Download the full interview here.
SAP S/4HANA migrations are among the most complex and high-stakes technology projects enterprises undertake today, yet for many organizations, the greatest obstacles are more logistical than technical. Project teams routinely find themselves stalled, waiting for external systems to become available, negotiating costly access to third-party environments, or wrestling with EDI partners who aren’t ready on the project’s timeline.
Michał Krawczyk has spent over 14 years addressing precisely these challenges as Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Int4. With deep expertise in SAP integration, evidenced by his authorship of five SAP Press books, including Testing SAP APIs: Strategy and Execution, Krawczyk co-founded Int4 with the purpose to automate SAP transformations. The Int4 Suite removes external constraints through intelligent service virtualization and automated testing, rather than requiring teams to work around them.
In an interview with ASUG, Krawczyk explained how Int4’s approach transforms SAP testing from a dependency-laden bottleneck into a controllable, predictable process that keeps transformations on schedule and within budget.
Q: Many organizations struggle with testing complex SAP S/4HANA integrations because critical third-party systems or EDI partners are unavailable, expensive to access, or simply not ready for the project timeline. How does the Int4 suite directly address this common obstacle?
The Int4 Suite directly addresses this obstacle by allowing SAP customers to eliminate dependencies through intelligent simulation (service virtualization). The solution enables them to create a virtual “twin” of their third-party test systems and EDI partners, allowing their teams to test SAP S/4HANA integrations independently. This means project teams no longer have to wait for external systems, pay for access, or face delays caused by factors outside their control, empowering them to take full ownership of their testing timeline.
Q: When a go-live date is approaching, the last thing a project needs is to be held up by an external partner. How does your solution reduce these dependencies and ensure the project stays on track?
The solution is engineered to de-risk go-live dates by decoupling SAP S/4HANA transformations from external partner dependencies. The Int4 Suite’s service virtualization capabilities mean a customer’s team can proceed with comprehensive end-to-end testing of their SAP S/4HANA system without needing live connections to third-party applications. This proactive approach ensures SAP S/4HANA transformations stay on track and on budget, as they are no longer at the mercy of an external partner’s availability. By removing these critical bottlenecks, the solution provides the certainty and predictability needed to hit go-live dates with confidence.
Q: How can a company confidently test a business process that spans across multiple systems, where one or more of those systems are not yet available or are too complex to be used for repeated testing?
Companies can achieve confidence in testing complex, multi-system business processes through intelligent simulation and automation. The Int4 Suite allows a business to simulate the behavior of any missing or complex system, enabling true end-to-end testing of core business processes. The platform doesn’t just simulate the “happy path”; it can also simulate error scenarios and edge cases, ensuring the SAP S/4HANA system is robust and resilient. This comprehensive testing, performed early and often, provides the confidence that business processes will work seamlessly when all systems go live.
Q: Can you explain how the Int4 suite’s simulation capabilities specifically mimic the behavior of missing or unavailable third-party systems and EDI partners? What’s the level of fidelity in these simulations?
The Int4 Suite’s simulation capabilities go beyond simple “stubs” by providing high-fidelity simulations that accurately mimic the behavior of third-party test systems and EDI partners. This is achieved by leveraging historical message data from a customer’s existing systems to create realistic and dynamic responses. This means the simulations understand the business context and can replicate complex behaviors, ensuring that testing is as close to real-world conditions as possible. The result is a level of fidelity that gives businesses a true picture of how their SAP S/4HANA system will perform in a live environment.
Q: How does the ability to automate testing against these simulated environments provide a business with confidence that its SAP S/4HANA programs will function correctly when they eventually connect to the live third-party systems?
Confidence is built through rigorous and repeatable automated testing. By automating tests against high-fidelity simulations, a business can run thousands of test cases in a fraction of the time it would take to do so manually. This allows for massive-scale testing that covers a wide range of scenarios, giving the organization a high degree of confidence that its SAP S/4HANA programs will function correctly when connected to live systems. The platform’s “agentic” approach, featuring robotic crawlers that automatically discover and create test cases, further enhances this by ensuring comprehensive test coverage with minimal manual effort.
Connect with Michał Krawczyk on LinkedIn.
Q: Beyond a one-time migration, how does this approach support a continuous testing strategy, ensuring that ongoing changes to SAP or new integrations with partners can be validated efficiently?
This solution is not just for a one-time migration; it’s a platform for continuous innovation and business agility. The Int4 Suite supports a continuous testing strategy by allowing companies to quickly and efficiently validate any ongoing changes to their SAP system or new integrations. The automated nature of the solution means that regression testing can be performed automatically with every change, catching potential issues early in the development cycle. This enables businesses to be more agile, respond faster to market needs, and continuously deliver value without compromising quality.
Q: What are the key metrics for measuring the value of this approach? For example, how can we quantify the savings in time and cost associated with not having to wait for or pay for external systems during the testing phases?
The value for SAP customers can be measured through several key business metrics:
- Reduced Project Timelines: By eliminating dependencies on external systems, customers have reduced their testing cycles by up to 80%.
- Lower Project Costs: Cost savings can be quantified by calculating the direct costs of accessing third-party test systems, as well as the indirect costs of project delays and resource time spent waiting.
- Increased Test Coverage: The automated and agentic approach allows for a significant increase in test coverage, leading to a higher quality implementation and fewer post-go-live defects.
- Faster Time to Market: By accelerating testing and de-risking the go-live, companies can bring new products and services to market faster, creating a distinct competitive advantage.
Q: How does the use of a continuous testing solution like Int4 improve collaboration and reduce friction between internal teams and external partners?
A continuous testing solution like Int4 improves collaboration by creating a shared understanding and a single source of truth. When internal teams can test independently, it reduces the need for constant back-and-forth with external partners, minimizing friction and delays. Furthermore, when issues are found, the detailed test results and logs provided by the solution make it easier to identify the root cause, leading to faster resolution and more productive collaboration between teams.
Visit the Int4 website.
Q: From a risk management perspective, what is the value of knowing that your SAP S/4HANA system has been thoroughly tested against all integration points, even those that were not physically available during the project?
From a risk management perspective, the value is immeasurable. The ability for a company to thoroughly test all integration points—even those that are unavailable—provides an unprecedented level of assurance. It means the business can go live with the confidence that its system is resilient, its business processes are sound, and the risk of costly and reputation-damaging post-go-live failures has been minimized. In today’s competitive landscape, this level of certainty is a strategic imperative.