Why You Need to Move to SAP S/4HANA—Now
In February 2020, SAP announced that it would extend mainstream maintenance on core applications of SAP Business Suite 7, including SAP ERP 6.0, from 2025 to 2027. With the two-year extension, converting to SAP S/4HANA might not be on your 2021 to-do list. But it should be. Why? Because moving to S/4HANA should be about more than beating the maintenance deadline—it should be a decision founded on the desire to build an intelligent enterprise.
Building the Business Case
S/4HANA is SAP’s modern ERP system designed for in-memory computing and digital technologies with cloud and mobile enablement capabilities. Serving as an organization’s “digital core,” S/4HANA opens the door for organizations to become an intelligent enterprise. It enables users to connect people, systems and data, and take advantage of next-generation technologies, such as the internet of things (IoT) and advanced analytics. And it enables organizations to modernize processes to drive innovation, revenue and competitive advantage.
With these technical and business benefits, why would you wait another day to make the move to S/4HANA?
We understand that this is a big decision, so if you’re still on the fence about when to act, here are several additional factors to consider when determining your conversion timeline:
- Investment Strategy – In Q1 of 2020, SAPinsider surveyed 537 members to understand their S/4HANA migration strategy and found that more than one-third (38%) of SAP customers that have not yet started using SAP S/4HANA do not see a clear path to integrating SAP’s current product line and innovations with their current ERP. With this in mind, ask yourself these questions: Should you make new investments in what is already a legacy ERP system? Or should you invest in a platform built for the digital world? By moving to S/4HANA, you’re investing in a modern ERP system that serves as your company’s foundation for innovation—one that will connect your data, automate key functions, and continuously improve your products and services.
- Access to Expertise – S/4HANA represents the next big shift in technology—a move to cloud-based, open technology systems. And this change requires a much higher level of SAP and cloud migration expertise and resources that many organizations do not have in-house. Similar to what many companies experienced in the Y2K shift of the late 1990s, if you wait too long to make a move, you might experience a skills shortage (and associated higher costs) when it does come time for you to start your conversion project.
- Cost Optimization – Often, converting to S/4HANA goes hand-in-hand with a migration to the hyperscale cloud. And this means you’ll be able to take full advantage of new and evolving cloud-native tools and technologies to optimize your business, lower costs and gain the scalability and elasticity needed to quickly respond to changing demands.
Above all, moving to S/4HANA empowers you to build an intelligent enterprise—one that drives performance with modern operations, delivers a better customer experience, and continually innovates the business with next-generation technologies. The faster you can move to S/4HANA, the faster you can transform your enterprise with unprecedented real-time insights and IT agility—and establish a lasting competitive advantage.
Becoming an Intelligent Enterprise
The time to move to S/4HANA is now, and we’re here to help. Check out our eBook, How to Move to SAP S/4HANA Successfully, to read more about building an intelligent enterprise with S/4/HANA. You’ll also learn about the three paths to S/4HANA and preview a conversion methodology.
To find out how Navisite can help with your specific S/4HANA conversion, contact us today.