In a recent ASUG research report, ​“Suc­cess­ful SAP Trans­for­ma­tion Hinges on Change Man­age­ment,” ASUG sur­veyed its mem­bers to learn more about SAP Sig­navio usage and orga­ni­za­tion­al change man­age­ment amid SAP trans­for­ma­tion ini­tia­tives, such as the move to SAP S/4HANA. 

Respon­dents con­sis­tent­ly high­light­ed that tech­nol­o­gy shifts asso­ci­at­ed with SAP trans­for­ma­tion con­note a dif­fer­ent scale of com­plex­i­ty and orga­ni­za­tion­al impact com­pared to oth­er projects. But that’s where SAP Sig­navio specif­i­cal­ly aims to help.

Along with SAP LeanIX and WalkMe, Sig­navio is designed to pro­vide struc­ture to both SAP and non-SAP ini­tia­tives — though many users of Sig­navio are unfa­mil­iar with the extent of its capabilities.

ASUG Change Man­age­ment Research Results

Gath­er­ing respons­es from 163 ASUG mem­bers who are involved in their orga­ni­za­tions’ SAP busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion, includ­ing SAP S/4HANA ini­tia­tives, this recent ASUG research assessed that most mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions are well on their way to mov­ing to S/4. Near­ly three-quar­ters of respon­dents (74%) said they are live or in the process of mov­ing. Near­ly half (46%) of the orga­ni­za­tions sur­veyed are either well-advanced in their SAP trans­for­ma­tions — or have com­plet­ed their transition.

Top depart­ments rep­re­sent­ed include IT oper­a­tions (69 respon­dents) and finance (22 respon­dents). One-third (34%) are in ear­ly stages of SAP busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion, while 29% are in lat­er stages, and 17% have ful­ly com­plet­ed their moves. Still, 13% are in the plan­ning stages and 4% have no plans.

Famil­iar­i­ty with SAP Sig­navio has grown since SAP’s acqui­si­tion in 2021; in 2023, only 5% of respon­dents were extreme­ly famil­iar, grow­ing to 16% by 2025.

Sig­navio Usage and Adoption

While 21% of respon­dents are cur­rent­ly using SAP Sig­navio — an increase of 18% since 2022 — 49% are ​“still not plan­ning to use it” or ​“don’t know if they will.” Slow adop­tion of SAP Sig­navio and users’ hes­i­ta­tion to explore it high­lights the need for clear­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion around the solution’s ben­e­fits and use cases.

Respon­dents to the ASUG research were even­ly split on their aware­ness of how to use Sig­navio and LeanIX for non-SAP ini­tia­tives — 40% are aware, and 40% are unaware of how to lever­age these solu­tions out­side of SAP ini­tia­tives. And usage did not impact aware­ness, indi­cat­ing that more out­reach is need­ed to clar­i­fy for SAP cus­tomers that these solu­tions can be help­ful even beyond SAP-relat­ed trans­for­ma­tion efforts.

Chal­lenges with New Tech­nol­o­gy Rollouts

Orga­ni­za­tions face chal­lenges with new tech­nol­o­gy roll­outs; most com­mon­ly cit­ed in this recent research were con­flict­ing pri­or­i­ties (53%), high costs (48%), and resis­tance to change (48%). Resource (37%) and skills gaps (34%), as well as IT-busi­ness mis­align­ment (33%) pose addi­tion­al hurdles.

Accord­ing to the respon­dents, what’s keep­ing orga­ni­za­tions from adopt­ing SAP Sig­navio faster is, most promi­nent­ly, lack of avail­able funds and resources, though oth­er orga­ni­za­tions are pri­or­i­tiz­ing SAP S/4HANA and oth­er SAP prod­ucts first. One respon­dent said they ​“just want to get upgrad­ed to S/4 first and be stable.”

When opti­miz­ing busi­ness trans­for­ma­tions, respon­dents have large­ly sought sup­port from SAP direct­ly (49%), exter­nal part­ners or sys­tems inte­gra­tors (48%), or inter­nal teams ded­i­cat­ed to opti­miza­tion (39%). Only 19% are lean­ing on tools from SAP to sup­port busi­ness trans­for­ma­tions, such as Sig­navio, SAP Cloud ALM, and SAP LeanIX. Those respon­si­ble for change man­age­ment and SAP S/4HANA roll­outs are most­ly IT depart­ments (42%) and a coop­er­a­tive effort between depart­ments (25%).

Amid these chal­lenges, orga­ni­za­tions are seek­ing more cross-func­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion while also rely­ing on part­ner net­works. With tools like Sig­navio, which can pro­vide trans­paren­cy across both SAP and non-SAP appli­ca­tions while giv­ing inter­nal teams greater vis­i­bil­i­ty of trans­for­ma­tion process­es, enter­pris­es can bet­ter set their orga­ni­za­tions up for suc­cess­ful S/4HANA imple­men­ta­tions and real­ize busi­ness val­ue more quickly.

Struc­tured Change Management

Struc­tured approach­es to change man­age­ment — such as hav­ing a Cen­ter of Excel­lence (CoE) with clear change man­age­ment strat­e­gy, strong com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and engage­ment across the orga­ni­za­tion — are pop­u­lar among respon­dents, with 32% stat­ing that they adhere to a struc­tured approach. Anoth­er 39% of respon­dents use what they char­ac­ter­ized as a ​“some­what struc­tured” approach, with gen­er­al plans that have vary­ing strate­gies across teams, though all are efforts to improve process­es and adop­tion of SAP S/4HANA.

While high­ly struc­tured approach­es do face greater resis­tance to change (58%) and con­flict­ing pri­or­i­ties (54%), this research saw 10% few­er reports of high cost and 11% few­er reports of lack of align­ment from IT and busi­ness teams com­pared to those that can result from some­what struc­tured change man­age­ment strategies.

How SAP Sig­navio Sup­ports Change Management

SAP Sig­navio sup­ports change man­age­ment and pro­vides struc­ture dur­ing com­plex tech imple­men­ta­tion and adop­tion. Among Sig­navio users who are cur­rent­ly using the solu­tion, 39% are see­ing greater trans­paren­cy and vis­i­bil­i­ty into end-to-end process­es, while 39% are expe­ri­enc­ing stan­dard­iza­tion and har­mo­niza­tion of busi­ness prac­tices. They also see increased col­lab­o­ra­tion across teams (29%), bet­ter cus­tomer expe­ri­ence through stream­lined process­es (26%), a sup­port­ed clean core strat­e­gy (23%), and sup­port­ed dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and SAP S/4HANA readi­ness (23%).

Signavio’s abil­i­ty to pro­vide struc­tured change man­age­ment, stan­dard­iza­tion, and vis­i­bil­i­ty into process­es can only aid enter­pris­es in their SAP S/4HANA adop­tion — and imple­men­ta­tion of non-SAP tools — help­ing to bridge the chal­lenges orga­ni­za­tions com­mon­ly face in dig­i­tal transformation. 

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