Building a foundation for SAP ERP modernization

A successful SAP ERP modernization program begins with clear organizational alignment on the desired outcomes, expected business value, end-to-end scope, and roadmap. This alignment is critical for companies that have been running core operations on SAP ECC for many years. This will help you decide where to start your modernization initiative and how to prioritize, organize, and plan to ensure the value of this investment.

To create this strategic plan, companies need a fact base to drive critical SAP S/4HANA-enabled transformation decisions across people, processes, enterprise architecture, and next-generation technologies.

With hundreds of successful S/4HANA program implementations encompassing both SAP ERP applications and infrastructure modernization, IBM® has a well-defined approach called Rapid Discovery. This approach will help you determine: what, why, how For SAP ERP modernization and is infrastructure agnostic. Whether you run SAP ERP on AIX, IBM i, Linux®, or Windows, the approach remains the same. IBM’s cross-functional team of experts uses innovative tools and frameworks to build an innovative foundation comprised of six essential elements:

1. Enterprise competency model—Agree on a business process hierarchy that defines the scope of ERP implementation while also defining the business requirements for future business processes.
2. Governance Model—A clear structure, framework and operating model for program oversight and implementation, including key roles, responsibilities and decision authorities.
3. business value—The financial case for transformational change, quantifying the tangible benefits of the program and comparing them to the costs of implementation.
4. Implementation Roadmap—Clearly outlines key architectural decisions, service scope, data strategy, and implementation roadmap for innovation.
5. Executive Alignment—Align executives across the business on purpose, priorities, path forward, responsibilities, and business benefits of innovation.
6. Sustainability Framework—Align sustainability goals with your overall ERP strategy to allow single-source-of-truth data access for regulatory requirements

As part of Rapid Discovery, we help our customers resolve issues related to the following support elements:

• Modern enterprise architecture—Design future-state enterprise architecture, including application rationalization and strategic direction for RISE or non-RISE cloud strategies.
• Data and Analytics—Understand the current state of your data readiness and develop an optimized data and analytics strategy to support and leverage your transition to SAP S/4HANA.
• Security and Control –After reviewing your current maturity level, define your security and control architecture.
• change management—Identify and understand organizational change management opportunities and impacts related to ERP transformation and develop a high-level approach to user adoption and value realization.

This well-defined discovery process for SAP ERP modernization helps you assess your current SAP ERP environment, define its future state, and align your business case, operating model, and modern enterprise architecture. If you’d like to learn more, join our webinar “Building a Foundation for SAP ERP Modernization with a Rapid Discovery Assessment” where we break down this process.

Learn more about SAP S/4HANA services from IBM