SAP Business Assessment To Simplify Your S/4HANA Transformation

Sabareesh S R -

SAP S/4HANA business assessment is the first step of every organization which starts their S/4HANA Transformation from their present ECC system. A complete and efficient SAP S/4HANA Business assessment of the entire ECC system helps organizations plan their S/4HANA migration process. A complete understanding of SAP S/4HANA Business assessment can be very insightful for organizations that are about to start their S/4HANA migration.

On reading this article, you will be able to get knowledgeable on the ins and outs of SAP S/4HANA Business Assessment.

Table Of Contents:

SAP ECC System:

SAP ECC is one of the leading Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software solutions. It makes decision-making a simple process by providing insights based on real-time data. It optimizes the business process of organizations.

SAP ECC is a central component, which integrates digital information from various domains of an organization. So the stakeholders can have a clear view of the entire organization’s operations and make decisions based on the information.

SAP ECC Modules:

SAP components or modules are part of the ECC system developed to handle specific tasks or business processes.

The SAP ECC system has the following modules,

  • Sales and Distribution
  • Material Management
  • Finance Accounting
  • Production Planning
  • Quality Management
  • Controlling
  • Customer service
  • Project system
  • Plant Maintenance
  • Human Capital Management

HANA Database:

SAP HANA (High-performance Analytic Appliance) is a multi-model database that stores data in its memory instead of keeping it on a disk. This results in data processing magnitudes faster than disk-based data systems, allowing for advanced, real-time analytics.

Serving as a platform for enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and other business applications, SAP HANA can be placed on-premises, in the cloud, or both, in a hybrid cloud system.

SAP S/4HANA:

Talking about SAP HANA, SAP S/4HANA is an ERP business suite based on the SAP HANA in-memory database that enables enterprises to make transactions and analyze business data in real time.

S/4HANA is the cornerstone – or digital core – of SAP's plan for enabling customers to undertake digital transformation, a broadly defined process in which they can modify existing business processes and models or develop new ones. This enables businesses to be more adaptable, responsive, and resilient to changing business requirements, customer expectations, and environmental conditions. SAP refers to this S/4HANA-centered business environment as the intelligent enterprise.

Why SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA?

SAP has announced that it will stop its support for ECC by 2027, which means that the customers are supposed to move from SAP ECC to S4 HANA.

SAP S/4HANA has its merits over its older version, SAP ECC; therefore, migrating to S/4HANA is advisable for the organizations currently running under SAP ECC.

The article SAP ECC vs SAP S/4HANA – Overview, Difference, Business Benefits - will help you understand why the S/4HANA Migration is advised right now, for the benefit of the enterprise.

Greenfield or Brownfield:

Confused with these technical terms? Here is a simple definition.

Greenfield approach to SAP S/4HANA transformation is the implementation of a new S/4HANA system in your enterprise. Whereas, the Brownfield approach is the migration of your existing SAP ERP system to a new SAP S/4HANA system.

Both have their own merits and demerits. Research on SAP S/4HANA: New Implementation Vs System Conversion will help you choose the right path to satisfy your transformation.

Getting ready for the transformation:

So, once you have decided on your migration approach, you have to work on the SAP S/4HANA Business assessment to create a plan for your migration. SAP S/4HANA migration is not just a feature upgrade, it is a complete upgrade to an entirely new system.

Organizations might have their data on some other database, in that situation they have to transfer their data from that database to the HANA database.

The amount of data transferred is not small. A huge volume of data is transferred from one database to another. Therefore, the S/4HANA transformation is not simple as expected. It requires proper planning before starting the S/4HANA migration process. The S/4HANA Readiness of the currently existing system has to be ensured before migration. A complete assessment of your entire SAP will ensure this.

Need for SAP S/4HANA Business Assessment:

It isn’t easy to start your S/4HANA Migration process, without understanding your existing landscape. A proper SAP S/4HANA Business Assessment will help the users to understand and plan their S/4HANA transformation journey.

To understand your existing landscape and plan your migration, KTern.AI Digital Maps will help!

SAP Activate enabled KTern.AI:

SAP Activate, is a recommended framework for SAP S/4HANA transformation. KTern.AI Digital Maps is enabled with SAP Activate methodology, which makes the S/4HANA transformation in a disciplined manner. Understanding SAP Activate Methodology For S/4HANA Migration can help your enterprise, on its transformation path to SAP S/4HANA transformation.

KTern.AI Digital Maps follows SAP Activate methodology in its assessment process which goes by six phases that are,

  • Discover
  • Prepare
  • Explore
  • Realize
  • Deploy
  • Run

How does KTern.AI acclerate your S/4HANA Migration Assessment?

KTern.AI, Digital Maps, connects to your existing SAP ERP system, and starts the assessment process. Equipped with powerful digital bots, Digital Maps provide the following SAP S/4HANA Business assessment, which helps organizations plan their S/4HANA migration process.

  • Landscape Assessment
  • Business Process Assessment
  • Custom Object Assessment
  • Business Transformation Assessment
  • Timeline Assessment

Landscape Assessment:

Understanding your landscape comes first when you prepare your S/4HANA migration assessment. KTern.AI Digital Maps connect to your existing ERP system and with its powerful bots, start its assessment. KTern.AI Landscape assessment provides you with the following insights.

Landscape Assessment - Digital Maps

1. Active vs Inactive Users:

Plan to buy a license? Take a count on the users! KTern.AI gives you elaborated details on the existing users, in the existing ERP system, based on their activity status. This enables the enterprises to plan their license purchase.

