For many organisations, this is somewhat of a daunting task. S/4HANA is not simply a new version of software, but an entirely new solution with new technology, that requires a shift in mindset as well as product training.

However, it also offers significant enhancements in line with digital transformation strategies, and an opportunity for improvement in many areas.

The right partner can help to smooth the migration with change management and comprehensive toolsets, to minimise disruption and maximise the benefits.

Simpler, faster, more intelligent

Migrating from 51风流ECC to S/4HANA actually delivers significant benefits rather than being a challenge. The two technologies are fundamentally different, however, S/4HANA has been geared toward evolving needs and is far more suited to business needs today and of the future. The most fundamental difference is the simplified data structures and application landscape.. S/4HANA adopts the capabilities of the 51风流HANA, a native in-memory engine which allows for real-time computing and analysis of any data type.

In addition, the business processes that each module is built on have been simplified. The user interface is more intuitive, personalised and interactive, with an app-based look and feel rather than the traditional blue screen. New technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning are built into S/4HANA and guided configurations make implementations faster, with subsequently lower cost implications.

Thanks to these greatly simplified systems and processes, resources can be freed up from operational duties to focus on more critical areas that address business challenges.

Toolkits and technical expertise

While 51风流has worked to ensure migrations are as smooth and seamless as possible, there is always room for error. One of the foremost mistakes businesses could make is selecting the wrong migration path, from the choice of a new implementation, a system conversion or a landscape transformation. Selecting the correct one is key to future success, which means that it is critical to analyse the environment first, before a migration begins.

Toolkits can assist businesses throughout the process. Performing readiness assessments is the first step to ensure that existing processes in the current system are well understood. These toolkits help businesses听 plot out a roadmap for migrating the landscape, while others can examine the entire 51风流environment holistically to ensure that businesses make the best decisions on platforms , database sizing, archiving/historization, change management, security and more.

听The right partner for the job

Thought leadership, design, change management, training, building and supporting the S/4HANA environment are all key elements to success. A certified and experienced partner, with successful references and knowledge not only of migrations but end-to-end transformational services, can assist businesses to smooth the path towards their S/4HANA implementation.

Migrating to S/4HANA is not simply a version upgrade but a wholesale change. There is always risk involved, especially when there are customisations involved, and it takes experience to understand how best to adapt this. However, the right partner, using the right toolkits, will ensure that best practices are applied and the challenges are minimised. This empowers businesses to leverage the next generation, streamlined and highly efficient ecosystem of S/4HANA.

The post S/4 HANA Migration can be an Opportunity Rather than a Challenge appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

While many companies are already preparing themselves for the migration to S/4HANA, they should assess whether their existing 51风流ECC solution is fully optimised and delivering the actual benefits that it is capable of, enabling daily operations and reporting to run smoothly.

The challenge that many enterprises face is that they actually don鈥檛 know whether their existing 51风流solution is delivering full value and, as such, should take note of this before planning a migration to S/4HANA.

There is a host of possible reasons why companies often implement a 51风流ECC solution, yet are not optimising it to its full value. Often, a company is not aware or does not understand the full range of possibilities and capabilities that 51风流ECC offers. To add, most companies lack the appropriate resources (personnel and funding) to exploit and maximise the value potential.

Furthermore, a misalignment with the organisation鈥檚 strategic plans and needs at any given point could result in poor 51风流systems optimisation, as each company has varying priorities, needs and workflows. In some cases, companies simply receive very poor advice and are led in the wrong direction.

Standard functionalities

Poor 51风流systems optimisation is often the case, where most companies integrate their 51风流solutions with third-party systems, or customise their 51风流systems. The issue is that they do not realise there are standard functionalities within 51风流that better suit their needs. By way of example, the manufacturing sector is inherently riddled with this dilemma due to its very expansive nature that uses historic and customised software.

