SAP S/4HANA Reimagined

As more IT executives within organizations using SAP embark on their S/4HANA journey, one question that generates the most interest is how to learn from early adopters. The question they ask is “given a chance to redo the program, how would you do it differently?” As a major S/4HANA Implementation partner, we spoke with many leaders and stakeholders who have executed Brownfield or Hybrid (Bluefield) implementations within our customer ecosystem and across our own delivery teams. Incidentally, all of them agree on reimagining the approach, with an emphasis on stronger business ownership, process standardization, value realization through automation, and outcome-based analytics supported by generative AI.

On the technology front, they agreed to stronger governance and early adoption of a clean core discipline, which would have significantly reduced stabilization and rework. We would classify this reimagination into three categories:

1. Long-term IT operating model:

   • Recognize that SAP is the true IT backbone of business operations and establish the SAP Center of Excellence with SAP-literate associates who understand business processes and challenges.
   • Define the CoE structure, roles, and responsibilities before embarking on the journey. The SAP CoE should be treated as the project owner, leading blueprinting, making architectural decisions, and planning knowledge management.
   • Invest in architecture and integration roles. Leaders agree that User Experience improves system appreciation and usage. It is essential to build a dedicated internal team focused on role design and Fiori usability to drive user adoption and reduce reliance on SAP GUI.
   • Use system integrators (SI) to provide technical capacity, not directions.

   With the widespread adoption of Agile and DevOps methodologies, there is growing acceptance that S/4HANA is a product that requires continuous updates, not a one-time implementation. It is imperative that an integrated release management process centered on business processes, rather than technology, be adopted, and that the CoE define the release pace.  Organizations now understand that the real measure of success is not the go-live date; it is the organization’s ability to run, enhance, and sustain S/4HANA without excessive reliance on the system integrator. An operating model focused on knowledge transfer and internal ownership would sustain value realization from SAP.

2. Technical mandate for implementation: An unspoken trap within IT teams was the pressure to recreate 20-year-old ECC processes in S/4HANA, driven by factors such as resistance to change, budget constraints due to economic uncertainty, and leadership turnover. Furthermore, the biggest regrets among early programs were allowing ECC-era customization to creep into S/4HANA, creating massive long-term technical debt. Early adopters learned these lessons the hard way. The recommendations for the mandate are simple yet make sense in every way

   1. Prioritize process standardization over customization
   2. Identify process automation opportunities and agree on outcomes
   3. Adopt a “Clean Core First” architecture and governance model
   4. Treat BTP as a mandatory part of the architecture
   5. Mandate side-by-side extensibility from the start
   6. Separate enterprise data warehouse supporting integrated decision-making.

3. Implementation process: The role of SAP CoE is critical in the overall implementation. It starts with establishing an Architecture Review Board (ARB) to define guardrails and enforce the extensibility decision tree. IT leaders have recommended improvements that they would incorporate in case they get a chance to redo the S/4HANA implementation

   1. Get process insights early. Identify non-value-adding variations. Tools like Signavio or Celonis should be deployed early to map existing processes. Challenge legacy processes aggressively, shifting from making S/4HANA conform to them to making the business conform to modern, simplified, standardized processes. Any deviation from SAP Best Practice would require executive sponsorship and a defensible ROI.
   2. Treat data governance as a program, not a one-time task: Implementers discovered that S/4HANA’s Universal Journal and Business Partner model exposes decades of unresolved data issues. Waiting until later phases to manage data was a major mistake. Begin data cleanup long before the design phase, cleansing materials, customers, vendors, and financial objects ahead of CVI and Universal Journal mapping. Formally identify data owners and data stewards, train them, and hold them accountable from day one. Implement continuous data quality monitoring with automated checks that would run throughout migration cycles rather than relying on a one-time validation at the end.
   3. Decide and invest in test automation from the beginning. Automated regression testing (using tools like Tricentis) would be part of the overall build process and not an afterthought, to avoid the manual testing burden
   4. Decide on monitoring tools. Build a traceability matrix and SOPs prior to go-live to enable quick automation.

In summary, process standardization, clean core adoption through BTP, data governance discipline, and use of Signavio/Celonis, Fiori, and automated testing as foundational tools were the improvement areas for leaders if they were starting again.