Migrating to a new system such as SAP’s (News - Alert) S/4HANA is no small undertaking. Many a systems migration project has gone over budget and been long on implementation time.
Usually the challenges come from improper planning, however. This is good news and bad news for businesses; the road to a smooth migration exists, but it requires thoughtful guidance by the project manager who leads the move to a new system.
There are several broad steps that businesses should focus on when preparing for the move to a new system. These steps include:
- Compliance: Is the business able to move data technically and in a regulatory framework?
- Right-sizing: Is only the most important data being moved, and not legacy data of little practical use?
- Modernizing: Is there good data quality and proper data governance in place?
- Performant: Is the data and the system optimized?
- Simple: Is the system simplified to the right level to avoid unnecessary complexity?
Businesses can address these necessary steps in many ways. A recent blog post by BackOffice Associates lays out four steps that can help businesses achieve these ends.
First, the BackOffice blog post recommends that businesses take the time to assess their systems and the data in use.
“Knowing where you stand before you make a decision on how, when and where to move data is important information,” noted the blog.
Second, identify and map business processes to the data. Bring in experts to help with this, as it both is an important and a complex process.
Third, make sure to develop a data strategy. This is key for orchestrating the work and traffic required for a successful systems move.
Finally, prepare and advocate for the benefits of moving to the new system.
“This will help you champion the solution, get buy-in from relevant departments across the company (which will be integral in supporting your program), and raise the funding needed to make these changes,” noted the BackOffice blog post.
Moving to a new system is not easy. But with care, it also doesn’t have to be a nightmare.