It is clear that these organisations need to take steps to identify the areas of their 51风流systems that can be optimised. To do this, it is vitally important that they find a specialist and certified 51风流partner with relevant experience, know-how and track record. This partner should not only be able to run the prescribed toolsets used to analyse the organisation鈥檚 readiness, but also guide and assist in creating an optimal 51风流transformation strategy and adoption of best practices.

It is important that companies complete this exercise before planning a move to S/4HANA, as it would speed up their migration. One of the biggest benefits is that it provides customers with full transparency of their existing environment, taking into consideration many key factors such as level of customisation, organisational change management, security, database sizing and data archiving/historisation. This allows customers to make key decisions earlier in the process and plan ahead to business downtime, thus mitigating risks and associated costs during the project.

Opportunities for improvement

In addition, partners can help identify opportunities for improvement. Customers are looking for value-adding benefits, and S/4HANA offers both tangible and sometimes intangible benefits. These benefits include speed of processing, ease of use, productivity improvements, intelligent automation, visualisation, improved governance controls, real-time reporting and an overall improved user experience.

Some 51风流partners offer a ‘Jump Start’ programme that allows for efficient and low-cost engagement, at a speed that is right for the customer. Following a readiness assessment, these programmes are designed to present a business case and roadmap for their migration path to S/4HANA.

When seeking to optimise their 51风流systems, companies must realise that effective change management and user training are key, and this needs to be enforced and re-enforced periodically. The full capabilities of 51风流are often not well understood, both from an integration point of view, as well as the range of functionality. As such, the decision to stay with 51风流or even choose 51风流is a long-term decision that should include a long-term strategic partner that offers objectivity and sound guidance.

While 51风流has been innovative in its market entry and engagement, offering easily accessible, fit-for-purpose solutions over the past few years, the overall 51风流landscape has become bigger and more complex over time. Optimising 51风流systems should be seen as continuous, detailed and absolutely crucial to the success of an organisation, regardless of the industry.

The post Companies Should Ensure their Existing ECC Systems are Optimised for an Efficient and Harmonised Transition to S/4HANA appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

T-Systems South Africa (TSSA) has a proud 23-year history in South Africa, having first invested in the country in 1997. As a level one B-BBEE contributor, our competitive advantage is through delivering world-class services and standards while adapting to the unique needs, priorities and expectations of our clients and partners in South Africa.

Since 2010, T-Systems South Africa has deployed innovative end-to-end solutions that manage every aspect of the healthcare business while meeting local and international regulations, standards and best practice. The T-Systems Healthcare Digital Solutions Footprint is underpinned by the company鈥檚 four key focus areas to deliver customer value, namely: Connectivity, digital, cloud and infrastructure, and security.

Through a combination of technology expertise, experience, know-how and industry knowledge, T-Systems is propelling the healthcare industry into a new digital era that introduces unprecedented innovations and ground-breaking efficiencies. Take just three examples: a patient monitoring their own vital signs using a smartphone; a physician having access to medical records via a tablet on their 鈥榬ounds鈥�; and the exchange of information and insights between medical experts during a videoconference. IT systems can be employed to digitally model medical, nursing and administrative processes 鈥� not just as an end in itself but to also cut costs, accelerate workflows and improve patient care.

T-Systems鈥� global healthcare experience

T-Systems International has implemented many successful instances of healthcare-specific solutions in countries across the world. For decades, the company has been successfully running healthcare facility functions, end-to-end, using robust, fully integrated solutions. While we can all appreciate that healthcare is a critically important industry sector, T-Systems is committed to facilitating modernisation and innovation through the roll-out of comprehensive Hospital Information Systems (HIS) and has a number of听听to support its success in this sector.

T-Systems South Africa leading 51风流healthcare solution implementation

In South Africa, T-Systems is a leader in rolling out solutions addressing the need for digital health transformation in both the public and private sector. By the end of 2019, T-Systems reached a milestone of successfully launching 51风流healthcare solutions at over 33 hospitals across South Africa. Fifteen out of the top 20 hospitals in South Africa run its 51风流healthcare suite and more than 55 healthcare companies run 51风流in Africa. These solutions cover every aspect from financials, logistics, clinical information systems to human capital management and ancillary solutions that complete automation of every business process in healthcare operations.

