How SAP Migration Will Impact Your Business – SAP S/4HANA is the successor to SAP R/3 and the latest SAP suite. It’s been available since 2015 and is used by enterprise organizations to cover multiple business needs, such as order processing, customer support, human resources, inventory tracking, and much more. This SAP system only runs on the SAP HANA database, unlike previous versions that could be run on other platforms. Because of this, upgrading to SAP S/4HANA requires actual migration of your systems.
Like most enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, the SAP HANA platform is meant to tie your business processes and departments together, so you won’t have different departments and tasks operating in separate silos. Migrating to SAP HANA is a great way to eliminate outdated technology and ultimately save on the costs of running less effective solutions.
You may even find that SAP S inspires you to change the way your business operates once your systems are better connected. Learn some of the major ways your business will be affected by the SAP system with this SAP migration guide.
Master Data
One of the most important things to set up for the migration process is a reliable master data management (MDM) service. Master data is basically all of the shared data in your organization. For example, if you had a customer relationship management system integrated with a sales system, their shared data would be part of your master data. Effective master data management is crucial for keeping all your data consistent across your systems and departments, even if they operate separately. Metadata, like reports compiled at the end of data analysis, will be extremely useful during your migration.
Without proper master data, you’ll have a difficult time with a classical migration since there won’t be any properly cataloged existing data to extract and transfer to the new system environment. If you’re having a hard time storing all your data, you can try additional storage solutions like bulk SD cards. Wholesale SD cards are available with a wide variety of storage spaces. For personal use, you can find micro SD cards with as little as 10Mb to 30Mb of space ranging up to cards with 60Mb, 90Mb, and 128Mb. For business use, you’ll need larger cards, and you can find ones starting with 16Gb of space ranging up to 256Gb of space.
Integrations
Naturally, one of the greatest benefits of 4HANA migration is the fact that all of your systems will be properly integrated and able to share data, assuring that your data is always current and allowing your business to achieve better insights. With all your departments connected, you’ll be able to pinpoint areas where data or tasks are being duplicated and improve your efficiency. You’ll also be able to connect inventory and B2B systems, so you can automatically order more stock once reserves start to run low, which is great for retail businesses. You can even improve employee productivity by providing them the best tools for the job and ensure that everyone is working in alignment with your company’s goals.
These are just a few examples of the benefits of integrations following your system conversion. The truth is that the possibilities are practically endless.
Deployment
SAP S/4HANA can be deployed as an on-premises system, in the cloud, or as a hybrid approach. You should know which version you’d like to migrate to early on in your preparations to ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible. The main advantage of an on-premises solution is that you’ll have full control over exactly how you use the service and which systems are integrated, but you’ll have the downside of having to maintain your own servers. If you install with the cloud, you’ll have unlimited storage space, and your systems will be automatically updated with the latest features and security.
Support for SAP R/3 is ending in 2027, so you’ll need to complete your entire system conversion by then. It’s best to start planning now, and if you need further assistance, you can always check the SAP help portal.
