Navigating the Transition: Traversing 3 Key Challenges in Managing an SAP S/4HANA Brownfield Transformation.
At the November 2023 SAP Australia User Group event in Melbourne, Kevin Richardson, Chief Architect, SAP SE at SAP Australia, confirmed that a Brownfield transformation is the quickest and easiest way to transition from SAP ECC to SAP S/4 HANA.
A brownfield transformation is a straightforward porting of an existing ECC system onto an S/4 HANA system. There is no new functionality and minimal culling of legacy processes. Processes are reused rather than re-engineered. It is purely technical with little to no business involvement.
However, the transformation takes quite some time to execute, often 6 – 12 months, and several challenges present.
Three key challenges to traverse
Landscape buildout and cutover
The first challenge is ensuring visibility to eliminate overwrites, overtakes and dependency issues. Change and release managers face the challenge of ensuring the system build is orderly. Preventing overwrites and maintaining dependencies is crucial to smooth transition.
As custom enhancements are introduced, adapted, and migrated into the system, the list doesn’t take long to grow. Without visibility, it soon becomes a ‘fingers crossed behind the back’ exercise.
Dual maintenance
SAP teams use a dual SAP landscape during the S/4 HANA system build and ECC code adaption phase. This dual landscape environment presents the next challenge.
Ensuring the SAP S/4HANA landscape updates with any interim changes made in the legacy ECC system is essential. It isn’t possible to hold to a complete change freeze.
However, capturing and reapplying every single ECC change to the S/4 HANA system during the lengthy transformation is a significant challenge.
Managing different technologies
The final challenge is deploying changes to differing technologies synchronously, e.g., SAP HANA, Fiori, and BW. Porting Fiori tiles, BW changes, and ECC code into their respective environments in sync is crucial. Although missed items appear in testing, they may be challenging to identify and rectify after the fact.
Keeping track of these and applying them together can be challenging as the volume grows and the project nears completion.
Traversing the challenges
Automation is the key to traversing these challenges successfully. Manual change management limits a team’s ability to successfully transition to S/4 HANA at the fastest rate with minimal errors.
A new eBook from Basis Technologies touches on these challenges and suggests ways to traverse them through automation.
“Driving a Brownfield SAP S/4HANA transformation with confidence - A best practice guide to making the critical migration journey fast, affordable and safe”, is a free guide to minimising the risks associated with a Brownfield transformation.
You can access your copy here: Access the free guide.
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We know the SAP operations and infrastructure automation solutions landscape and have already done the legwork to identify the best solutions.
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