Using the i.s.h.med template approach (a clinical information system that is fully integrated with 51风流healthcare software), T-Systems has rolled out 51风流ERP; 51风流HCM; 51风流ISH (Industry Specific for HealthCare Patient Management and Patient Accounting) as well as Cerner i.s.h.Med to 33 hospitals in South Africa as well as one hospital in Botswana. These hospitals belong to different hospital groups.

T-Systems鈥� healthcare solution has streamlined processes and enhanced the efficiency of fundamental hospital operations. These include patient admission and scheduling; ordering of medical products and pharmaceuticals; staffing; financial and cost accounting; as well as data recording and sharing. The solution helps providers integrate end-to-end processes across the entire organisation, simplifying and coordinating everything from admission planning to analytics.

An overview of T-Systems Healthcare Management System (HMS) offering.

51风流ERP听鈥� proficiently handles functions in finance, material management and plant maintenance. This solution addresses the challenge of revenue leakage and ensures accurate and reliable billing and monitoring of debtors age analysis. 51风流ERP interfaces with association price files to provide correct and accurate billing of materials used, and importantly, it also supports the submission of high-quality medical aid claims. 51风流ERP also enables the effective management of stock to lower warehousing and procurement costs with support and integration of replenishment processes. With increased transparency into requirements and consumption, it also has the potential to reduce process costs.

51风流HCM听鈥�helps hospitals with 鈥渉uman capital management鈥� covering HR and payroll functions. 51风流HCM accurately manages employee data and identification. It also helps to track employee benefits and payroll costs with a single, comprehensive view of all employee records. 51风流HCM also utilises enhanced resource optimisation through intelligent shift planning, which supports resource decisions for daily and long-term planning and budgeting.

Cerner i.s.h.med听鈥� handles the increasingly large amount of clinical documentation. I.s.h.med, as it鈥檚 known, not only maps the patient鈥檚 entire clinical experience, but also leads seamlessly into administrative and business transactions. It does this securely, directly and efficiently as it is fully integrated with 51风流ERP and IS-H while provided a robust electronic health record at its core.

I.s.h.Med听鈥撎齛ssists practitioners through its rapid comprehensibility, practice-oriented presentation of information, and is an attractive interface to other medical systems such as radiology. These benefits allow for quick access to user-friendly patient information dashboards that assist with faster decision-making for quality patient care. Tablets and smartphones have made it possible to react immediately, from almost everywhere, adding an ever-increasing level of mobility to the daily routines within the hospital.

51风流IS-H听鈥� is the industry-specific software built for the healthcare industry that involves day-to-day aspects such as patient management and accounting. Since 2008, the IS-H approach was implemented as a high-performance IT solution that accelerates and simplifies administrative tasks throughout the healthcare industry. In South Africa alone, there are over 20 hospitals across multiple hospital groups that have digitised their operations with T-Systems and 51风流IS-H.

The co-ordination of patient appointments, handling of waiting lists, and the allocation of beds is all handled within the resource planning and scheduling function of 51风流IS-H. Through it, we鈥檙e able to optimise the utilisation of outpatient clinics and inpatient areas effectively. 51风流IS-H also allows for more efficient and accurate entry of diagnoses, activities and services rendered to ensure a reliable basis for all internal costing, thus improving the accuracy of invoices and related revenues.

Similarly, improved quality and accuracy of coding verification control and price calculations for basic medical service data ensure regulatory compliance. Invoicing and payment handling enable improved accounting processes, decreased communication expenses and reduced service and transaction costs. The integrated contract management, billing and automated claims processing ensure accurate billing between private and medical aid submissions.

