Master SAP Custom Code Lifecycle Management with Agentic AI

Custom code lifecycle management is a critical component of SAP transformation and modernization projects. As organizations transition from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA, they often face the challenge of managing extensive custom code that has accumulated over the years. This custom code—ranging from bespoke objects to custom programs—was originally built to address unique business requirements but can now pose significant hurdles during migration and modernization efforts.

The Importance of Custom Code Lifecycle Management

Custom code is often at the heart of an organization’s SAP ecosystem, enabling unique workflows, industry-specific processes, and competitive advantages. However, poor management of custom code can lead to several challenges:

• System Complexity: Unmanaged customizations increase technical debt, making the system difficult to maintain.
• Upgrade Challenges: Custom code often breaks during SAP upgrades or migrations, requiring extensive remediation.
• Cost Escalation: Poorly managed customizations can lead to increased costs in testing, remediation, and long-term maintenance.
• Performance Issues: Customizations that are no longer relevant can degrade system performance and stability.

Without a clear strategy for managing the lifecycle of custom code—from assessment to optimization—projects are prone to delays, budget overruns, and even outright failure.

How Projects Fail Without Proper Custom Code Management

1. Lack of Visibility: Organizations often lack a comprehensive understanding of the custom objects in their system, leading to overlooked risks during migration.
2. Inadequate Planning: Failure to assess and plan for code remediation results in bottlenecks during migration projects.
3. Unnecessary Customizations: Retaining irrelevant or outdated customizations bloats the system and increases complexity.
4. Missed Opportunities for Optimization: Without proper lifecycle management, organizations fail to identify opportunities to streamline and optimize custom code.
5. Uncontrolled Costs: The effort required to identify, remediate, and test custom code without automation leads to soaring costs and extended timelines.

To address these challenges, organizations and system integrators (SIs) require a structured approach to custom code lifecycle management. This is where KTern.AI steps in, offering a comprehensive solution to streamline the entire process.

KTern.AI: Enabling Seamless Custom Code Lifecycle Management

KTern.AI provides an end-to-end automation platform for managing the lifecycle of custom code, ensuring that projects are completed on time, within budget, and with minimized risk. Let’s explore how KTern.AI supports organizations and SIs across the four key phases of the custom code lifecycle.

1. Assessment: Gaining Insights into Custom Code

The first step in managing custom code is understanding its scope and impact. KTern.AI’s Digital Maps module performs a comprehensive assessment of the SAP landscape, offering:

• Custom Code Inventory: Automatically identifies all custom objects in the system, providing detailed insights into usage, relevance, and dependencies.
• Optimization Recommendations: Highlights redundant, unused, or obsolete customizations that can be archived or removed to streamline the system.
• S/4HANA Readiness Analysis: Assesses the compatibility of custom code with SAP S/4HANA, identifying areas requiring remediation.
• BTP Migration Feasibility: Recommends which custom objects should be migrated to SAP BTP (Business Technology Platform) for better scalability and flexibility.

This data-driven assessment empowers customers and SIs to make informed decisions about what to retain, archive, or move to BTP.

2. Code Adaptation: Simplifying Custom Code Remediation

Once the assessment is complete, the next step is adapting the custom code for compatibility with SAP S/4HANA and BTP. KTern.AI simplifies this process with:

• Gen-AI Knowledge Base: A vast repository of remediation insights, best practices, and pre-built solutions for custom code adaptation.
• Automated Remediation: Suggests and automates changes required to make custom code compatible with S/4HANA, significantly reducing manual effort.
• BTP Code Transformation: Generates BTP-ready custom code for objects that need to be migrated, ensuring a seamless transition.
• Collaboration Tools: Facilitates real-time collaboration between developers, SIs, and customers to accelerate the remediation process.

By leveraging KTern.AI’s Gen-AI knowledge base, system integrators can reduce the time and effort required for code remediation, enabling faster project execution.

3. Code Optimization: Predicting and Managing Impacts

During the transformation journey, continuous code movements and changes can impact the overall system. KTern.AI addresses this through:

• Impact Prediction: Identifies how customizations will affect existing processes, integrations, and system performance.
• Risk Analysis: Highlights high-risk customizations and recommends mitigation strategies.
• Continuous Monitoring: Tracks changes to custom code over time, ensuring that all modifications are aligned with business goals and compliance requirements.
• Proactive Recommendations: Suggests optimization opportunities to improve performance, reduce technical debt, and enhance maintainability.

