Approval of S/4 Hana projects under Covid-19

The current pandemic poses major challenges for people and companies in many areas. Unfortunately, there are more losers than winners, and thus overcoming this crisis will probably continue to be a rocky road for the national economy even after vaccinations have been made available. For the most part, the IT sector has come through the crisis well. The situation in the SAP sector, on the other hand, is somewhat mixed, according to a presentation by DSAG at the 2020 Annual Congress.

The SAP S/4 projects that had already been started were mostly able to be continued from the home office without any problems under the more difficult conditions. However, the SAP S/4 Hana projects that had not yet been approved suffered because many priorities had to be changed at short notice. Start dates for 2020 were postponed to subsequent years or even canceled in the medium term. If this is unavoidable for economic reasons, I recommend that planning changes in this regard be accompanied by professional crisis communication.

Under the current tighter conditions, a new authorization is probably the most difficult task in strategic persuasion, requiring a great deal of intuition at the top management level. One major reason for this, as consulting interviews show, is that the currently limited possibilities of the usual personal communication channels with management have a detrimental effect on corresponding decisions.

Therefore, one should always focus on the following question during the persuasion process: Which confidence-building measures and formulations, coupled with economic arguments, could convince a management to approve such an important project as an SAP-S/4 conversion, especially in difficult times?

At present, the most important role is played by the form - personal, mail or web meeting - and the time at which well-prepared decision-making bases are communicated. A prerequisite for this is to develop "personalized" communication for the individual managers and to pick up the decision-makers as individually as possible.

It is already a great challenge in "normal times" to formulate necessary SAP projects without SAP terminology for the responsible management in such a way that they are understandable and comprehensible. Experience has shown that technical terms such as "in-memory technology", "hybrid systems" or similar vocabulary do not get you very far due to the different levels of communication, but instead promote a dismissive attitude. Nor should one underestimate what proportion of a "gut decision" ultimately makes up.

Many decision-making processes are also initiated with a necessary written cost-benefit calculation, but currently usually at the wrong time. Often, a cost-benefit calculation cannot even be presented appropriately or involves disproportionate effort. It can often be more effective to point to the successful years with SAP R/3 and to present the planned SAP S/4 Hana conversion as a necessary technological investment for future challenges.

An approved SAP project also does not begin with the planned kick-off date, but with the aforementioned preparation phase. In this phase, mental tension is already built up among the employees and the project team is brought on board, which is immensely important for successful project management later on.

In the event of an unexpected postponement, "the air is out again" and you lose a lot of efficiency as a result, which is also reflected in monetary terms. Therefore, in the current situation, it is advisable to provide for a project start even on a "low flame" in order not to risk a cancellation or postponement.