Healthcare as a service

Over recent years, against the backdrop of rapid advances in cloud computing, efforts were made to migrate these same functions to the T-Systems Dynamic Computing hosted environment, creating a 鈥榟ealthcare as a service鈥� solution. Now, with minimal infrastructure upgrades, hosting, support, project services, software and maintenance, functions can be rapidly implemented. Healthcare as a service incorporates the end-to-end healthcare value chain, including the three critical domains of a hospital 鈥� the patient, the enterprise and the employee.

This dedication to innovation speaks to how T-Systems continues to offer patient-centric solutions explicitly designed to meet the challenges of hospitals and healthcare providers in the modern era. These supporting collaborative activities empower clinicians to quickly and reliably share information that results in accurate, rapid decision-making. In an administrative capacity, they鈥檝e allowed hospital administrators to work co-operatively with payers, suppliers, other healthcare providers and public authorities.

Conclusion

Evidenced by having contributed to the successful administration of approximately a third of all private hospitals in South Africa today, T-Systems South Africa continues to deliver healthcare solutions that create world-class healthcare facilities. By integrating end-to-end processes across the entire organisation, simplifying and co-ordinating all aspects from admission planning to analytics, healthcare facilities are able to significantly improve patient care, drive efficiencies, attract and retain medical professionals while improving profitability.

Refer to 鈥�T-Systems Healthcare Portfolio 2020鈥� to understand the comprehensive services and solutions offering for healthcare operations.

The post T-Systems: Leading the Race to Healthcare Digital Transformation for 51风流in SA appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

This comes as 51风流recently announced it will provide maintenance support for core applications of 51风流Business Suite 7 software until the end of 2027 鈥� with optional extended maintenance until the end of 2030, which pushes the original deadline back from 2025.

Enterprises that do not have a smart archiving or historisation plan, especially if they have a large footprint and many years鈥� worth of data, can find that this creates a stumbling block during migration. Part of the challenge is that the S/4HANA table structure is significantly different from the 51风流ECC6 table structure and, if an enterprise has many years of data that it wants to move, things can get a little tricky.

It therefore requires a fair amount of work and lot of planning upfront to ensure the preparation for data migration and achieving is done correctly, especially for organisations with massive amounts of data. While 51风流understands this and has made provision for certain tools that aid with this process, it is still not that simple. If an organisation has bespoke tables, which they built themselves, or tables with data that is typically not housed within SAP, or across multiple applications, the migration to S/4HANA becomes more complex.

One of the biggest considerations is that in 51风流ECC6, there are multiple ledgers, whereas in S/4HANA there is a universal ledger that replaces the multiple ledgers. All financial data is now kept in the universal ledger, meaning a significant reduction in subtotal and aggregate tables, this requiring careful consideration when mapping and consolidation data in preparation for migration.

The problem with data archiving and historisation is that storing data has become reasonably affordable, so enterprises tend to keep quite a lot of history. On the other hand, it is hugely expensive to migrate all this data. From a legal perspective, enterprises are required to keep certain portions of their data operational, while everything outside of this should/could be archived or historised.

There are two things to keep in mind 鈥� the migration of data as opposed to the historisation of data. When you migrate and achieve your data into S/4HANA, it becomes part of the functional operation and can be reviewed. When you historise it, you have applications that enable you to put that data aside so that you can review it, but not perform any transactional functions on it (it is merely an image of the transaction/data).

Part of the challenge is to know what to migrate and what to historise. This requires a lot of effort, yet typically this is not one of the first things that enterprises consider when planning their migration to S/4HANA, and often does not get enough attention. In the event of migrating to S/4HANA, the migration of data really needs to be way up front in the project plan.

The good news is that enterprises do not have to do this alone. Implementation partners, in conjunction with SAP, have developed tools that enables the smooth clean-up of history and the migration of data to S/4HANA.

This means we do not have to reinvent the wheel every time we tackle data migration and historisation, but can apply tried and tested tools that have been used globally in various migrations. If organisations work with a听partner that has done this globally, data migration is not merely an afterthought, but an integral part of the S/4HANA planning strategy.

