Prepare your SAP landscape for the conversion to SAP S/4HANA

Moving out – almost everyone has done it at least once. On average, people move out every seven years and each time, it’s a big event. The same applies when it comes to moving to S/4HANA and enabling your business with innovations.  Moving to S/4HANA will be a company digital transformation that leads to a different or new way of working, adapting or optimization of the business processes and opens the door for innovations like AI, Blockchain and Machine Learning.

There are many ways to move your landscape to S/4HANA. In this blog series, I would like to discuss the conversion approach and examine the financial aspects. I will share my view on the following topics:

• S/4HANA conversion approach
• Finance S/4HANA simplification checks
• Finance S/4HANA conversion
• The future of Finance in the Intelligent Enterprise

S/4HANA conversion approach

My first blog will cover a possible S/4HANA conversion approach; in other words, the technical, in-place conversion of an existing SAP ERP system to SAP S/4HANA. This approach is designed for customers who want to bring their business processes to the new platform and adopt the latest innovations.

Meaning that we need to have good thoughts about the core elements such as finance, supply chain, project management, hard work and we need a good sense of humor.

The below steps are part of a possible conversion approach:

1. Transition Approach
   Preparation is a key aspect of the conversion. With tools and methodologies like Icaptivate, you can analyze the system software prerequisites, infrastructure requirements, functional implications, necessary custom code adaptations, and application data migration requirements. Based on the results, you get insight on the dependencies and challenges.
2. Sandbox Conversion (Trail)
   I recommend making a copy of your production environment to prepare the conversion. With a runbook, you can analyze the amount of data and issues that need to be resolved. The runbook facilitates the easy walkthrough of the migration activities.
3. Legacy Data Impact Assessment
   Data inconsistencies will be a challenge, especially within financials. Personally, I use a toolset to find the inconsistencies and, based on business needs, we discuss the best approach to solve them.
4. Custom code attention
   While standard codes are transferred from one software to another, custom codes are more complex. Take this into account: analyze the custom code and possibly seek advice from a third part
5. Conversion Execution
   Once the technical steps have been completed, you will be running on S/4HANA. Follow-up activities still need to be executed to ensure correct business use. Once the post-conversion configuration is prepared, the system can be released for the customer to execute testing.
6.  End user testing
   After preparation and the runbook walkthrough, it important to follow a clear test approach. My advice is not to underestimate the importance of this exercise or take shortcuts, otherwise, you could pay the price after the go-live change and issue management.

Based on this overall approach, in the following blog, we will explain the financial aspects of S/4HANA conversion. This will include some exciting insights on what needs to be done after the technical migration.

If you would like to learn more about S/4HANA conversion at Capgemini, please connect with me or my colleagues.

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Thomas Mulder is SAP FICO senior/lead consultant at Capgemini. Click the below profile to find out more or connect with Thomas on LinkedIn.

Thomas Mulder

I am working with customers to develop their SAP Finance roadmaps and help them to build there Intellengent Enterprise. S/4HANA Finance helps redefine the finance function and the importance of traditional finance transformation imperatives.