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NTT DATA Business Solutions

SAP Cloud ERP – 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 upgrade to SAP Cloud ERP and choose between 3 flexible SAP Cloud ERP transition paths.

Group of business people would like to migrate SAP Cloud ERP

An SAP Cloud ERP Transition Future-Proofs Your Business

In the age of digitalisation, 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 Cloud ERP 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 Cloud ERP 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 Cloud ERP 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 Cloud ERP 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 Cloud ERP 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 Cloud 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 Cloud ERP transition scenarios in the following paragraphs.

The 3 SAP Cloud ERP transition scenarios
Landscape SAP Cloud ERP greenfield approach

1. Start Your SAP Cloud ERP Upgrade with a New Implementation

To perform an upgrade with an SAP Cloud ERP 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 Cloud ERP 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 SAP Cloud ERP brownfield approach

2. Migrate to SAP Cloud ERP 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 Cloud ERP 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 Cloud ERP selective data transition

3. Move to SAP Cloud ERP with a Selective Data Transition

This SAP Cloud ERP 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 Cloud ERP 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 Cloud ERP – Migrate with which Approach?

In order to determine how to implement SAP Cloud ERP 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 intend 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 Cloud ERP Migration Projects

More Information on SAP Cloud ERP Conversion

Contact Us for Your SAP Cloud ERP 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 Cloud ERP. Together with our clients we successfully finalised over 460 transitional projects.

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