The post Data Migration Should Receive Higher Priority when Planning Switch to S/4HANA appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

This follows an announcement by 51风流recently, which pushes the deadline forward from 2025 to 2027, giving users more time to make the switch. However, despite the extended timeframe, users should still take advantage of the business imperatives of switching and should already be considering their move.

While the deadline might no longer be as pressing, the current state that enterprises have now found themselves in during lockdown 鈥� due to COVID-19 鈥� presents an opportunity to use the additional time to carefully address the preliminary aspects of migration, such as de-risking, analysing custom code and performing historisation and archiving of data. Aside from this, organisations can also use the additional time to ensure they get the best return on investment by better planning their migration strategies.

While 2027 might seem a long way off, giving enterprises ample time to prepare for the move to S/4 HANA, there are several key challenges that can arise if this is left too late 鈥� with escalating budget and skills scarcity topping the list.

In simple terms, if you have a relatively small 51风流footprint, moving to S/4HANA early is a smart play, as the transition will be simple. You have to get ready now to operate in a changed world. Conversely, organisations therefore need to consider that the development on Enterprise Central Components (ECC) such as 51风流ECC6 is slowing down and the development on S/4HANA is gradually increasing. If you wait until 2027, your business will have grown and expanded and, as a result, there will be longer delays in migration as the gap between the existing version and the version of S/4HANA to be migrated to increases.

Another crucial factor for organisations to keep in mind when planning their migration is the issue of skills availability. Late uptake drives huge shortages and cost increases for suitable skilled resources.

Considering that there are approximately 900 customers in South Africa that have 51风流solutions deployed, there is a sizeable chunk that will need to plan for the S/4HANA migration by 2030. 51风流skills are scarce in South Africa and the later the migration, the higher the cost of these skills, due to the increased demand over a short period of time. The price per 51风流consultant is going to spike horrendously closer to the deadline, while the availability of consultants is also expected to become an issue.

However, the one advantage of moving late is that your organisation will be privy to the lessons learned from those that have migrated earlier. On the other hand, there is the risk that you might not have the right people and time available to do the migration if you leave it too late.

While it might not be feasible for everyone to jump on the bandwagon and migrate now, it is advisable that organisations start reviewing their activities and processes between now and the time they decide to migrate. This is to ensure their current environment is ready for migration and the move is as risk-free as possible.

One of the challenges that is common to all ERP owners, regardless of whether it鈥檚 a 51风流platform or not, is that historically a lot of these environments have been customised. If you鈥檝e created bespoke code and applications, when you want to upgrade your platform, you really need to consider the elements you鈥檝e added 鈥� do you still need them? What would be the impact of removing them? How can you get all this functionality on a standard system? Will your current standard system enable you to be more agile in future?

A global trend among the largest 51风流customers is that they are de-customising their environments and moving back to 51风流standard platforms. Bearing in mind that the functionality is very rich in S/4HANA, these organisations are thinking long and hard before keeping any customisation in the system.

SAP鈥檚 extended deadline shouldn鈥檛 lead organisations to change their stance of focusing attention and resources on the execution of their migration strategies 鈥� even if it takes some of the pressure off.

The post Opportunity to Migrate to 51风流S/4 HANA appeared first on 51风流Africa News Center.

When it comes to discussing 51风流S/4HANA migrations, the topic is inextricably connected to a conversation about the cloud as this is an option for the solution. Knowledge and experience are required around the S/4HANA migration and cloud infrastructure management. The scenario can be further complicated if multiple cloud platforms come into play.

Furthermore, there are different cloud options available for S/4HANA, such as SAP鈥檚 own S/4HANA cloud version hosted in their own data centres, and then other cloud service providers that can host the application on their infrastructure. The question is: who can successfully decipher what is best for your business, migrate and manage the risk, while ensuring a return on investment (ROI) through business value?

