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Author: Thomas Failer, Data Migration International

Thomas Failer is the founder and Group CEO of Swiss Data Migration International and is responsible for the management, strategy, business and product development of the international provider. Since the generation change from SAP R/2 and R/3, the graduate computer scientist (FH) knows how the problem of legacy data and systems can be solved intelligently in transformation projects and turned into a real opportunity for the digital enterprise.
It is now widely recognized within the SAP community that data and its dependencies considerably prolong the upgrade to the next SAP generation. But there is an ideal remedy: a shortcut via One Click Transformation.
All too often, SAP customers migrate far too much data to S/4, and in poor quality, losing its business context in the process. This turns a treasure trove of data into a risk for the data-driven enterprise of the future.
Many SAP customers shy away from the SAP S/4 Hana transformation because of the supposedly necessary preliminary projects. However, with the right approach to app lifecycle, data, and system management, these preliminary projects can prove to be redundant.
Companies that do not want to end up paying more for their S/4 transformation in the long run, should begin their migration by 2025 if they want to be finished by December 31, 2027. Otherwise, companies may be forced to pay a costly fee for optional Business Suite 7 maintenance until the end of 2030. However, cost and time aside, data integrity is the biggest risk.
For a long time, CEOs, CFOs and CIOs ignored the data problem. But with the transformation to S/4, this is no longer possible, because the discussion about algorithms and data structures shows: Data drives processes!
Bill Clinton's campaign slogan "It's the economy, stupid!" also applies to the transformation to S/4. Only those who can reduce the mass of SAP and non-SAP data before and after the migration will win the race against time and save cash.
The future lies in data. The digitization push of the past few months bears impressive witness to this. But if you neglect your history, you will also gamble away the future.
The success of big data and digitalization projects hinges on master data quality. If data quality is inadequate, the benefit of using said data to optimize business processes and models becomes questionable.
The value of a company is measured by the total stock of its information - including historical information. To make it more visible, simplification and automation are needed. Both can save a lot of money, not tomorrow, but today.
The key to the intelligent enterprise lies in simplification - and in automated information management. The cloud as a synonym for simplicity only plays second fiddle.
SAP’s Move program shows ways to accelerate the journey to SAP S/4 Hana; one of which is to separate historic from operational data. Data then can act as fuel rather than ballast.
Digitalization, agility, multi-cloud—decision makers and CEOs have to keep up with current technology trends, which is why they are investing a lot of time and effort into IT modernization projects. Prerequisite for success is a new kind of information management.

Working on the SAP basis is crucial for successful S/4 conversion. 

This gives the Competence Center strategic importance for existing SAP customers. Regardless of the S/4 Hana operating model, topics such as Automation, Monitoring, Security, Application Lifecycle Management and Data Management the basis for S/4 operations.

For the second time, E3 magazine is organizing a summit for the SAP community in Salzburg to provide comprehensive information on all aspects of S/4 Hana groundwork.

Venue

More information will follow shortly.

Event date

Wednesday, May 21, and
Thursday, May 22, 2025

Regular ticket

EUR 590 excl. VAT

Venue

Hotel Hilton Heidelberg
Kurfürstenanlage 1
D-69115 Heidelberg

Event date

Wednesday, March 5, and
Thursday, March 6, 2025

Tickets

Regular ticket
EUR 590 excl. VAT
The event is organized by the E3 magazine of the publishing house B4Bmedia.net AG. The presentations will be accompanied by an exhibition of selected SAP partners. The ticket price includes attendance at all presentations of the Steampunk and BTP Summit 2025, a visit to the exhibition area, participation in the evening event and catering during the official program. The lecture program and the list of exhibitors and sponsors (SAP partners) will be published on this website in due course.