Don’t loose sleep about your SAP S/4HANA move

Almost everyone working in large enterprises has heard the name “S/4HANA”. This is the 3rd  generation of SAP ERP software which was built from scratch as the successor to SAP ECC (which was built from scratch as the successor to SAP R/3). Some time ago SAP announced the sunset dates of both R/3 and ECC which means that sooner or later every client still using ECC OR R/3 will have to migrate. Even if this sounds like an extra fun project, it comes with some considerations.

S/4HANA offers many improvements over the previous versions in many areas, like data availability, analytics, and the ability to handle large amounts of sales transactions. And on a larger scale SAP offers an entire ecosystem of somehow integrated applications to handle your business. At the same time, the harsh reality is that enterprises use many apps and services (both on cloud and on-premises). Due to the rise of SaaS enterprises choose vendors for specific functionality that is integrated via API (Read more on API Floods). This means that you will have to figure out how to integrate all of these systems into your new S/4HANA landscape. While over the last decade or two, many SAP customers had enough time to figure out this problem, migration to S/4HANA is a timeboxed activity and enterprises often have quite a huge task on their hands: to reinvent the whole business process (read more on Greenfield vs Brownfield strategies). This leaves even less time to take care of all the integrations. And the amount of integrations just keeps on increasing. 

At the end of the day taking up such a huge project will require rethinking your process and architecture to not only “migrate because the vendor told me to”, but mainly to get the most out of it: starting with your ERP functionality and ending with your full end-to-end process.

What to consider?

While migration to S/4HANA is a very complex project and should be driven by your migration/transformation team together with trusted SAP implementation partners experienced in similar projects, you should strongly consider implementing a capable and universal Integration/API platform to drive existing integration migrations and fuel your future growth. 

API growth

In today’s environment APIs are no longer simple interfaces to send data between systems and databases. API-centric architectures have grown into an “API economy” making data, business functions, and capabilities available as building blocks to a controlled array of data/service consumers. This fuels exponential innovation and a better user experience. It also means that your API platform needs to be capable of adding many new APIs every day as well as supporting their lifecycle and managing their usage. 

Prioritization is key – will you concentrate on establishing and improving your business process or spend hundreds of hours managing APIs?

Data migration 

Regardless if you choose a greenfield or brownfield approach, you will have to do some data transformation and migration. This means that you will have to do a very time-consuming process of evaluating the data itself, adjusting to your new business process as well as calculating the costs for migration – there may be some data that is too expensive to be migrated. At the same time, a big part of them still is required – with API and integration tools, you can always have an alternative to operate with the data to some extent and keep the previous process at least partially running while low-priority items get high enough in the backlog. An integration platform would ensure the continuity of legacy systems until they are phased out. There is no need to mess with your ERP system adding legacy integrations if you are planning to sunset them.

Big data, IoB and IoT

The amount of data keeps growing from day to day. Data that is generated with almost any interaction with your systems, calculations, sensor inputs, and behavioral outputs for IoB. Even if the value of data is so high, it can become a show-stopper for your business growth and innovation. To fuel the growth you need to find the best way to support business with data, build re-usable apps based on widely used APIs, and enable flexible business intelligence tools. Instead of making all of the changes in 1 huge ERP system (making all business decisions as slow and unagile as possible), you can enable IT self-service which supports the ERP and allows ERP teams to concentrate on improving the general process. 

Cloud vs On-Premises

The percentage of systems working on the cloud keeps going up with digital transformation happening all over the world. At the same time in many cases, on-premises system hosting can increase costs. It is not simple to choose between on-premises vs cloud. To ensure security needs, working schemes, and processes, instead of trying to adapt hybrid integrations directly to your ERP system, it brings more value to invest in API platforms that can support hybrid mode and treat each system accordingly, providing full end-to-end experience to end users and simply enable various building blocks (i.e. SaaS products, local APIs, legacy systems).

Migration roadmap

Instead of thinking: “How can we make the new process to be the same as the old process, but much better?” you should understand that whether you want a new process or not before the migration you will have to evaluate what you have and make some adjustments. Draw your process and make it flexible enough (both from the business and technical side) to dynamically add new systems, APIs, or sunset old systems and APIs. API platform allows you not only to ensure connectivity between API and S/4HANA but between various APIs and then deliver ready results for all your ERP needs.

Implementation partners

This may be one of the most important points. As we have seen it all – partners charge almost nothing for the first 2 months and then turn on the multiplier for the next 2 years. Bait and switch partners and simply lazy/unprofessional ones. And same is on the other side of the field – experienced transparent and fast partners that make your SAP journey a smooth ride on the digital transformation boat. 

What is clear – you should choose a partner that is an expert in its field. For SAP S/4HANA migration you should choose an expert that lives and sleeps SAP products while for integration you should choose a partner that has a wide understanding of APIs and their implementation. Allow them to work together and look “out of the box” to deliver you the best technology. Technology that can be flexible enough to withstand “Digital Transformation 2.0”, technology changes and adapt to new business needs. While at the same time continuing to deliver already existing functionality as if nothing ever happened.

We at Summit are dedicated to delivering the best possible integration solutions to our clients. Our core focus is on APIs and integrations to make your business as flexible as possible and transition as smooth as possible. Our task is to work in the background supporting your organization while ongoing major process reviews. We will gladly work together with you and your SAP implementation partner. Give us a call to learn more about ways to improve your API and integration landscape using proven integration providers.