Following the good experience implementing the Public Cloud version of SAP S/4HANA for my client, I had a pleasure of being invited recently to speak about it at UKISUG Connect, an annual event for the SAP user group in the UK and Ireland. The event gathers SAP practitioners and SAP partners from all around the UK and it was a great opportunity to attend several discussions about different aspects of SAP S/4HANA implementation – from business case preparation need to the change management.
Whether it is was because in the UK all customers are yet only considering SAP S/4HANA for next 2-3 years (let alone our shiny SAP S/4HANA Cloud environment) or whether it was coincidental with the “80s theme” chosen for by organisers I could not help thinking about “Back to the future” movie, a super popular trilogy from 80s. For those who forgot or lucky enough to be too young to know, the plot was about an eccentric scientist, “Doc” and his friend Martin who travelled to the past using the time machine where he accidentally changes the course of the history only and then tries to repair it with the help of a professor.
I do remember feeling being a Martin when I saw that subconscious gaze full of doubt when I explained what we have done, why we made our choice, what we are planning to do next. It felt like too good to be true for many if not for all.
Yes, we have made a bold decision of supporting our digital transformation with SAP S/4HANA Cloud as its digital core. Yes, we have been through the 5 difficult months before we finally went live. We have seen a lot on the way. And because we have seen it all we could not help noticing when others are being lured into sub-optimal strategies that would risk the success of the transformations.
While embarking on the digital transformation journey it is likely that a company would have only one chance to make it right. In the extreme case a Company may even cease to exist as it happened with Kodak or Panasonic. Hence, I hope I won’t change the course of history too much, as it did Martin McFly in the movie when I reveal some of the facts “from the future” we saw ourselves.
There is no Infrastructure in the future
Ok, there is one, but it is not being managed by clients at all – all software solutions are delivered as business service on a subscription basis. No need to do sizing, select hardware, select hosting provider (I hope you don’t think you can handle data centres better than those core players), install and manage installations, etc – the list goes on and on. SAP S/4HANA Cloud is being provided by SAP, who is managing all the technical operations and upgrade for you.
There is no IT in the future
In fact, IT and business teams have merged together in the future to consume and manage business services provided by service providers like SAP. You have heard the catchphrase – “every company is a technology company”. It was first said by Gartner analyst in his keynote in 2013 and become a reality soon after – many business units are making their own IT decisions to help grow their business. SAP S/4HANA Cloud edition for our client has been deployed by business teams in the market without any involvement from IT.
There is no customisation in the future. SAP S/4HANA is a system of record with lifespan for 5-10 years hence need to be standard and stable, while all differentiating features have a much shorter life cycle - hence these need to be considered doing in extension layer using easy plug-n-play architecture instead of any customisations or changes to the core.
Some companies seriously discounting their chances of a fresh start (“greenfield” implementation of SAP S/4HANA) only because of the vast array of the custom ABAP code they have accumulated over the years. In fact, I would say it should be quite opposite - companies need to break free from these archaic customisations that only add complexity to their processes, slowing down their progress and growth. From one hand “Brownfield” or migration projects are by definition IT-led projects, from another hand we know by statistics that IT-led projects don’t usually deliver value and likely to fail.
There are no blueprints in the future. As there are no customisations there is very little need to document the processes that are delivered as standards by SAP. There is no need to spend valuable time creating a document that will go out-of-date as soon as development starts. In the future, following SAP Activate methodology companies will be able to capture how to configure the standard processes of SAP S/4HANA Cloud and cut the deployment time accelerating their time to value.
Some companies already could see the future like this, others have not yet made their turn. Sooner or later all companies will reach a point when consuming ERP as a service via the internet is no longer a distant future but a reality, like an email on a cloud (Yahoo, Gmail, AOL) once have been to many.
So what?
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