As businesses worldwide look to prepare their SAP landscapes for the future, we spoke with our Head of SAP Application Management Services (AMS), Scott Sweeney, about the crucial role AMS plays during transformation projects.
“Support is not just for AFTER your transformation programme, but also for DURING it! A statement I have used before and feel like I need to reiterate. 2025 is a pivotal year for many, as organisations have some big decisions to make about their future solution and how they get to that end game. Most of these companies will migrate to some variation of SAP S/4HANA (e.g., public or private cloud), with others taking the opportunity to step back and evaluate their technological landscapes as a whole.
“For those privileged enough to listen into (or see) the keynote at UKISUG Connect last month by Conor Riordan, UKISUG’s new chair, he went into detail on how Pfizer have gone with a stepped approach to move to RISE with SAP, migrating from ECC on-premise to S/4HANA on-premise first, in what he described as “..a marathon, not a sprint.” Interesting and very insightful for the hundreds of customers and users in attendance. In fact, it was probably a relief to hear for many, but at the same time it also adds to the uncertainty of the right implementation path to go down.
“Whichever direction these organisations choose, I wanted to touch on some critical areas to consider. First of all, supporting a legacy solution during your transformation programme. There are so many questions to truly understand the requirement. How can this solution be supported if you are using your internal team or CoE resources on your transformation programme? Do you need staff augmentation in the medium term? Do you just need specific, key skills at particular times? How do you keep continuity within your business user community? What are your thoughts and plans on your Target Operating Model (TOM) after your transformation programme? How will you transition your ‘support’ requirements to this new world? The list goes on …
“Whilst I will always promote the importance of long-term partnerships, there is a current requirement for short-term, agile partnerships as part of your wider transformation journey. There is no ‘one size fits all’ offering here, and the offering you agree on is likely to evolve over the course of that engagement. Whilst many SIs will provide the long-term benefits and ROI of your deployment, your short-term actions and decisions will have a major impact on your medium to long term plans and outcomes. These will include you evolving internally as well as engaging with potentially multiple partners who can support these short-term requirements.
“Another few areas to consider include:
- Flexibility: As you gradually pick up skills internally and start to realise the benefits of your new solution(s), you will need the flexibility to ramp up or down resources and services.
- Disruption: Have you considered the impact of transformation on your business internally? For example, disruption of business processes or impact on user roles. Training, change management and benefits-realisation need to be considered for your business users. User adoption is a key area that customers are raising currently, but many have only come to this conclusion in hindsight. Therefore, I’d recommend you put this near the top of your list whilst planning your transformation project.
- Experience: You are unlikely to require the exact same support tasks and skillsets as you do with your legacy solution. Bringing cloud expertise on board to work alongside that legacy solution experience will be crucial, especially in the early months and years after deployment.
“There are many more areas to consider from the above, but I urge you to also invest some time in considering what you may need in the short-term in those early months and years to allow you to build the foundation for that medium to long term ROI. That should include discussing with other organisations who have been through the journey, and specific partners who can advise and guide on your thought process and options.
….fail to prepare, prepare to fail!”
If you’re in process of S/4HANA transformation and feel you would benefit from additional support on a flexible or short-term basis, get in touch with our SAP supply chain experts to discuss your setup and requirements.