Common Challenges in SAP S/4HANA Implementation

The path towards Digital Transformation involves a major technology shift, particularly when the core ERP system is involved. While the transition brings its own set of benefits, the business has to face numerous challenges while making a move. A transition to SAP S/4HANA, one of the most popular ERP systems, brings a host of factors that need to be factored in for a successful implementation. Let’s look at the common challenges in SAP S/4HANA implementation and the ways to address them.

Common Challenges in S/4HANA Implementation

The Assessment Stage

The assessment stage is the most crucial part of a S/4HANA implementation. It requires a comprehensive analysis of the factors below and devising a strategy to start the exercise.

• Identification of the current technology stack and doing a gap analysis
• Understanding the short- and long-term goals of the business
• Analysing the existing operational processes and identifying areas of improvement. This can be done by conducting fit-to-standard workshops, readiness assessments, and process mapping and optimization.
• Choosing the right technology platform-either on-prem, or a public and private cloud. While a cloud-based S/4HANA implementation provides flexibility, scalability, and low upfront costs, some businesses have reservations about storing critical business data on the cloud. A hybrid approach, which involves using a combination of on-prem and cloud deployment will suit such scenarios.
• Developing an all-inclusive strategy with defined SLAs for completion, as well as ensuring that the exercise does not cause any budget overheads in SAP S/4HANA implementation costs. This requires a well-crafted Governance strategy.
• Formulating a strategy for post-go-live support, troubleshooting, and maintenance
• Implementing an effective change management strategy that includes the entire business, and all the stakeholders.
• Exploring the need for SAP Application Managed Services if the current technology capabilities of in-house resources do not have the right skill set to maintain the new technology platform.

Dealing with Data

Data management plays an important role in SAP S/4HANA implementation. The transition must ensure that the current data is standardized to fit into the SAP S/4HANA system, which might require refining the existing data to ensure seamless integration.

Businesses have three options to deal with the existing data, as outlined below, with varying SAP S/4HANA implementation costs.

• Using an SAP S/4HANA Greenfield implementation, where all the existing data is archived & stored.
• Implementing a Brownfield approach, where the existing data is retained and fed into the S/4HANA system.
• Having a hybrid approach, or selective data transition, where some part of the existing data is retained and some of it is discarded.

In cases where existing data is being used, there is a need to ensure the quality of data, as inconsistencies will create inefficient results. It is also important to strategize how the legacy data will map to the pre-configured S/4HANA fields, which requires cleaning and organizing the data. The usage of data migration tools will substantially reduce the time required for data migration.

Integration Challenges

It’s often seen that businesses that use disparate applications for various business functions will have integration challenges in SAP S/4HANA implementation. Not all applications can be integrated with S/4HANA, and this causes connectivity challenges. While SAP provides a vast set of APIs and middleware connectors such as Integration Suite, CPI, SAP Process Integration (PI), and Process Orchestration (PO), there are limitations in its scope

Customization and Standardization

One of the most important features of SAP S/4HANA is that it provides industry best practices, standardized workflows and processes, which are pre-configured as per the requirements of that specific business function. At times, businesses might require customization as per their operational requirements. While SAP provides customization capabilities, it is not often extensive. A best practice to use limited customization is very essential, with a major focus on a fit-to-standard approach.

Change Management

Change Management is a very crucial aspect of S/4HANA implementation. Many businesses make change management an end-stage exercise, which leads to poor adaptability of the solution. It's very essential that change management is strategized right at the beginning exercise and cascaded at every stage. We present a few best practices that businesses can adopt to have a comprehensive change management exercise.

• End-users of the new implementation might resist change, as they are accustomed to working with legacy systems. It’s essential to negate the barriers and resistance to change with proper end-user engagement.
• There is a need for an effective training process that educates the end-users on working with the new platform to ensure better adaptability.
• You can use an AI-driven virtual assistant that helps employees navigate through the application to perform the required tasks. Tools such as WalkMe and OnScreen offer real-time prompts that guide users at every stage. Such tools require minimal customization and can be used any number of times, and perfectly complement the existing training exercise.
• While change management is different for each business, you can leverage popular change management methodologies such as Kotter and McKinsey, amongst others.
• You need to ensure that change management involves all the stakeholders of your business, so that no business function is affected, and the new solutions align with your objectives at every stage.

Support and Maintenance

SAP implementation partners offer post-go-live support after the deployment for a limited time. However, there could be future requirements such as process optimization, troubleshooting, customization, and security enforcement, amongst others. If you have a lean team, or if your in-house team lacks the desired skills to manage the new SAP S/4HANA implementation, you can choose to engage a third party for application-managed services (AMS)

SAP AMS provides flexible resource engagement models, and AMS providers offer complete or partial maintenance. You also get the benefit of having on-site or remote resources, with flexibility in scaling up or down.

Conclusion

The above-mentioned challenges are frequently encountered during an SAP S/4HANA implementation. Such factors need to be considered with a proper planning and strategizing exercise so that you get to leverage the complete potential of the deployment.

Korcomptenz is an accredited SAP partner with GROW with SAP and RISE with SAP platforms. We have 20+ years of experience in ERP consulting, implementation, and support services across diverse industry verticals. Our custom rapid S/4HANA implementation services and AMS solutions ensure a seamless implementation, with a definite cost and value-driven approach. Do contact us for more information on our SAP S/4HANA implementation services, and our experts will be glad to help.