In 2025, SAP’s Business Suite Software, on the market since 2004, will recede in importance for SAP customers for the benefit of SAP S/4HANA. More and more existing SAP customers are looking for and planning the path towards S/4HANA, but so far only a few companies have reached this objective.

There is a consensus that the transformation to S/4HANA is not just a technical release change. Rather, it offers the opportunity to (re-)consider fundamental questions about strategic guard rails and to-be capabilities, about the mapping of processes, the application architecture, and also the infrastructure – and to consider the answers in the future S/4HANA roadmap.

In particular, the transformation target picture and the associated question "How do we get from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA?" come to the fore.

Based on our many years of experience in implementing ERP systems and the insights gained from current projects on SAP S/4HANA transformation, we at consenso have developed our best-in-practice transformation model S/4HANA@consenso.

With to-be capabilities, a best practice process model, a prototype-based approach and a benefits analysis, we take into account the essential elements of a successful transformation and document this in our S/4HANA value proposition.

The challenges of the S/4HANA transformation are very different in the companies. Our experience shows topics/areas that we encounter in all implementation/transformation projects, and which are therefore taken into account in our digitisation framework S/4HANA@consenso:

Are your ready for SAP S/4HANA?

We check your individual S/4HANA readiness! With consenso’s ReadinessCheck. Easy to apply, highly efficient, pragmatic. And free of charge for you in phase 1. Together we will find answers to the following questions:

• What are the effects of S/4HANA on your customer-specific program coding?
• How will functional changes and simplifications affect data model and processes?
• What are the optimisation potentials resulting from S/4HANA?
• How will your add-ons and business functions act under S/4HANA?
• What does S/4HANA mean for your user interface on SAP Fiori and SAP GUI?
• What are the effects on system sizing resulting from S/4HANA?
• Which approach is reasonable for the system transformation (green field vs. brown field)?
• What can the start of a real transformation project look like?

We review and analyse your SAP ERP system and transparently present the measures required to make your change from ERP to SAP S/4HANA a success.

Learn more Back

Defining the to-be capabilities and mapping them in the form of a to-be capabilities map is an essential step in the S/4HANA transformation. This is based on your strategic guard rails.

These in turn require concrete capabilities. Capabilities define what a company is able to do or would like to be able to do in order to meet current and future challenges. To make these capabilities a reality, we need to design and set up the processes and IT systems accordingly.

Capabilities thus describe the WHAT, processes the HOW and IT systems the WITH WHAT.

Our added value:

• We use a structured approach to develop a to-be capabilities map based on the needs of the stakeholders in the company.
• We have extensive experience in to-be capabilities (best practices) for your industry.

Learn more Back

When creating the business process model, we always consider end-to-end process chains. These integrated process chains represent the future flow in the SAP system and take into account all essential integration aspects right from the start. The business process model supports the defined to-be capabilities and is the basis for the future IT architecture.

Our added value:

Learn more Back

The long-term benefits of your S/4HANA transformation project are closely linked to the idea of harmonisation and standardisation.

Consistently standardised processes based on a harmonised SAP landscape, of course without losing sight of your customer-specific features – and thus your strengths and competitive advantages – requires consistent communication and requirements management.

The success factors:

• Management commitment - In order to make the transformation successful, there must be openness for change and a clear commitment to the transformation project at management level
• Business in the lead - In order to sustainably anchor the changes in the company, the business units must take the lead from the very beginning
• Efficient program management - The transformation must be managed and "reported" on the basis of suitable organisational and project structures and using the appropriate tools
• Integration/change - Continuous integration and change management on the business and IT side must be ensured during the transformation

We drive the idea of harmonisation and standardisation - on the basis of accompanying change management measures, e.g. setting up a communication platform, requirements workshops, joint discussion and evaluation of prototypes, training and education, team building workshops.

Back

Together, we derive your future S/4HANA architecture from your process model, based on your strategic guard rails and the resulting to-be capabilities.

Here, too, we follow the idea of harmonisation and standardisation and are guided by the reference architecture for your industry.

Together we find answers to "classic" (e.g. systems, modules, sizing, data management, interfaces, ...), but also to new questions (e.g. OnPremise vs. Cloud) about your future SAP architecture.

Our added value:

• To define the IT architecture, we use the SAP standard process (Business Process Model) in the workshops.
• The presented to-be process is based on SAP best practices as well as on the experience of the consenso.
• consenso takes on the role of "guardian of the standard" – the guiding principle for the general approach is the question (repeated if necessary) "Why can't your company work with the best practice process?"

Learn more Back

For the implementation of your transformation project, we need a project system. We are happy to make this project system available internally at our company and thus save your ressources initially needed for the continued operation of your current development, test and productive systems in your day-to-day business.

We recommend setting up the project system as a copy of your productive system and operating it as a parallel track. Because even though our transformation methodology promotes a rapid project approach - no SAP project can be implemented "from one moment to the next". In day-to-day business, your productive system is constantly changing due to bug fixes, further developments... At regular intervals, we transfer the transports from your productive to the parallel system - manually or automatically on the basis of Retrofit (SAP Solution Manager). And thus keep both systems functionally the same.

This provides us with a stable project system for your SAP S/4HANA transformation.

Back

We use the change impact analysis (analysis of the implication of change) in the course of the change management activities in our projects to analyse how stakeholders will be affected by the change and what specific impact the change will have on people, processes, tools, organisational structure, roles and technology. The change impact analysis includes the questions::

• What information needs to be collected?
• How will the information be used?
• How are the change impacts assessed in terms of risk?
• With whom will the information be shared in the organisation?
• How and how often should the information be collected?
• How will the information be formatted and reported?

On this basis, we identify the change impacts and finalise the data collection as well as the change impact risk assessment with the risk mitigation plan.

Back

Change management is an essential success factor in transformation, especially to align and verify the expectations of the different stakeholders with the planned changes.

Our added value:

We provide a powerful approach to change management covering the following measures/tasks:

• Key stakeholder analysis
• Change impact analysis
• Transparent communication within the program and the company
• Formulation of the vision
• Team building
• Coaching sessions
• Management of the changes to the program structures / collaboration model

Back