SAP S/4 Hana Transformation

E-3: According to the study, the pandemic has an impact on the S/4 conversion for more than one in three companies, right?

Jens Hinkelmann: From our experience, the impact depends on the industry. Industries that felt the impact of the pandemic more extremely deliberately paused their projects or pushed back the timeframe for implementation.

E-3: Companies have to deal with the migration approach brownfield, greenfield or colorful. According to Lünendonk, the number of companies with a brownfield approach has almost halved compared to the previous year. Why?

Hinkelmann: The migration approach should be felled based on the business requirements. Brownfield approach is a software upgrade; existing processes, data are transferred to the new system. Greenfield, on the other hand, is the implementation of S/4 without taking into account the historical process and system structures - the system is completely rebuilt. Colourful combines Brown- and Greenfield.

E-3: What about legacy issues?

HinkelmannThe business case for mapping familiar processes that are accepted within the company in the new system also entails the risk of carrying on with historically evolved processes and thus missing the opportunity to design a lean and efficient process landscape.

Many companies are using the technology change to review their entire process chain. One of the big drivers is a return to best practice standards. When applied consistently, brownfield does not fit.

E-3: The view of SAP operations or the private cloud is often forgotten when switching from R/3 to S/4, isn't it?

Markus Merk: This issue is often underestimated. The change can take place in two stages: Platform readiness Hana followed by migration to the target architecture SAP S/4 or in a newly set up system landscape.

E-3: What is then the erst step?

MerkThe first step in the two-step variant is a change of technology from one or more AnyDB with consolidation to a Hana DB platform. The advantages, such as better performance of Hana, can be used; any maintenance fees for AnyDB are eliminated.

The platform is ready for the actual project, which means that the focus on processes, organization and application comes to the fore. In project planning, it is therefore possible to proceed and plan selectively or in parallel between the worlds of SAP R/3 and S/4.

E-3: And what about cloud computing?

Merk: In addition to the platform, cloud readiness is an important factor. However, not only process models, such as Rise with SAP, are relevant here. SAP providers on the market support companies in both steps: They have experience with interfaces and different versions and release statuses, but also experience in how to connect the equally important non-SAP applications.

E-3: What does Rödl & Partner stand for?

HinkelmannRödl & Partner has its origins in legal and tax consulting as well as auditing. Through strategic expansion, the areas of business and IT consulting, IT auditing and business process outsourcing were added. The core competencies include auditing, consulting in financial and tax topics, valuations, governance, risk and compliance.

E-3: What is your core competence as an IT and SAP consultant?

Our core competence lies in financial processes and their mapping in ERP systems such as SAP or Microsoft Dynamics. In addition, we cover the topics of business intelligence and the migration from R/3 to S/4. When advising our customers, we use the best-practice approach. We only deviate from the software standard where the customer generates a unique selling proposition and thus a competitive advantage.

Rödl & Partner IT auditors ensure the success of the project. They make it independently transparent that both legal requirements and contractually agreed components are complied with. In addition, we provide the operation and management of hybrid cloud and managed service environments. With data centers and 2nd level support directly from Germany, we offer maximum security, stability and availability. We offer IT consulting - made in Germany.

E-3: Thank you for the interview.