arise and valuable capacities in your IT departments are blocked just for keeping your platform stable. Not to mention that you also have to lower your standards in terms of usability, which affects all the departments of your company.

An ERP switch is a reasonable investment because a newer IT environment is much easier to handle, increases your corporate-wide user experience – and most importantly, reduces your overall maintenance costs.

Your SAP S/4HANA Migration Is Urgent

Considering an SAP ERP upgrade has to be on the agenda of every company, even if your old SAP infrastructure still satisfies your needs at the moment: since SAP announced that the corporation will discontinue the support for older ERPs in the year 2027, adapting SAP’s newest SAP S/4HANA technology will ultimately become a necessity.

What are the consequences of SAP’s termination of mainstream maintenance support for your IT? In short it means that, after 2027 SAP will no longer provide you with updates for your ERP and all the core applications of your platform. You will no longer receive innovative software add-ons, which will lead to a decrease in productivity. In the end, your old ERP will become obsolete.

An SAP S/4HANA ERP implementation liberates you from all these difficulties in the future – and there are multiple ways to complete the migration. Learn more about the 3 available SAP S/4HANA transition scenarios in the following paragraphs.

The 3 sap s/4hana transition scenarios
Landscape S4HANA greenfield approach

1. Start Your SAP S/4HANA ERP Upgrade with a New Implementation

To perform an ERP upgrade with a SAP S/4HANA new implementation – often referred to as the Greenfield method – means that you basically establish a completely new IT landscape on the basis of SAP’s most progressive ERP suite.

Companies that do not have an ERP in place can particularly make use of the Greenfield approach, as well as businesses that already work with an older SAP or non-SAP platform. In case of the latter, the legacy ERP system then gets replaced by a fresh SAP S/4HANA environment.

We explain all the benefits and the process of the new implementation method on our dedicated website.

Receive more details on an SAP S/4HANA new implementation
Landscape S4HANA brownfield approach

2. Migrate to SAP S/4HANA with a System Conversion

To initiate your SAP S/4HANA transition by using a system conversion – also known as the Brownfield method – differs from a new implementation in various points. The main difference, however, is that your old ERP system with all the corresponding processes and data sets remains unimpaired while migrating.

Hence, a system conversion is predestined for companies whose ERPs work with carefully assembled data storage and process configurations. Businesses that are satisfied with their overall system set up and workflows are well-advised to choose this SAP S/4HANA transition path. But even if the overall system and data settings of the old ERP are taken over, a Brownfield upgrade leads to considerable improvements.

For further information regarding the system conversion approach, visit the following website.

Get more insights into an SAP S/4HANA system conversion
Landscape S4HANA selective data transition

3. Move to SAP S/4HANA with a Selective Data Transition

This SAP S/4HANA migration process is the way to go for companies looking for a solution to merge several ERPs that are used simultaneously. Technically speaking, it can be considered a mixture of the new implementation and system conversion method.

The selective data transition, which is also labeled as “hybrid approach” or “landscape transformation”, is particularly suitable for companies with a complex and globally spanning IT environment. Implementing SAP S/4HANA allows companies to streamline their entire data and business processes from a multitude of ERPs into a single platform.

Details of the selective data transition approach are explained on our dedicated website.

Learn more about the SAP S/4HANA selective data transition

Getting SAP S/4HANA – Migrate with which Approach?

In order to determine how to implement SAP S/4HANA in your company, you should ask yourself a couple of questions regarding your IT environment:

  • What kind of ERP do you use at the moment and what are its technical specifications and limitations?
  • Do you intent to completely reset your system or perform a soft ERP upgrade of your contemporary system?
  • Which data sets of your entire data volume do you need to transfer?
  • In this context, which data sets do you no longer use?
  • How do you want to host your system – on-premise or in a cloud-based landscape?

Answering all these questions helps you to pick the implementation method that is best suited for your business purposes. Our experts will gladly discuss these questions together with you and help you pick the best fitting scenario sharing their expertise. Go ahead and contact them!

Our Successful SAP S/4HANA Migration Projects

PostNord

Read about how SAP S/4HANA delivers harmonization and optimization to PostNord with NTT DATA' Conversion Factory.
Image SMS group
SMS group

Leveraging the hybrid-agile SAP Activate methodology, SMS group remains at the forefront of innovation and benefits from advanced capabilities across multiple business areas through its partnership with NTT DATA Business Solutions.
Two scientiests working on computer in laboratory
Basilea Pharmaceutica International

Basilea Pharmaceutical successfully navigates SAP ERP to S/4HANA migration, overcoming challenges like tight deadlines & compliance, with NTT DATA Business Solution's efficient Conversion Factory, ensuring future-readiness & innovation access.
Image Wiegel Gruppe
Wiegel Group

Embracing innovation, Wiegel undertook a strategic SAP S/4HANA conversion with NTT DATA Business Solutions, emphasizing a meticulous testing phase to ensure a seamless transition. This successful project, completed on time and within budget, positions Wiegel at the forefront of technological advancement in its industry.
Smeding

Handling 6,000 orders per day effortlessly, thanks to SAP S/4HANA and our food software solutions; that’s what Smeding Groenten en Fruit achieved with the renewal of their IT landscape.
toom Baumarkt flower department reference for SAP S/4HANA
toom Baumarkt

The company aims to deliver exceptional customer experiences via interconnected retail. To achieve this, toom employed the SAP® Integration Solution Advisory Methodology, ensuring seamless integration of SAP with third-party solutions in a revamped application architecture.

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Contact Us for Your SAP S/4HANA Migration

You are not sure which implementation method is most effective for your company? The specialists from NTT DATA Business Solutions have helped many customers across all industries to migrate to SAP S/4HANA. Together with our clients we successfully finalized over 460 transitional projects.

Do not hesitate to contact our experts for a free consultation!

 

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