This proactive approach ensures that customizations are optimized for long-term success, minimizing disruptions during and after the migration.

4. BTP Code Generation: Building Enterprise Applications

For heavily customized processes, KTern.AI enables organizations to build enterprise-grade applications on SAP BTP. This approach keeps the S/4HANA core clean while retaining the flexibility of customizations.

• Custom App Development: Generates BTP-ready applications for unique business requirements, reducing reliance on core customizations.
• Clean Core Strategy: Ensures that the S/4HANA system remains lean and future-ready by offloading custom objects to BTP.
• Seamless Integration: Provides pre-built connectors and APIs to integrate BTP applications with the S/4HANA system.
• Enhanced Scalability: Allows businesses to scale custom applications independently of the core system, improving agility and performance.

By enabling custom app development on BTP, KTern.AI empowers organizations to achieve a clean core strategy while maintaining the flexibility to innovate.

The KTern.AI Advantage for System Integrators

KTern.AI is a game-changer for system integrators managing custom code projects. It provides:

• Automation: Reduces manual effort across assessment, remediation, and optimization phases.
• Collaboration Tools: Facilitates seamless communication between SIs, customers, and other stakeholders.
• Faster Execution: Accelerates project timelines, enabling SIs to deliver value to customers more quickly.
• Enhanced Credibility: Builds trust with customers by providing data-driven insights and predictable outcomes.
• Cost Efficiency: Lowers project costs by minimizing manual intervention and errors.

For SIs, KTern.AI not only simplifies the process of managing custom code but also enhances their ability to deliver successful SAP projects with confidence.

The KTern.AI Advantage for Customers

From addressing technical debt to ensuring seamless migration, customers face numerous challenges that, if left unresolved, can result in project delays, cost overruns, and compromised system performance. KTern.AI addresses these pain points head-on, delivering significant value at every stage of the custom code lifecycle.

• Reduced Technical Debt: KTern.AI identifies and eliminates unused or redundant custom code, simplifying the system landscape.
• Improved System Performance: Optimized customizations and a clean core approach ensure better system reliability and efficiency.
• Enhanced ROI: By accelerating timelines, reducing risks, and enabling innovation, KTern.AI helps customers maximize their return on investment.
• Future-Proofing: With a focus on scalability and adaptability, KTern.AI prepares customers for the future of SAP and beyond.

For customers, KTern.AI is not just a tool—it’s a strategic partner in navigating the complexities of custom code lifecycle management and ensuring long-term success.

Collaboration with SAP on Code Complexity Navigation with Gen-AI

KTern.AI’s partnership with SAP extends beyond standard automation capabilities to addressing the ever-growing challenge of navigating code complexity in SAP landscapes. Leveraging the power of SAP Business AI, we have co-innovated on solutions that empower customers to manage and optimize custom code effectively. By integrating SAP AI into KTern.AI’s core platform, we deliver enhanced insights, automation, and modular code remediation, reducing technical debt and improving the efficiency of transformation projects.

As highlighted in this SAP blog, KTern.AI utilizes SAP AI to streamline processes such as code adaptation and generation, enabling customers and system integrators to address pain points with precision. Our joint effort with SAP not only simplifies custom code remediation but also provides actionable insights for business transformation, ensuring that customers can achieve faster, risk-free migrations while keeping their S/4HANA core clean. This collaboration underscores KTern.AI’s commitment to delivering innovative solutions that align with SAP’s vision for intelligent enterprise transformation.

You can find our Gen-AI Custom Code Generation Solution in the SAP BTP Discovery Center

Conclusion: Navigating Custom Code with KTern.AI

Custom code lifecycle management is a critical enabler of successful SAP transformations. With KTern.AI, organizations and system integrators can navigate the complexities of customizations with ease, ensuring compatibility, optimization, and scalability.

From comprehensive assessments to BTP code generation, KTern.AI provides a structured, automated approach to managing custom code, reducing risks, and unlocking new opportunities for innovation. You can find our solution in the SAP Store.

Whether you’re a customer looking to modernize your SAP landscape or a system integrator aiming to streamline your delivery, KTern.AI is the ultimate partner in ensuring SAP success.