SAP ends maintenance for ECC

Although 2027 still seems a long way off, for many businesses this deadline will come around much faster than anticipated. For this reason, some have already made the very carefully considered move to S/4HANA, way ahead of the deadline. 

Don’t put off the migration - S/4HANA makes it easier to run your business

But not everyone has made a start and for many, perhaps in light of the turbulent past few years, the temptation to put the migration on the backburner has been strong. However, this will only mean one thing; a shorter time to transition, ultimately adding unnecessary pressure to teams, a bumpier journey, higher costs, and potentially leading to failure when it comes to getting the added value that a move to S/4HANA promises.

For many organizations, the ability to make faster, more precise, and more impactful data driven decisions is what is driving the transition to S/4HANA. For these companies, access to analytics-ready data is key to success, to gaining that competitive advantage, to innovation. So, for these organizations it is vital to focus on the data and look at what ERP data needs to make the move to S/4HANA. Failing to move the necessary data could really impact on business efficiencies and the future success of the company.

Preparing for the S/4HANA migration really pays off

It’s critical to invest time and resources upfront in developing a solid data migration strategy. This should ensure that all data migrated is of a high quality. Data that will support the future success and goals of the business.

On the flip side, it is also critical when identifying what data to migrate, to assess what data does not have to be migrated. Data storage on HANA is costly, so some data might be better off archived in cheaper storage solutions. What’s more, data reduction, when it comes to a migration, might just have other benefits than reducing infrastructure costs. It can also significantly reduce the potential downtime for the cutover process and mitigate risk. For some businesses it is vital to keep downtime to a minimum as every hour of business downtime can cost thousands of pounds.

You don’t have to do it all by yourself – there are tools and services available to guide you through the migration process

Investing in a data migration plan prior to a move to S/4HANA can help businesses avoid unnecessary cost, time and risk and allow them to reap the benefits of S/4HANA sooner. Using a migration approach that prioritizes near-zero downtime and minimal disruption is crucial. It's not rocket science, right? So why isn’t everyone just doing it now? Well, this planning phase can be time consuming, and many organizations just don’t have the resources or time. This is where it can be useful to engage with a data transformation specialist like SNP.

SNP completed hundreds of successful projects preparing their customers for S/4HANA migration

SNP help customers analyse their data and based on company objectives, identify data that needs to be migrated and data that doesn’t. We can help you get data into a state ready to be archived. We have a solution to what to do with any legacy systems which need to be decommissioned. We can help you plan your roadmap to S/4HANA and our dedicated transformation software can help you achieve near-zero downtime and minimum disruption. With SNP Glue you can take full advantage of all your archived data as well as data from other sources, combining it with data in your new S/4HANA system for your analytics.

Download our latest white paper today to find out how we can make your transition to S4/HANA a smooth one: