As the 2027 end-of-main­te­nance dead­line approach­es for SAP Busi­ness Suite 7 — which includes SAP ERP Cen­tral Com­po­nent (ECC) 6 — orga­ni­za­tions are mov­ing with greater urgency to ensure these ini­tia­tives are top of mind for both IT and busi­ness leaders.

Accord­ing to the 2024 ASUG Pulse of the SAP Cus­tomer Research, 48% of respon­dents indi­cat­ed mov­ing to SAP S/4HANA will be a pri­or­i­ty focus for their orga­ni­za­tions this com­ing year. And these ini­tia­tives, in many cas­es, are cur­rent­ly in progress; 47% of respon­dents said they are already live on the ERP plat­form or are prepar­ing to migrate. 

As SAP S/4HANA dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects take on greater impor­tance for our mem­bers, ASUG recent­ly sat down with three of the co-authors of Migrat­ing to SAP S/4HANA, a recent SAP Press best­seller. In con­ver­sa­tion, Frank Finkbohn­er, SAP S/4HANA Cloud Data Migra­tion Con­tent Own­er at SAP; Petra Kloess, SAP Senior Direc­tor of Cen­tral Busi­ness Con­fig­u­ra­tion; and Boris Rubarth, Prod­uct Man­ag­er at SAP, shed light on cru­cial aspects and con­sid­er­a­tions for suc­cess­ful SAP S/4HANA migra­tion projects.

The three authors empha­sized the impor­tance of strate­gic deci­sion-mak­ing, tech­ni­cal guid­ance, and under­stand­ing the nuances between deploy­ment mod­els. Addi­tion­al­ly, they high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of tri­al sys­tems in facil­i­tat­ing famil­iar­i­ty and test­ing process­es, espe­cial­ly in SAP S/4HANA Cloud tran­si­tions, and dis­cussed the advan­tages and lim­i­ta­tions of brown­field approach­es, stress­ing the need for struc­tured plan­ning and adop­tion of inno­va­tions in a step-by-step manner.

With their diverse exper­tise and col­lab­o­ra­tive efforts, the authors aim to pro­vide SAP Press read­ers with com­pre­hen­sive insights and prac­ti­cal guid­ance — both essen­tial for nav­i­gat­ing the com­plex­i­ties of data migra­tion in SAP environments. 

This inter­view was edit­ed and con­densed. 

ASUG: What do you hope read­ers will take away from read­ing Migrat­ing to SAP S/4HANA? How do you envi­sion it con­tribut­ing to the suc­cess of SAP S/4HANA migra­tion projects?  

Petra Kloess: Migra­tion is often per­ceived as a very big, com­plex task. In our book, we guide var­i­ous lev­els — includ­ing the tech­ni­cal lev­el — from both migra­tion and data per­spec­tives. We also advise on how to decide which path is cor­rect, explor­ing which argu­ments to use to ensure a suc­cess­ful migra­tion through­out the com­plete lifecycle. 

Frank Finkbohn­er: We aim to pro­vide read­ers with insights into effec­tive data migra­tion plan­ning for suc­cess­ful out­comes. Typ­i­cal­ly, the main chal­lenges with data migra­tion involve inad­e­quate plan­ning, over­sight of tasks, and lack of guid­ance. We offer com­pre­hen­sive guid­ance on uti­liz­ing data migra­tion tools to ensure suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion. This approach min­i­mizes issues for cus­tomers or users, enhances their famil­iar­i­ty with the process and tools, and reduces the num­ber of cus­tomer tickets. 

Boris Rubarth: The guid­ance at first sight looks quite com­plex. Migrat­ing to SAP S/4HANA is not just an upgrade; it’s also chang­ing to a new prod­uct line. On the oth­er hand, there are var­i­ous aspects where SAP is sup­port­ing those projects by pro­vid­ing guid­ance. It’s impor­tant to become famil­iar with this guidance. 

ASUG: Please elab­o­rate on the three paths for using SAP S/4HANA: new imple­men­ta­tion, sys­tem con­ver­sion, and selec­tive data tran­si­tion. What fac­tors should orga­ni­za­tions con­sid­er when choos­ing between these paths?  

Kloess: This ques­tion beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trates how we struc­tured the book. The argu­ments here are twofold. Per­son­al­ly, I’m not a data migra­tor, which is why we have a diverse author­ing team. My back­ground lies in busi­ness con­fig­u­ra­tion and change man­age­ment. Cus­tomers must make strate­gic deci­sions not only on the tech­ni­cal aspects but also on what inno­va­tions they want and when. It’s a cus­tomer’s strate­gic deci­sion not only tech­ni­cal­ly what kind of data and what kind of process they want to take over but also how they want to inno­vate in a spe­cif­ic time­frame. A new imple­men­ta­tion offers a chance to revamp process­es com­pared to migrat­ing a decade-old sys­tem. Finan­cial invest­ment is a fac­tor, as well as com­pa­ny set­up, indus­try, and future tra­jec­to­ry. This strate­gic per­spec­tive is piv­otal for both busi­ness and con­fig­u­ra­tion. Chap­ter nine, on SAP Acti­vate, under­scores this, guid­ing cus­tomers through cru­cial busi­ness process­es. This strate­gic roadmap is vital for the tech­ni­cal side, and I defer to my expe­ri­enced col­leagues in that domain. 

