SAP Migration Strategy


What Is SAP Migration Strategy?

With the last major release of SAP ECC, version 6.0 EHP 8, made available in 2016, the question facing SAP customers is around the move to SAP S/4HANA. While SAP has extended mainstream maintenance for the ECC 6.0 platform until the end of 2027, with an optional premium maintenance available for an additional three years, those running these solutions need to decide on the move to SAP S/4HANA. The three biggest factors around this move are when they will move, and how they will move, and where they will move.

What Is SAP Migration Strategy?

With the last major release of SAP ECC, version 6.0 EHP 8, made available in 2016, the question facing SAP customers is around the move to SAP S/4HANA. While SAP has extended mainstream maintenance for the ECC 6.0 platform until the end of 2027, with an optional premium maintenance available for an additional three years, those running these solutions need to decide on the move to SAP S/4HANA. The three biggest factors around this move are when they will move, and how they will move, and where they will move.

The when is a question that is up to each organization. However, with the majority of organizations taking between 12 and 18 months once the business case has already been made, the period before mainstream maintenance ends can approach very quickly. Once the decision has been made when to move, organizations must then determine what approach they will take to their SAP migration. Will they simply move everything as is into SAP S/4HANA? Will they start from scratch to produce as clean a system as possible? Or will they take an intermediate route? The last factor is where they will move. With most organizations moving SAP workloads to the cloud, this may be the route of choice. However, others will want hybrid environments or entirely local infrastructure.

Key Considerations for SAPinsiders

  • Understand what other organizations are saying about their SAP Migration Strategy. These include: 1) the fact that the biggest challenge is often building the business case, 2) moves to a new ERP system are both resource intensive as well as expensive, 3) newer versions of SAP S/4HANA include significant business benefits, and 4) the move to SAP S/4HANA represents a major opportunity to improve business operations.
  • Ensure that you have planned effectively for the migration. When migrating from your existing ERP system, there are important tips that you can follow to ensure that processes are successful. First, engage your business teams in the process. While this is an investment in resources, there will be more success with the overall project if your business teams are involved from the beginning. Second, remove unnecessary custom code. Limiting what you have to move forward will make the process much easier. And lastly, plan for a phased approach. You will want to have dry runs and even maintain both systems in parallel to ensure that they are working correctly.

35 results

  1. How to Accelerate Your Transition to SAP S/4HANA

    Published: 01/September/2016

    Reading time: 26 mins

    In this Q&A session, experts from IBM provided answers to questions about how to accelerate your transition to SAP S/4HANA. If you missed the chat or need a refresher, we welcome you to view the online chat replay or read the edited transcript below. Meet the panelists:    Pandian Athirajan, Business Development Executive, IBM Pandian…

  2. Greenfield, Brownfield, or Selective: Choose the SAP HANA Migration Path That Fits Your Needs

    Published: 03/August/2016

    Reading time: 3 mins

    Implementing SAP HANA is a critical project for any business, and it has to be done right. But with the multitude of migration paths available to choose from, it can be difficult to determine the best strategy. From “greenfield” implementations that start from scratch, to “brownfield” implementations that take advantage of old systems, to a…

  3. What You Need to Know Before Your SAP HANA Migration

    Published: 03/August/2016

    Reading time: 5 mins

    As SAP HANA gains maturity in the market, more organizations are taking a serious look at what a migration would entail. For many forward-looking organizations, the question of whether to adopt SAP HANA has already been answered with a firm yes. Answering the questions of when and how, however, involve a multitude of considerations that…

  4. The Move to SAP S/4HANA Is On: Simplify Your Migration with the Right Cloud Services

    Published: 26/April/2016

    Reading time: 3 mins

    To meet the challenges and opportunities presented by the transforming pace of business, many organizations are realizing the necessity of a unified infrastructure that provides the speed, scalability, and agility that can turn insights into action. In SAP environments, this often means running the in-memory SAP S/4HANA database. But making the migration to SAP HANA…

  5. Best Practices for an Effective Migration to SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio

    Published: 01/January/2016

    Reading time: 15 mins

    Business intelligence and big data analytics tools are critical components to support an innovative and competitive organization. SAP BusinessObjects Design Studio was first introduced in 2013 as the successor to SAP BusinessObjects Dashboards (formerly Xcelsius) and is just beginning to make traction in the dashboard space. SAP is focusing its development resources on SAP BusinessObjects…