How to start on your digital transformation journey?
Blog: Capgemini CTO Blog
My last blog discussed the need for the ‘Intelligent Enterprise’. In this post, I’ll discuss the follow-up question, how your company can set itself on this digital transformation journey? From an SAP viewpoint, there are three important starting points.
First – If you are an existing SAP ECC user, prepare for the upcoming end of service in 2025 (https://support.sap.com/en/offerings-programs/strategy.html#section_1610563356). Although 2025 is still some years away, we know from years of strategy and implementation experience, customers need time in such a transformation journey. From allocating funds for PoC’s and assessments on S/4HANA options to finalizing the implementation of the solution. Could companies afford to have a 2-3-year journey if they start late? It’s important to consider that development on ECC has already been stopped. Remember, the bigger the gap between the current version of your system to the target version of the new system, the more likely it is that a conversion approach isn’t feasible anymore and that you need to start preparing for a greenfield implementation. My advice to clients – start preparing your journey as early as Jan 2019.
Second – It makes sense combining your research with an innovation journey. After all, the intelligent enterprise is about preparing for an agile and deeply connected company of the future. It is about a better understanding of your customers’ needs and serving them in a more beneficial way. SAP S/4HANA has poised itself to give you a stable and up to date digital core. SAP Cloud Platform and Leonardo are platforms which are opening up possibilities that were not attainable until now. In my experience, you can start exploring this right away. An innovation day, based on Design Thinking can bring a well-scoped foundation leading to an ambitious roadmap.
Thirdly and finally – We see a spiked interest in the move to the cloud. A SaaS solution like S/4HANA Cloud, or deploying of S/4 HANA on cloud infrastructures like Microsoft Azure and AWS. S/4HANA Cloud is the by SAP preferred S/4HANA deployment option. It can be used in a 2-tier scenario, where a large company has subsidiaries that are better helped with a simple, out of the box ERP-core than a complicated and expensive rollout of an SAP-kernel. We also see the benefits of this deployment option in M&A and divestment scenarios. SAP offers sufficient capabilities to migrate to the cloud and Capgemini is one of the first three certified global partners for such deployments.
Well there you have it, a compelling urgency to start your journey as soon as possible, with some guidelines on execution. And yes, we are exceptionally equipped to help you, whatever option and starting point you choose! To learn more, email me Hugo Wasser, or visit us at our SAP Innovation Centre in Utrecht.
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