Rubarth: The busi­ness aspect is cru­cial and pro­vides a sig­nif­i­cant view­point. From a tech­ni­cal per­spec­tive, we can add that some approach­es are only valid for spe­cif­ic tar­gets. For exam­ple, sys­tem con­ver­sions don’t tar­get SAP S/4HANA Cloud, while a new imple­men­ta­tion can also be used for non-SAP source sys­tems. These are tech­ni­cal con­sid­er­a­tions. How­ev­er, apart from this guid­ance, I believe it’s essen­tial to con­sid­er what the busi­ness is look­ing ahead to in terms of project planning. 

Finkbohn­er: If you’re lever­ag­ing a pub­lic cloud, you can only opt for the new imple­men­ta­tion. You can­not choose the sys­tem con­ver­sion or selec­tive data trans­fer. Those routes apply more to the pri­vate cloud and on-premis­es envi­ron­ments. First, you need to deter­mine what prod­uct you have. If it’s under a pub­lic cloud, then only the new imple­men­ta­tion is an option. Oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions from col­leagues will come into play if it’s a pri­vate cloud or on-premis­es setup. 

ASUG: In the intro­duc­tion, it’s not­ed that the book sup­ports both on-premis­es and cloud deploy­ments. Could you dis­cuss the vari­ances in migra­tion process­es for these two environments? 

Kloess: Let’s talk about the com­pa­ny process­es. For on-premis­es setups, the cus­tomer is account­able and man­ages their own land­scape. They’re respon­si­ble for deter­min­ing the hard­ware used, set­ting time­lines for upgrades and updates, and over­see­ing oper­a­tions — whether han­dled inter­nal­ly or by a part­ner. Con­trol of the land­scape is in the cus­tomer’s hands. Tran­si­tion­ing to SAP S/4HANA Cloud brings about not only inno­va­tion and busi­ness process changes but also a sig­nif­i­cant shift in land­scape oper­a­tions. In a cloud envi­ron­ment, whether pri­vate or pub­lic, part of this account­abil­i­ty and land­scape man­age­ment shifts to SAP or a part­ner, depend­ing on your choice. 

It’s a sub­stan­tial change in account­abil­i­ty and busi­ness process­es. When it comes to tran­si­tion­ing, this affects the whole area, alter­ing how process­es func­tion. This tran­si­tion is akin to the evo­lu­tion we’ve wit­nessed in trav­el man­age­ment, from man­u­al record-keep­ing to stream­lined solu­tions like SAP Con­cur on mobile devices. Just as with trav­el, we remem­ber how we record­ed trav­el in the 2000s and how you were reim­bursed. Com­pare that with how SAP Con­cur on a mobile device allows you to record expens­es while you trav­el. This is a change for the end user, so you need change man­age­ment to pre­pare those end users. This aspect of tran­si­tion is inte­gral and should­n’t be overlooked. 

That’s why this book isn’t sole­ly tech­ni­cal. From a tech­ni­cal stand­point, the tran­si­tion large­ly depends on how much you’re migrat­ing from your old sys­tem. The book pro­vides insights into this, includ­ing con­sid­er­a­tions for high­ly mod­i­fied sys­tems in unsup­port­ed releas­es, along with tools and check­lists for nav­i­gat­ing these chal­lenges. Addi­tion­al­ly, there’s a chap­ter ded­i­cat­ed to cen­tral busi­ness con­fig­u­ra­tion in new imple­men­ta­tions, detail­ing how to scope and con­fig­ure your SAP S/4HANA Cloud solu­tion effec­tive­ly. The book cov­ers a wide range of areas, offer­ing hints, exam­ples, and guid­ance on build­ing roadmaps and mak­ing informed decisions. 

ASUG: The first part of the book focus­es on SAP S/4HANA basics. Please high­light some of the key con­cepts cov­ered in this sec­tion that are cru­cial for decision-making. 

Kloess: On a func­tion­al lev­el, these deploy­ment mod­els sup­port dif­fer­ent scopes, num­bers of coun­tries, and lan­guages. They also sup­port dif­fer­ent user inter­face tech­nolo­gies (UI). These are just three tech­ni­cal ele­ments you must con­sid­er: they have dif­fer­ent upgrade mod­els, update mod­els, and licens­es behind them. 

From a tech­ni­cal per­spec­tive, it involves licens­es, scope, and account­abil­i­ty. There are huge dif­fer­ences between these dif­fer­ent mod­els that need to be con­sid­ered when you make that deci­sion matrix. 

From a prod­uct man­age­ment per­spec­tive, the first thing that the cus­tomer always asks about is scope. That’s the first thing that comes up because they are dif­fer­ent. The sec­ond thing that comes up is what kind of effort is need­ed to extend or inte­grate it. And the third thing is sep­a­rate licens­es. This price is always an argu­ment. They have dif­fer­ent license mod­els behind them, not just dif­fer­ent pric­ing, but mod­els behind the sub­scrip­tion ver­sus on-premises. 

For more from the authors of SAP Press pub­li­ca­tion Migrat­ing to SAP S/4HANA, read the sec­ond part of our con­ver­sa­tion, and pur­chase the book on the SAP Press web­site.