Active vs Inactive Users

2. Add-On Analytics:

Add-ons that are supported by the existing SAP ERP system, may or may not be supported by the SAP S/4HANA system. So the support of the existing add-ons has to be verified before the S/4HANA migration. Digital Maps automate the entire process by analyzing the current landscape giving you the entire report on add-on compatibility.

3. Archiving Recommendations:

Why keep the data that aren’t going to be processed? KTern.AI, after the landscape assessment, provides you the information on the data that can be archived on third-party storage. This helps the users to migrate the data which has high priority.

Add On Analytics

4. Interface Review:

ECC to S/4HANA transformation is only about the Digital core, hence the interface will work smoothly like the previous system. KTern.AI does Interface Review to confirm the connection to S/4HANA is compatible.

Interface Review

Business Process Assessment:

Understanding the organizational structure, each Line of Business, and the stakeholders involved in each department enables the enterprise to perform its operations smoothly and in an informed manner. KTern.AI does Business Process Assessment on your existing SAP ECC system and gives you insight into your S/4HANA Migration plan.

Finding out Business Process Relevancy using KTern.AI

1. Process Profiler:

KTern.AI performs materiality analysis of all the Line of Business in the existing SAP ECC system. This analysis provides information on heavily used modules, stakeholders involved in the specific Line of Business, and all the sub-processes present in each Line of Business.

Materiality Analysis
Process Profiling

2. Enterprise Structure Mining:

In every S/4HANA Readiness assessment, the organizations need to understand their enterprise structure. Digital Maps drills down the enterprise structure of each module or Line of Business present in the existing system, which makes the S/4HANA migration process organized.

Enterprise Structure Mining

3. Complexity Analysis:

Migration to S/4HANA is an easy process when the organizations are equipped with the proper tools. There might be some complexity in the process which everyone would agree. KTern.AI keeps organizations informed about the upcoming complexities by Complexity Analysis, so they can plan their journey with precautions.

Complexity Analysis

4. Simplification Item Check:

With KTern.AI Simplification Item Check lets the organizations know about potential adaptation work that is required for the organizations to convert the existing SAP ECC system to S/4HANA system. Simplification Item check is an early process of S/4HANA Readiness assessment. This makes the organizations start their S/4HANA migration journey even before installing the software itself.

5. Business Function Analysis:

SAP adds new features and improvements to existing SAP installations in self-contained components known as business functions. You can utilize them in a variety of business procedures. KTern.AI automates the analysis of business functions. After connecting the system, KTern.AI performs a business functions analytics check and automatically categorizes the deployed business functions as active or inactive.

6. Training Recommendations:

Knowledge of the product to the end user is very important because they are the ones who are going to be with the product. Therefore, keeping them informed and educated is essential for the S/4HANA Migration journey. KTern.AI the organizations by providing training recommendations.

Business Function Analysis and Training Recommendation

Custom Object Assessment:

Each organization has its unique method of operation. Their business process differs from other organizations in some way. To solve these issues, standard SAP software is customized to meet the requirements of certain organizations. Migration to S/4HANA has an impact on those custom objects. Thus KTern.AI SAP S/4HANA Business assessment helps the enterprise find the potential impact and make their transformation journey.

1. Custom Object Analytics:

After assessing the entire landscape Digital Maps provide you the insights into the custom objects present on the SAP ECC system. Knowledge of every custom object present in the system is necessary for the S/4HANA migration, and KTern.AI makes it easy for the users. Custom object analytics provides the following insights for your migration journey.

  • Custom packages for the number of objects
  • Frequently used custom transactions/reports
  • Top x custom object stakeholders
  • Top x custom object types
  • Custom objects summary, and much more

2. Custom Object Impact Analysis:

Using the custom code impact analysis feature of KTern.AI in SAP S/4HANA assessment, you can assess and analyze the syntactical change impact of all the custom Z tables, Z programs, and Z objects. The key activities that can be performed using KTern.AI for the custom code are:

  • Identification of affected custom objects
  • Scope definition of custom code migration
  • Define which custom code needs to be taken to S/4HANA
  • Define usage frequency
  • Custom code analysis parameters
  • Syntactically incompatible change of existing functionality
  • Functionality not available but functional equivalent available
  • Functionality not available
  • Change of existing functionality with a performance impact
Custom Object Impact Analysis

3. Custom Object Dashboard:

KTern.AI lets users have a detailed view of the custom objects present in the existing SAP ECC system and it provides a clear view of the result got from the assessment of the existing system.

Impact and optimization mining

Business Transformation Assessment:

KTern.AI Digital Maps drills down the entire structure of the existing SAP ECC system and provides insights. This empowers the users with the data and makes their S/4HANA migration journey risk-free.

Timeline and Effort Estimation:

SAP S/4HANA business assessment is incomplete and inefficient without proper timeline and effort estimation. Digital Maps after its entire assessment of the present SAP ECC system, estimate the accurate cost and resource required for the SAP S/4HANA migration process. KTern.AI's powerful AI-Effort Estimator lets the user know the business support required to complete the project. Digital Maps Effort estimator provides the following insights,

  • Recommended Project Timeline
  • Recommended Duration Estimate
  • Recommended Resource Utilization Estimate

Get started with KTern.AI:

SAP S/4HANA Business assessment is the first and crucial step toward the S/4HANA Migration journey of the organization. Acing this first step with utmost care is advisable for all the organizations which are about to undergo S/4HANA transformation. Every organization requires a powerful engine for its journey. Equipped with the greatest AI tools, KTern.AI is ‘the’ engine to drive your transformation.

Are you looking to undergo your S/4HANA Transformation anytime soon? You can get started with us at demo. Contact us if you have any queries.