Moving to S/4HANA?

Let's clarify the path forward!

Thinking about moving to S/4HANA, or already on the way?

Download our practical whitepaper now, packed with must-know insights, to help ECC customers avoid common pitfalls and prepare for a smooth transition.

Scroll down for a 3-part video series with even more hands-on tips to guide your journey.

Big shift, many decisions. Let’s get clarity!

Master your S/4HANA migration:
The essential preparation video series

What will you gain?

Who should watch?

Part 1. Common Pitfalls & Challenges for ECC to S/4HANA Migration

Many companies underestimate the complexity of an S/4HANA migration. They treat it as a simple upgrade, leading to budget overruns, delays, and operational disruptions. Two of our experts will share the most common pitfalls & challenges.

Part 2. Why an S/4HANA Preparation Assessment is essential

 A successful S/4HANA migration starts with a preparation assessment. Two of our experts will share their experience of how businesses risk unexpected costs, technical failures, and missed opportunities without it.

Part 3. The business value of a well-executed S/4HANA migration

As you know S/4HANA isn’t just a technology upgrade—it’s a chance to transform your business, unlock efficiencies, and future-proof your operations. In this video, two of our experts will show you the business value of a well-executed S/4HANA migration.

A few of the companies we guided to S/4HANA

It's time to clarify your roadmap with SAP Activate

Discover a clearer path

Frequently asked questions

There are three main transformation approaches when moving to S/4HANA:

  • Greenfield: a fresh implementation of S/4HANA with redesigned processes and a clean system landscape. Ideal for organizations looking for process optimization, standardization, or major business transformation.
  • Brownfield: a technical conversion of your existing ECC system to S/4HANA, preserving your current processes and customizations. This approach minimizes disruption and enables a faster time-to-value
  • Selective Transformation (Hybrid): combines elements of both, allowing you to migrate selectively — e.g. retaining some historical data, optimizing specific processes, or consolidating systems into one. This is particularly useful in complex IT landscapes with multi-ERP environments.

Each of these transformation types can be deployed in either a Private Cloud or Public Cloud setting, each with its own trade-offs in control, flexibility, and standardization.

Choosing the right path requires a clear view of your current IT landscape, transformation goals, business priorities, and organizational readiness. We help you assess these dimensions and compare scenarios to determine the most suitable route — both technically and strategically.

📄 Our whitepaper walks through these options in detail, with practical decision criteria to guide your thinking.

There’s a lot you can start doing today — even before engaging with a partner — to ensure your S/4 preparation is grounded and efficient. Some concrete steps include:

  • Mapping your current system landscape: Understand your ERP setup, interfaces, satellite systems, and potential redundancies.
  • Data housekeeping: Clean up master data, close old transactions, and eliminate obsolete records. High-quality data is a major success factor in S/4 projects.
  • Custom code review: Identify which custom developments are still used, redundant, or could be replaced by standard S/4 functionality.
  • Pain point inventory: Document known issues or inefficiencies in current processes. These become key input for evaluating what to redesign.
  • Clarify your business objectives: Define whether your transition is purely technical or if it involves process transformation, operating model changes, or improved reporting.

These activities not only accelerate later discovery and assessment phases, but also ensure internal stakeholders are engaged early and have a sense of ownership in the transformation.

The best time to start preparing for S/4HANA is well before you plan to launch the actual project — ideally 12 to 24 months in advance. Why so early? Because true readiness isn’t just about technical migration. It’s about aligning your organization, cleaning up your landscape, and defining your transformation goals clearly.

Preparation includes a variety of tasks that take time:

  • Securing sponsorship and internal alignment
  • Building a compelling business case
  • Evaluating system complexity and interdependencies
  • Reviewing current processes and data
  • Planning resources and budget realistically

Delaying preparation often leads to rushed decision-making, fragmented planning, and increased costs.

Even if you’re go-live date isn’t set, early preparation ensures you stay in control of your roadmap instead of reacting under pressure.

Not necessarily. One of the key benefits of S/4HANA is access to modern, standardized best-practice processes — but that doesn’t mean everything must change.

You should assess your current processes along three lines:

  • Where can we adopt standard? Areas where S/4’s out-of-the-box capabilities are mature and sufficient.
  • Where should we adapt? Processes that require minor adjustments to meet specific business needs.
  • Where must we differentiate? Critical processes that give your business a competitive edge and warrant tailored design.

Redesigning everything from scratch can be expensive and disruptive. On the other hand, blindly copying legacy processes into S/4HANA misses the opportunity for simplification and improvement.

We help clients strike the right balance using targeted analysis — and with Signavio-as-a-Service, we make this process quick and low-touch, giving you insights without investing upfront in tooling or licenses.

Many S/4HANA pitfalls are not technical, but organizational or strategic. Common mistakes include:

    • Lack of a clear vision or scope: Without defined transformation goals, projects risk scope creep and misalignment.
    • Poor business and IT collaboration: When S/4 is treated as a purely IT-driven exercise, the business value is often lost.
    • Underestimating impact on data and reporting: Legacy data structures, reporting needs, and analytics often require more attention than anticipated.
    • Inadequate change management: S/4 transformations impact roles, responsibilities, and ways of working — and people need support to adopt the new reality.

 

These risks can be mitigated by starting with a structured, realistic roadmap that aligns stakeholders early, sets priorities, and uncovers risks before they become roadblocks.

📄 Our whitepaper outlines the critical steps to de-risk your journey and build momentum from the start.

Charlotte is here to listen.
Get in touch with her.

Charlotte is based in Belgium.

Relevant blog post

Start smart: 8 steps to prepare for a smooth brownfield migration

Upgrading your existing SAP ECC system to SAP S/4HANA without the need to start from...

Navigating ERP software: embrace agility with SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud

As technology and business needs continue to evolve, the traditional ERP software landscape has been...

Your journey to the cloud: The different steps of a RISE with SAP Cloud integration

Embarking on the journey to integrate RISE with SAP, the cloud offering with SAP S/4HANA,...