The Tsunami of Change - Navigating the uncertainty of  S/4 Transformations

If you are like most businesses considering a move to SAP S/4 HANA, these are times of great uncertainty. You've had to consciously scale back your investment in technology-driven innovation in anticipation of the S/4 project while also bracing for the tsunami of change at your doorstep.

And like other businesses, you are grappling with several questions - "Is this the right time to do it?", "How much is it going to cost in terms of money, focus, and effort to get it right," "Is my business truly ready?", "What should my team know or learn about the new S/4 platform?"

And while all those questions are important, you will not find definitive answers to any of them. The reality is that there are too many variables at play. Perhaps another question you may think about is, "Where can I invest my focus and effort now to be in a better position to deal with some of the uncertainty in the future?"

From working with customers in the throes of an S/4 implementation to those who are just emerging post-implementation and hyper-care phases, we consistently see these three factors play a significant role in undermining the value of these transformations:

  1. Lack of awareness of implemented processes.

  2. Pervasive issues with data.

  3. Lack of preparedness to embrace a data-rich solution.

The good news is that these problems are directly addressable through well-directed initiatives that do not take long to turn around and get the business back at the table in a largely technology-dominated conversation.

Creating self-awareness through digital process modeling 

You would have to invest a lot of time on an S/4 project working with technology partners and system integrators to describe your as-is processes, often through a lengthy and arduous journey of process discovery via interviews and workshops. And the best-case result that this will produce is a rough approximation of your actual business requirements. Ironically, this is also the most critical phase of your project, as it sets the foundation for everything to follow. Get this wrong, and none of the rest matters.

There is another way, which is using process mining to capture what really happens in your process's execution lifecycle and not a distant echo of the real world or a stakeholder's idyllic view of a process as produced the traditional way. Using the process mining approach, you can digitally render your processes, identify bottlenecks, and streamline them well before they are handed over to the systems integrator to implement, saving you time, cost, and unneeded complexity.  

Deal with the Data Mess

No one has their data story figured out. And that is OK. But acknowledging that there is a data problem is the first step towards recovery. And there is never a bad time to fix data, but you will be hard-pressed to find a better time than right before an S/4 implementation project. Data is often the unwanted stepchild of business and technology in far too many organizations, and while the business has overall accountability, it often lacks the functional or technical ability to identify and remediate data issues. 

Kicking off data hygiene engagements with data specialists from your domain can provide immense value, given the role data would play in the success of an S/4 implementation.


Data-Driven Thinking

Outlook to the role data plays in an organization is a culture thing. And catalyzing cultural change prior to the move S/4 is nigh impossible for most organizations. But even as glacial as cultural change, it starts from the top, with the executives setting clear expectations and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. 

Because how can you improve if you cannot measure? And how can you measure without data?