The fol­low­ing ASUG Part­ner Insight was authored by Fabi­an Pfau, SVP of Solu­tion Archi­tec­ture and Pre Sales at SNP Group.

Out­dat­ed process­es are hin­der­ing inno­va­tion. Lim­it­ed resources, large data vol­umes, and crit­i­cal down­time require­ments in util­i­ties com­pa­nies slows their abil­i­ty to sat­is­fy grow­ing demand in areas such as elec­tric vehi­cle charg­ing sta­tions, solar pow­er, and large data cen­ters — all while meet­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals. 

At the SAP for Util­i­ties con­fer­ence in mid-Sep­tem­ber, ASUG brought togeth­er more than 1,500 util­i­ties indus­try experts to learn about the SAP tech­nol­o­gy roadmap and how to boost effi­cien­cies while mar­gins are slim.

We heard from util­i­ties com­pa­nies pre­sent­ing on their improve­ments in cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, data man­age­ment, AI, finance, and more, shar­ing their chal­lenges, suc­cess­es, and future vision.

We noticed one recur­ring theme: Work­ing with the right part­ners who have the right expe­ri­ence and approach makes all the dif­fer­ence dur­ing dig­i­tal transformation. 

Now Is the Time to Get Started

The util­i­ties com­pa­nies that have made the nec­es­sary tech­nol­o­gy invest­ment are already reap­ing the ben­e­fits less than two years after get­ting start­ed. Set­ting their orga­ni­za­tions up for the future, mod­ern util­i­ties com­pa­nies that have gone through the nec­es­sary dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion jour­neys and are now able to tap gen­er­a­tive AI, SAP Joule, and SAP Busi­ness AI to improve cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and inter­nal efficiencies. 

SAP util­i­ties cus­tomers need to answer these most impor­tant ques­tions as they con­sid­er the future of their tech­nol­o­gy landscape: 

• Should I move to SAP S/4HANA or con­tin­ue waiting? 
• How do I most effi­cient­ly uti­lize the cloud?
• What can I do to pre­pare my data before the move? 
• How do I han­dle high lev­els of cus­tomiza­tion in lega­cy ECC environments?
• How do I decide which cus­tomiza­tions to take to the new system? 
• How can I mit­i­gate risks and min­i­mize busi­ness downtime? 
• What is the cost, and how long will this project take?

Because busi­ness mod­els evolve faster than lega­cy sys­tems, the longer that util­i­ties com­pa­nies wait, the more dif­fi­cult it will be to catch up to their more advanced coun­ter­parts. SAP ECC main­stream sup­port ends in 2027, mak­ing the tran­si­tion to SAP S/4HANA more top of mind than ever. 

Mak­ing Impor­tant Decisions

The hes­i­ta­tion to tack­le dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is under­stand­able. There are years or even decades of data the com­pa­ny doesn’t want to lose. Mis­sion-crit­i­cal, high­ly-dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed busi­ness process are sup­port­ed by cus­tom code. There is even com­pli­ance to keep top of mind.

As util­i­ties com­pa­nies weigh their options, SNP encour­ages ask­ing the fol­low­ing questions: 

• What busi­ness process­es can be switched to stan­dard and which neces­si­tate customization?
• What data needs to be deliv­ered in an online man­ner to sup­port the busi­ness? Are there long-divest­ed com­pa­nies still in the sys­tem? Dis­con­tin­ued report­ing structures?
• Where is the com­pa­ny apply­ing AI and where do they look to do more in the future?
• Are there new fea­tures in S/4HANA that you would like to adopt?
• What are the down­time constraints?
• Are there any oth­er exter­nal fac­tors or sched­ules influ­enc­ing the timeline?
• Can mul­ti­ple sys­tems be merged and consolidated?

These sorts of con­sid­er­a­tions will help to inform how the com­pa­ny will migrate its sys­tems and set the stage for the future of its dig­i­tal landscape. 

Green­field migra­tion is an approach to ERP imple­men­ta­tion that is total­ly new, inde­pen­dent from cur­rent sys­tems. Espe­cial­ly if cur­rent process­es are out­dat­ed or inef­fi­cient, a green­field migra­tion helps com­pa­nies plan for the future and build out a new sys­tem accord­ing­ly. How­ev­er, a green­field approach does away with his­tor­i­cal data and often requires more effort, high­er costs, and longer time­lines. This is essen­tial­ly a reim­ple­men­ta­tion — start­ing from zero. Most orga­ni­za­tions have not recov­ered the costs of their ini­tial imple­men­ta­tion, so it is not sur­pris­ing that there is lit­tle appetite for this in mature organizations.

A brown­field migra­tion is a process of trans­form­ing an exist­ing ERP sys­tem into SAP S/4HANA through a sys­tem con­ver­sion. This approach involves less risk and less time than green­field, due to using cur­rent sys­tems, his­toric data, and exist­ing process­es. How­ev­er, inno­va­tion and opti­miza­tion are not at the fore­front of this approach. A com­mon ques­tion CFOs ask after hear­ing this option is ​“So were going to pay all this mon­ey and take all this dis­rup­tion and get exact­ly what we have now? Time to rethink this…”

Blue­field® com­bines the best of both green­field and brown­field migra­tions, allow­ing SAP util­i­ties cus­tomers to select only cer­tain data and process­es for migra­tion. With a pri­or­i­ty on busi­ness needs and future goals, blue­field migra­tions are high­ly cus­tomiz­able while retain­ing the nec­es­sary his­toric data and trans­form­ing it into any new struc­tures to make it look like you were on the new sys­tem all along.

For more insights on Sem­pra’s hybrid migra­tion approach to SAP S/4HANA, down­load the slides from this pre­sen­ta­tion, giv­en at SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG.

Real Results

The SNP process cov­ers the end-to-end migra­tion cycle — through analy­sis, to pre-built data migra­tion con­tent, to a high degree of auto­mat­ed ver­i­fi­ca­tion. Then, SNP sup­ports clients through clean­ing up data, exe­cu­tion of the migra­tion, and man­age­ment after go-live.

SNP has led more than 600 SAP S/4HANA migra­tions, lead­ing to the fol­low­ing results for the util­i­ties indus­try, specifically: 

• Machine learn­ing insights into asset health that helped with up to 80% cap­i­tal reallocation
• More than 30% improve­ment in ser­vice reliability 
• AI-pow­ered sched­ul­ing enabling up to 30% increase in field work­er productivity 
• Up to 30% increased cus­tomer satisfaction

Util­i­ties are con­front­ed with sev­er­al major chal­lenges on this jour­ney. Huge asset port­fo­lios with com­plex main­te­nance his­to­ries, huge data vol­ume growth with dubi­ous qual­i­ty due to IoT stream­ing and remote mon­i­tor­ing, an uncer­tain reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment, and the need to con­stant­ly deliv­er ser­vice improve­ments at reduced cost are just some of the major hur­dles; and ERP mod­ern­iza­tion can either help or exac­er­bate these issues. This is why many util­i­ties opt for a part­ner who spe­cial­izes in SAP ERP data migra­tion and mod­ern­iza­tion and comes equipped with the tools, process­es, automa­tion, and exper­tise to nav­i­gate this com­plex landscape. 

At SNP, we have deliv­ered over 15,000 suc­cess­ful projects over more than 30 years using our indus­try-lead­ing Kyano Plat­form that accel­er­ates an end-to-end mod­ern­iza­tion process through analy­sis, migra­tion and verification.

For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact us at americasmarketing@​snpgroup.​com.

Fabi­an Pfau is SVP of Solu­tion Archi­tec­ture and Pre Sales at SNP Group.