7 Important Steps You Must Take To Achieve Success With SAP Transformation

Digital transformation has forced IT leaders to change the way they choose new technologies, tools and IT services. Instead of sticking to the antiquated approach of evaluation and selection, CIOs are now embracing the integrated sourcing strategy to expedite their digital transformation initiatives.

COVID-19 pandemic, switch to hybrid and remote work, supply chain issues as well as industry specific opportunities has accelerated this trend. IT leaders are looking for new and innovative delivery approaches and ways to improve their operational efficiencies while migrating their workloads from singapore vps hosting to the cloud.

Even the vendors are adopting these changes. SAP has recently introduced a new offering called RISE. Their RISE program extended their list of partners to some of the biggest names in the cloud space such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google. Not only that, they have even added IBM and Accenture to their consulting partner list to bring a vertically integrated solution to the market.

Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform are joining hands with consultants and partners to offer holistic cloud migration options and application modernization strategies that goes beyond the realms of SAP platform.

In this article, you will learn seven key steps you need to take to achieve success with SAP transformation.

Here are seven key steps that will drive your SAP transformation journey to success.

1. Connect Your Vision With Your Strategy

In order to succeed with an integrated sourcing approach, IT leaders should have a grasp over the vision and strategy which is driving business and IT transformation. You should also understand the use cases associated with the SAP implementation. If the vision of the IT department doesn’t coincide with the vision of your business, it will be impossible for you to conduct SAP transformation successfully. 

Create a sourcing strategy that supports the overall vision of your business. Establish the core principles, follow the best practices and take a holistic approach when looking at IT and business transformation.  Provide your team with a framework so they can make the right decision at the right time.

• Develop a Comprehensive Plan

Even if you have successfully aligned your vision with the strategy, there is still some disconnect between different teams. For example, your leadership team will have a completely different take on one thing as compared to the procurement or project management team. You need to laminate those differences and develop consensus by bringing all the stakeholders on the same page.

You can easily do that by integrating everything from technology evaluation to negotiation to buying into the project. Map out all the milestones and steps along with time frames to provide a clear roadmap to your team to follow. This will drastically increase your chances of success with SAP transformation.

• Form a Team

The outcome of your SAP transformation heavily relies on your team. Create a diverse team which includes individuals from leadership, IT, procurement, legal and finance teams. It will give you access to diverse perspectives and different angles to look at a problem.

Each individual brings in their own experience, knowledge and skills and you can benefit from it to drive your SAP transformation to success. This will also enable you to find solutions to complex problems quickly and easily.

• Decide Between SAP S/4 HANA RISE and Perpetual License Model

Once you have a dedicated team of individuals in place to manage SAP transformation, the next step would be to decide between SAP S/4 HANA RISE and perpetual license model. To make it easier for you to decide between the two, you should first look at your business needs and find an option which is the right fit for your business needs.

Next, you will have to decide whether a capital intensive purchase model suits your business more or an operating expense model. If SAP RISE fulfills your operational requirements better, you should go with it. Going with the SAP RISE option will also mean that you are betting big on Google, Microsoft and Amazon relationship with SAP instead of directly associating your business with their hyperscale.

• Create a SAP Partner Strategy

Let’s say, you have decided on the SAP platform. The next step would be to decide on a consulting and implementation partner and create a strategy for it. Here are some of the question you need to answer at this stage:

• Will you choose a SAP partner through a bidding process or sole source event?
• Should I go with phase 0 to determine the scope and objectives?
• Will you seek help from partners during the design, development and deployment phases?
• How will you go about non-SAP cloud migration and provide support for your application modernization process?

Answering all these questions will not only help you find the perfect SAP partner but also make it easy for you to create a SAP partner strategy for your business.

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• Reconsidering Hyperscale Partnerships

To fully take advantage of SAP RISE, you will have to migrate your SAP workloads to the cloud from top cloud hosting providers. In addition to this, CIOs must also decide which applications should be hosted on premises on the buying best dedicated server, which ones should be retired altogether and which ones should be migrated to the cloud from cheapest dedicated server hosting.

If you are planning to host your workloads on multiple clouds, you will also need a multi cloud strategy. Decide how much money you are willing to spend and what role you want your hyperscale to play to support your migration process. Wrong hyperscale selection can lead to a loss of millions of dollars.

• Outline Managed Service Strategy For The Future

Once you have got hypersaler partnerships in order, it is time to create a managed service strategy so you don’t face any issues in the future. When developing a future managed service strategy, make sure the vendor you are choosing supports future SAP environments. Decide who will provide application support and maintenance facilities in the future. It is also important to keep an eye on supporting infrastructure requirements for the SAP RISE environment in the future.

What steps do you take to achieve success with SAP transformation? Share it with us in the comments section below.