SAP S/4HANA Accelerator – Your Guide to faster SAP S/4HANA Transformations

Edson Frainlar -

SAP S/4HANA is a major new release of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The new release includes significant enhancements and new features, as well as new applications that can be used to automate business processes. However, the transformation process for any organization, from ECC to S/4HANA is not easy. Companies are in search for a tool/platform to speed up or accelerate this transformation, something that I would like to term “SAP S/4HANA Accelerator”.

In this article, I'll explain what SAP S/4HANA transformation is, what it involves, how you can use it to speed up your organization's SAP S/4HANA implementation and how you can speed up your transformation to S/4HANA using an SAP S/4HANA Accelerator.

Table of contents

What is SAP S/4HANA transformation?

SAP S/4HANA is a new SAP software platform that offers organizations the ability to build and run powerful mobile and cloud applications.

SAP S/4HANA accelerates business processes, improves data quality and reduces costs by enabling autonomous business processes, creating an enterprise-wide view of data and improving the way information is shared. With SAP S/4HANA, you can create a single view of your company’s financial, operational, customer and operational data from multiple sources.

SAP S/4HANA implementation is an important milestone for your organization. It can be a challenge or an opportunity depending on your business needs and expectations. You may have been thinking about upgrading your SAP ERP system for some time now, so let’s discuss further on ‘why SAP S/4HANA?’

Why not SAP ECC?

SAP ECC is the SAP ERP system that was developed to support the early versions of SAP S/4HANA. SAP ECC is based on the idea that you can't just upgrade from one version to another and expect everything to work just fine.

SAP ECC was developed for an era where people were still using paper files for approvals, approvals were still manually entered and there was no real concept of digital transformation yet.

Yes, SAP ECC has some great features such as report writers and a calendar but it's not designed for today's business environment.

Why are SAP users already transforming to SAP S/4HANA?

First of all, we need to understand that SAP S/4HANA is an extension of SAP ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). This means that it has most of the features that are available in an ERP system such as inventory, purchasing and supply chains management. However, it also adds new capabilities like SCM (Supply Chain Management), with which companies can automate their supply chain processes.

Another feature added by SAP S/4HANA is HCM (Human Capital Management), which allows you to manage your employees more effectively by providing them with relevant information about their work performance. This and more!

Given this, it is easily understood why SAP users are moving to SAP S/4HANA. Duh, you need to keep up with the competition, that’s why!

But wait, there’s more….

SAP has a deadline for companies to move to S/4HANA. Earlier, it was 2025. However, now, SAP has extended its deadline to 2027. But 2027 is not so much time either. An S/4HANA transformation takes its time to get completed. And that, is the reason why SAP customers and users are moving to SAP S/4HANA.

It is not a choice. It is a mandate!

How long does it take to complete an S/4HANA Transformation?

It depends on how much time you have available and the complexity of the project. The amount of time you will spend on a transformation project depends on what stage the project is at.

If you have been working with SAP S/4HANA for several years, your company will already have a number of people working in process design and implementation (PDI). This means that there are already a number of processes that need to be transformed into SAP S/4HANA.

If you are just starting out with S/4HANA, then it will take longer for your organization to start getting comfortable with it. You also need to understand what transformations can be done before moving forward with any specific projects.

Well, lets not beat around the bush!

The average time to do an SAP S/4HANA transformation is around 8 – 12 months.

This includes the time required to analyze your business processes and create the initial design for your new system. The main reason for this is that many organizations only have one or two key processes that need to be changed. This can make the initial design process relatively straightforward.

However, as mentioned before, if the size and complexity is bigger, then it takes much more!

Three pillars of a successful transformation program

The SAP S/4HANA transformation program is a complex undertaking, requiring a combination of skills and expertise. As with any complex project, the most successful programs are those that have been planned and executed by experienced professionals.

When it comes to the ‘people’ perspective, here are my top three tips for making sure you're on track to having a successful SAP S/4HANA transformation program:

  1. Choose the right partner
  2. Communicate clearly and regularly
  3. Put in place governance and accountability

When it comes to the technical standpoint,

  1. Analytics - The ability to analyze and interpret data is the linchpin of any successful business. With S/4HANA, you can gain complete visibility into your business and see what's really happening at a granular level. You can perform real-time analytics across all your areas of focus, including supply chain and sales management. Analytics equally plays an important role in your S/4HANA Transformation project as well.
  2. Integration. The ability to connect all your systems and data sources with the SAP ECC provides the foundation for a rich integration strategy that helps you create a single view of your business operations.
  3. Automation. Automating business processes will help your organization become more efficient, productive and competitive. It also helps you reduce costs through improved labor efficiencies and increased productivity levels — resulting in better results for your organization from day one.

Reasons why you should accelerate your SAP S/4HANA transformation.

Why do you need to accelerate your SAP S/4HANA transformation? Because you want to get started as quickly as possible and increase productivity at the same time.

There are many reasons why you should accelerate your SAP S/4HANA transformation:

  1. Reducing time to value - The faster you can get your solutions into production, the sooner you will realize the benefits of a S/4HANA solution.
  2. Increasing customer satisfaction - By getting systems into production faster, customers will be able to continue using their current ERP systems while working on the next generation of technology.
  3. Higher profitability - Faster implementation saves time, money and resources so you can focus on business growth instead of operational overhead and maintenance costs associated with legacy systems.
  4. Reduced risk - By accelerating your SAP S/4HANA transformation, you reduce risk and increase certainty that your company will remain competitive in today's digital economy

Other reasons include,

  1. Digital Transformation
    A digital transformation is the first stage of a S/4HANA project. It involves creating a new digital business model for your company, and implementing the technology required to make it work. Digital transformation can be applied to every aspect of your business, from customer management to operational processes. It is also critical for any company that wants to remain competitive in an increasingly digital world.
  2. Cloud Strategy
    One of the most important factors that has driven SAP S/4HANA adoption is its Cloud strategy: customers are no longer locked into expensive hardware infrastructures or virtual machines (VM), but rather they can move their applications into the cloud with ease! This makes it easier for organizations to adapt their businesses to new technologies and new markets, while also reducing costs and risks associated with traditional IT infrastructure development projects.
  3. Innovative Business Models
    As we discussed above, one of the main reasons why companies are moving towards SAP S/4HANA is because they want to build innovative business models based on predictive analytics and machine learning technologies. These new models will help them optimize processes, improve quality, reduce costs and increase profits – all while keeping their customers happy!

What is an SAP S/4HANA Accelerator?

SAP S/4HANA Accelerator, in my context, is a tool/solution/platform that speeds up and simplifies SAP S/4HANA Transformation. It enables customers to get immediate insights into the impact of their transformations on the SAP systems.

SAP S/4HANA Accelerator is a cloud-based tool, which enables users to conduct experiments and run them in their own environments. It also provides a dashboard for monitoring and analyzing data from these experiments.

The SAP S/4HANA Accelerator platform allows you to create and execute business scenarios in your own organization, while providing insights into the impact of your transformations on the SAP systems.

SAP S/4HANA Accelerator has been designed to simplify the process of developing SAP S/4HANA solutions. It helps you to create custom solutions with minimal coding effort, which can be easily deployed onto production environments.

What does the SAP S/4HANA Accelerator offer?

SAP S/4HANA Accelerator provides customers with an integrated, end-to-end solution for their SAP S/4HANA implementation and management. The components of this solution include:

• An assessment tool that helps you select the right business processes for your organization.
• A set of preconfigured business process templates (BPTs) that can be used as starting points for your own customizations.
• A training course on how to use BPTs, which will help you master them quickly which might as well be a part of the platform.
• A self-service portal that allows you to manage your SAP environment from any device via a web browser.

How does the SAP S/4HANA Accelerator work?

The SAP S/4HANA Accelerator enables the following:

  1. It provides an overall view of the business processes and KPIs, thus enabling the user to find out which components are critical and need to be changed.
  2. It provides insight into how these components work together, thus making it easier to plan and execute a successful migration.
  3. It simplifies the process of migrating data from legacy systems to SAP S/4HANA by providing users with a visual representation of their entire transformation at one place.

Benefits of the SAP S/4HANA transformation accelerator

The main benefit of using SAP S/4HANA Accelerator is that it helps you to reduce time-to-market, while at the same time helping you deliver innovative solutions quickly. The SAP S/4HANA transformation accelerator speeds up your SAP S/4HANA transformation. It allows you to connect directly to the SAP Cloud Platform and provides you with a quick-start guide and best practices.

An SAP S/4HANA Accelerator helps you to expedite your transformation to SAP S/4HANA and reduce effort, time and cost.

With the SAP S/4HANA Accelerator you can:

- Get preconfigured solutions for common SAP S/4HANA tasks

- Accelerate data migration to SAP HANA

- Reduce client involvement in the transformation process

- A set of integrated solutions for accelerating SAP HANA projects

- A project management suite with customizable dashboards

- A set of best practices, templates and workflows

KTern.AI – The Ultimate SAP S/4HANA Accelerator

If you are an SAP Customer looking for an SAP S/4HANA Accelerator, then I would recommend you KTern.AI.

