SAP S/4HANA Implementation Challenges

Are you thinking of migrating to S/4?  Are you concerned about S/4HANA implementation challenges ahead?  Don’t we have enough to worry about today, with Covid-19 imposing real threats to our supply chain, stock market dips, and store closings?  The good news is companies are looking at better ways to prepare for the future. Business will spike again, and businesses should be prepared for that surge.

Hopefully you are taking advantage of the free access to SAP tools right now and are thinking about the opportunities that could be available to your company if S/4HANA is implemented when we are all able to collaborate in-person again. SAP S/4HANA can not only help your business and supply chain run smoothly during a “normal” season, but also when a company is thrust into uncertainty. To read more about S/4HANA implementation challenges, we turn to our sister company, Clarkston Consulting, and their recent industry insight, summarized below.

Some of the key benefits that SAP S/4HANA provides are: simplification and centralization to management and administration, ease of use, cost effectiveness, innovation, improved performance and speed, and an overall simple transition from on-premise to cloud. But not all are aware of and ready to approach the potential challenges.

Experts in the Bull City Talent community recognize that there are many business benefits, but there are also challenges to be addressed. By leveraging our network of experts in the SAP community, many challenges can be overcome quickly. While every transition presents unique risks and challenges for each company, some broad SAP S/4HANA implementation challenges to be considered include:

SAP S/4HANA Implementation Challenges with Data   

As with any implementation, data will be a key challenge. While the details vary depending on the size of the company, product line, quality of data in the legacy system will remain in the front and center of an S/4 implementation.

SAP S/4HANA Implementation Challenges with Architecture 

As you move to a new digital platform with S/4, there are several considerations/questions around the overall architecture: cloud or on prem? Single tenant (renamed S/4 Essentials) OR multi-tenant (renamed S/4 Extended)? Host it ourselves or look for a 3rd party hosting provider? Employee access (laptops, iPads, mobile phones) Security?

SAP S/4HANA Challenges with Training and Change Management 

While this as an opportunity to move to a best practices based approach, this will be a change and you will need to overcome the quintessential response of ‘we are different’, ‘this is the way we have been doing it forever’.

SAP S/4HANA Implementation with resources 

Most companies aren’t familiar enough to internally head up a migration to SAP S/4HANA and must search externally. Therefore, finding partners like Clarkston Consulting and Bull City Talent Group that are knowledgeable and can provide expertise, experience, support, toolkits, and client references is crucial.

We realize a move to SAP S/4HANA is a significant decision considering the implications to your business. Clarkston and Bull City Talent Group want to help you unlock new business value with SAP’s Intelligent ERP, realize new benefits, and overcome challenges with ease. If you want to understand our client success stories, start a free trial with SAP S/4HANA, or have a conversation about implementing S/4HANA for your business, please contact us today to learn more. Clarkston and Bull City Talent can provide the right resources to help you implement and deploy S/4HANA successfully. Visit our Book A Project page to learn more for your specific needs, SAP or otherwise.

For more details on Implementation Challenges with SAP S/4 HANA, please see the full article written by our sister company, Clarkston Consulting

Regardless of where you are at in your SAP and enterprise systems journey, we want you to know that BCTG is here to help. Whether that be through leveraging our network of technical and functional consultants, or through simply having a human conversation, we welcome the opportunity to become an extension of your team.  Please call us to help you implement industry best practices.