Answer Questions and Address Business Concerns around SAP S/4HANA
As mentioned in our previous blog, if you’re considering migration to SAP S/4HANA – even if your plans are not immediate – you’ll need to take a look at your existing environment and determine what needs to be addressed prior to conversion. Here are a couple of steps that we recommend to assist with those efforts in order to reduce future conversion costs.
Take Advantage of SAP Solution Manager
SAP Solution Manager 7.2 can be a great tool to gain insight into system usage, database space consumption, custom code, change impact analysis, and more. It provides a number of tools that you can use to plan and reduce your cost of moving to SAP S/4HANA.
Solution Manager 7.2 provides holistic visibility to help you focus your testing efforts on critical processes, streamlining the project timeline with shorter test cycles and drastically reduced cost drains.
Even better, you can realize the full benefits of Solution Manager without having to worry about maintaining hardware, configuring the system, or having the internal knowledge to keep the system up to date. NTT DATA Business Solutions offers Solution Manager as a Managed Service (SMaaMS), which allows you to access a fully configured, cloud-based Solution Manager system operated by certified ALM consultants.
Your SMaaMS subscription provides access to full Solution Manager functionality and roadmap services, so you can focus on using the application for insight rather than focusing on setting it up. With this managed service, NTT DATA Business Solutions will set up Solution Manager 7.2 for your business and provide reporting on the following:
- Usage and procedure logging
- Custom code library and usage
- Data volume analysis
- Scope and effort analyzer, including: impacted custom code, impacted modifications, remediation efforts, testing efforts, test scope identification and optimization
- Option for additional application lifecycle management (ALM) functionality
This information can be invaluable in identifying areas that need to be addressed prior to an SAP S/4HANA conversion.
Custom Code Remediation
As we talk with customers about SAP S/4HANA migration, custom code remediation is an area of particular concern. After investing in custom code over a number of years, the prospect of moving it over to S/4HANA can be intimidating.
You will definitely need to deal with custom code remediation before making the move to SAP HANA or SAP S/4HANA, but trying to do code remediation manually is impractical and expensive. An automatic code remediation tool can reduce costs and significantly improve code performance. Depending on the amount of custom code you need to remediate, the manual effort savings due to an automated tool can fund a portion or all of the migration project fees.
Using a custom code analyzer to run through your custom code can help you quickly identify what needs to be remediated. The good news is that most of the technical code remediation we’ve seen with other clients usually can be accomplished within a short timeframe, even when there are years of custom code developed in the current environment.
What Else Can You Do to Prepare for SAP S/4HANA Migration?
The short answer is: there are lots of things you can do to get ready, which will help mitigate risk and reduce costs for S/4HANA conversion. NTT DATA Business Solutions has developed a framework – broken down into bite-sized pieces – to help assess your current environment, learn more about SAP S/4HANA and how it will impact your business, and prepare for a future transition.