Timing truly is everything. It may be difficult to grasp the significance of this statement when you are about to make a strategic IT decision about your SAP landscape and there is pressure from all groups to make the decision quickly and at the lowest cost. As a good steward of company resources, you want to have the right information and understand the impact before first exploring something new. Awareness is the first step to enlightenment and will help fuel the mindset shift needed in your company to adopt system improvements that will drive true transformational change.
Having the courage to consider these ideas will position your company to take advantage of the rapidly evolving technological innovations in cloud computing, Data Analytics, IoT, and AI. For example, if you are contemplating your journey to a cloud landscape and have been struggling with analyzing options and defining key considerations for your company, let’s explore a few thoughts that may pique your interest. My premise for this month is that the SAP S/4HANACase for the Cloud is strong. Whether you choose a private or public cloud, some compelling factors might influence your decision.
Cloud ALM and SAP BTP are my favorite areas to discuss with customers.
With Cloud ALM and its complementary components made up of SAP Signavio, Tricentis Tosca, SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), and SAP Best Practices, it is possible to see how the case for change is being made in a thoughtful and logical way that provides value for your company.
SAP Signavio is key for long-term business process changes and automation opportunities.
SAP Signavio delivers an excellent platform that not just documents your business processes but also provides the framework for business process efficiency analysis and improvement through process mining capabilities. It helps our clients collaborate and understand why they aren’t getting the full benefits they expected from their investments.
Tricentis Tosca for test script automation is crucial to accelerating the end-to-end testing processes that are necessary to keep the solution current with each version update. SAP Cloud solution innovations are now available more often than with any on-premise solution versions, and it is necessary to get through the upgrade testing process in an efficient and cost-effective way. The automated testing tools can cut the testing time down dramatically and reduce the business resource time commitment required for the upgrade event when managing S/4HANA to S/4HANA upgrades.
SAP BTP and its components, features, and functions that are available to automate, integrate, accelerate application development, and enrich data and analytics capabilities are also aligned with the SAP Clean Core concept, a strategy to provide a holistic, cost-effective, and quality centric approach to overall SAP S/4HANA solution management.
SAP BTP is a game changer, as many other key innovations depend on it. For example, the Selective Data Transition option to transform your ERP landscape as you shift from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA is enabled through SAP BTP as part of the Business Transformation Center offering. This is the answer to the customer requirement from SAP to get to SAP S/4HANA without re-implementing and carrying forward the technical debt into SAP S/4HANA. Now, with this Business Transformation toolset enabled by SAP BTP, there is an option to differentiate from a common brownfield system conversion process to something that allows you to build your core solution without completely starting from scratch.
These are just a few key areas allowing a renewed focus on the key aspects of business operations that increase revenue, lower costs, and facilitate the adoption of new ideas and strategies to equip your company for growth.
Kimberley Reid is VP of Digital Enterprise, SAP Solutions for Hitachi Vantara. She continues her people focused commentaries for ASUG Executive Exchange. Reid draws on everyday technology, project, people, and leadership experiences of her career. She plans a forthcoming book based on these experiences and reflections.