KTern.AI is an all in one digital transformation platform mainly built to ease and fasten your SAP Transformations. With its five digital streams exhibiting unique UVPs across different channels of your transformation process, KTern.AI is the best fit to accelerate your S/4HANA Transformation. KTern.AI is

· The only all-in-one DXaaS Platform
· Built for RISE with SAP
· Risk free Digital Transformations
· Secure and privacy compliant

It has five streams which help you simplify the following in your transformation,

  1. Digital Maps – Assess and plan
  2. Digital Projects – Govern projects
  3. Digital Process – Orchestrate processes
  4. Digital Labs – Automate testing
  5. Digital Mines – Optimize operations

Lets discuss about each in the foregoing and get to know how KTern.AI can be your perfect SAP S/4HANA Accelerator.

Accelerate your SAP Assessment and transformation plan with KTern.AI

KTern.AI Digital Maps gives you data driven forecast and insights on the possible impacts that your SAP system would face during the transition from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA. This occurs with great speed across all technical aspects involved in your transformation like,

  1. Landscape Assessment
  2. Business Process Assessment
  3. Custom Objects Assessment
  4. Business Transformation Assessment
  5. Timeline Assessment

Assessing your SAP landscape can be made fast and easy with KTern.AI. A detailed insight of your current SAP landscape along with the impacts that it would face while moving to S/4HANA can be provided by KTern.AI.

Assessing your SAP Landscape with KTern.AI

Here, you can have a detailed and well defined overview of,

  • System Profiling
  • Active and Inactive Users
  • Add on Analytics
  • Archiving Recommendations
  • Interface Review

You can also automate the simplification item check using KTern.AI.

In addition to this you could have a clear cut view of all the business processes that might be affected from head to toe during the transformation. This is done with KTern.AI’s business process assessment facility.

SAP Business Process Assessment 

The SAP landscape as a whole is evaluated by the KTern.AI Impact Analysis module, which then generates an assessment report. You may comprehend the effects of switching from an existing SAP ERP system to S/4HANA thanks to the assessment report. An automated high-level plan of the SAP S/4HANA system conversion process is provided by the Roadmap Guide module of KTern. The roadmap can then be approved by the solution architects and project managers, who can subsequently move forward with the system conversion project.

Therefore, in terms of assessing and planning your transformation, KTern.AI Digital Maps is your perfect choice to kickstart the initial phase of your transformation.

Accelerate your SAP projects with KTern.AI

KTern.AI Digital Projects is DXaaS suite focused on SAP S/4HANA transformations and has ready-to-use automation features for project execution and business operations. S4HANAPEDIA.AI, the engine that powers its auto-learning knowledge base, provides stakeholders with insightful data on all stages of the SAP Activate Methodology: Discover, Prepare, Explore, Realize, Deploy, and Run.

  1. SAP Activate empowered project governance, simulation, and stakeholder collaboration with intelligent insights.
  2. Inbuilt auto-learning knowledge base engine to provide intelligent risk resolutions, cutover insights, project, and business stakeholder productivity recommendations.
  3. One digital wizard to steer multiple project dependencies and complex hierarchies with workflow-based signoffs and closures ensuring compliance in the enterprise operations.

It is a collaborative workspace where multiple stakeholders can get together and have a good view of the status of the project, the tasks assigned to each member and the overall team, the issues and risks raised, the communications within the team in the form of documents or files, the milestones of the project along with the project timeline.

KTern.AI Project Dashboard

SAP Activate is a modular and agile framework which ensures a reliable SAP S/4HANA conversion and is the heart of KTern.AI, the product designed to automate, manage, and accelerate the transition from ECC to S/4HANA from start to finish.

With SAP Activate methodology and KTern.AI, you get a disciplined project management approach for SAP S/4HANA migration. The methodology aligns with best practices suggested by the Project Management Institute (PMI), assisting you to minimize risk, streamline and accelerate your project, and reduce the total cost of S/4HANA conversion.

KTern.AI Digital Projects also has an important feature called the Control center. If you are a project manager, then this is your paradise. You can have a detailed view of each and every task, issue and risk available as part of each project.

Control center - SAP Project Manager's paradise

On the whole, KTern.AI Digital Projects has every feature that can help you properly govern and fasten your entire transformation project, thereby acting as the perfect SAP S/4HANA Accelerator.

To know more about how KTern.AI can help ease your project governance, have a look at this webinar on A better way to run SAP Projects - The New Normal.

Accelerate your SAP testing with KTern.AI

One of the most important stages of an S/4HANA conversion is testing. However, 72% of businesses rely on manual testing to validate changes to important business processes. Manual testing is time-consuming, expensive (representing over 30% of the average SAP project price), and insufficiently thorough and precise to ensure that major risks will be revealed.

After all, choosing the right testing solution can remove the problems involved in testing.

KTern.AI Digital Labs is tightly integrated with project management hub. On one side, the testers would typically be testing the different test cases, and the governance would be carried out using emails, chat, or any other project management tool. All parties concerned found the process to be laborious and clumsy. In order to execute, manage, and collaborate on all testing-related project activities for an S/4HANA migration or upgrade from a single location, KTern.AI Digital Labs was created.

KTern.AI Test Suite 

Some of the prominent features of KTern.AI Digital Labs include:

  1. Built on SAP’s Activate framework, specifically for SAP transformation projects
  2. An in-built AI based S/4HANAPEDIA rule engine
  3. Value, Volume and Velocity (VVV) based auto test case recommendations
  4. Auto test case executions and defects repository
  5. API-based and screen recorder- based (readable scriptless test cases captured in real time) testing
  6. Tightly integrated project management capabilities
  7. 30% - 40% reduction in total project cost and timeline

Value - This score denotes the merit and significance of the transactional execution for the business scenario.

Volume - This score denotes the magnitude of the data and documents obtained from the transactional execution of the business scenario.

Velocity - This score denotes the frequency of the transactional execution for the corresponding business scenario.

Each transaction is automatically scored between 1 and 10 by KTern.AI depending on its value, volume, and velocity. KTern.AI calculates the materiality score for the business processes using the VVV scores. The entire business value produced from the particular transaction is shown by the materiality score. The more relevant the business process, the higher the score, and vice versa. Based on this VVV-based materiality score, KTern.AI automatically generates test case recommendations and allocates the priority of each test case. With these test case recommendations, KTern.AI also helps you automate the entire testing process

Automating SAP Testing with KTern.AI

Since testing is a fairly laborious process, there is a potential that some test cases may not be executed entirely due to time constraints. Project managers and test managers may prioritise the most important test cases for testing in such circumstances and ensure that no important test case is missed thanks to the KTern.AI dashboard. As a result, a smooth transition to S/4HANA is made possible by ensuring that all crucial business processes are tested before going live with the production environment therefore managing the entire testing lifecycle.

Therefore, KTern.AI Digital Labs acts as the perfect SAP S/4HANA Accelerator by helping you automate test case generation and execution which is considered one of the most tedious processes in the transformation.

Accelerate your SAP release cycles with KTern.AI

The Change Impact Analysis is evaluating the potential effects of a change or estimating what has to be adjusted. It supports your digital transformation projects, from updating ERP software to upgrading and consolidating solutions to moving to SAP S/4HANA. The company's overall long-term viability is determined by the release strategy.

The Simulation bots involved in KTern's Autonomous Enterprise Release Impact carry the transport requests in the pipelines. Before being dispatched to the production system, these transport objects/simulation bots convey requests from a quality system and analyse the requests.

Change Impact Analysis with KTern.AI

All the Simulation bots deployed to analyze the SAP change impact are part of a series of bots together known as a Digital Mine. These mines examine the transport demands, forecast the impact, display the stakeholders and SAP end users who will be impacted, and suggest potential test cases, all within the framework of a release plan that can be created based on the deployment of the mines. These Simulation bots get deployed on the digital console where all the impacted processes and test cases are visible with the stakeholders.

There can be 1000s of test cases available in a given environment, With constant change requests from the business, the number of transport requests going into the production system demands long, time consuming, redundant testing processes. KTern.AI Automated Enterprise Release Impact (AERI) will help identify the list of impacted processes for a given transport request which inturn can be autonomously tested using UiPath’s Test Bots.

Autonomous Enterprise Release Impact (AERI)

Therefore KTern.AI Digital Labs can accelerate the go live signals for your transport requests, in this case for an entire S/4HANA transformation, thereby acting as the perfect SAP S/4HANA Accelerator.

To know more about how KTern.AI can help accelerate releases have a look at this webinar on Unleashing Change Impact Mining for SAP DevOps

Get started with the ultimate SAP S/4HANA Accelerator today!

KTern.AI can help you accelerate your transformation journey by simplifying the way you plan it, execute it and run it smoothly, on-time and in-budget!

On reading this article you should be pretty convinced that KTern.AI stands alone in the Digital Transformation as a Service (DXaaS) space with unlimited benefits when compared to any of its competitors.

Are you one of those companies, that is still looking for a partner to help you accelerate your SAP S/4HANA Accelerator?

Get started with us and find solutions to every one of your transformation worries!