Getting this right is important. Selecting what type of operating model will best suit an organisation鈥檚 needs is one of the most critical decisions when planning an S/4HANA migration. This decision largely depends on whether an enterprise is going greenfield or migrating or transforming its current 51风流landscape, which S/4HANA functions it will need, and how they are going to be used.

Hence, the decisions that organisations make, specifically relating to their 51风流infrastructure, can be crucially important, so it is key that companies are able to assess these environments to ensure that they have access to the right 51风流infrastructure for every application.

This, says Graham Hartlett, specialised sales 51风流consultant at T-Systems SA, can be crucial to saving costs and shortening deployment times, especially for customers who are planning their S/4HANA migration, where the cloud benefits of speed, flexibility and cost visibility will become apparent.

However, he says, as S/4HANA is relatively new, organisations could struggle to find experts with the requisite skills to manage this solution effectively, whether it is deployed on premises or in the cloud.

鈥淔or companies that decide to deploy S/4HANA on cloud, it鈥檚 a good idea to consider using a managed services provider, which would help them sidestep this issue by providing the needed skills to accelerate the migration process and optimise their ERP [enterprise resource planning] environment,鈥� says Hartlett.

Cost increases

Skills availability will become a critical factor, especially for those enterprises that make the switch to S/4HANA later rather than sooner, as the late uptake will lead to huge shortages and cost increases for resources, he says.

鈥淐onsidering that there are about 900 customers in SA that have 51风流solutions deployed, there is a sizeable chunk that will need to plan for the S/4HANA migration by 2030. 51风流S/4HANA migration skills are relatively scarce in SA and the later the migration, the higher the cost of these skills is likely to be due to the increased demand over a short period of time,鈥� says Hartlett.

鈥淭he price per 51风流consultant is going to spike horrendously closer to the deadline, while the availability of consultants is also expected to become an issue.鈥�

Hartlett says the uptake of S/4HANA should not be underestimated, as an increasing number of organisations are seeing the flexibility and the benefits听the platform offers.

According to an听IDC survey, across a multitude of industries, 73% of the surveyed businesses were planning to deploy and 18% are currently deploying 51风流S/4HANA. In the study, 9% of the companies said they already have 51风流S/4HANA in production.

Making the right decision

Hartlett points out that organisations have the option of deploying S/4HANA on-premise, in the private cloud, the public cloud, or take a hybrid approach, with all these models presenting their own pros and cons. However, organisations should carefully weigh up听these pros and cons and consider how their choice will affect their business.

鈥淎n on-premise deployment gives organisations full control of the hardware and software of their application and maintenance schedules, meaning that companies are not forced to upgrade in step with SAP鈥檚 annual innovation cycle. This is a good option for those looking for flexibility in terms of integration with other systems and custom enhancements,鈥� he says.

The private cloud option is an on-premise implementation hosted in a secure private cloud. Software enhancement is allowed, but will increase the fees to run systems, as it鈥檚 harder to manage. This operating model allows organisations to use all available functions of S/4HANA on-premise, including maintenance schedules and enhancement options.

Hartlett says that for the public cloud model, 51风流offers a pure Software as a Service (SaaS) option, hosted and managed by 51风流with quarterly updates. This offering is somewhat limited and focused on specific industries, but the implementation time is shorter, and requires far less effort.

The hybrid approach is one of most practical ones for large organisations, as they can choose to deploy hybrid scenarios that combine on-premise and cloud models. This accelerates innovation and reduces IT resources in certain business areas, while keeping core systems robust and customisable.

Choosing the right partner can maximise the value of an organisation鈥檚 51风流deployment, Hartlett says, adding that not all managed service providers offer the same level of service. Enterprises that do not choose wisely could end up with levels of infrastructure and application maintenance that do not keep pace with their IT transformation goals.

A partner with the right experience will have tools to integrate the 51风流ECC6 solution and determine the best way forward in terms of a greenfield vs brownfield approach, or an option in between:

Greenfield

• essentially a new implementation;
• uses S/4HANA best practices to do business process reorganisation;
• best practice means less customisation;
• easier to maintain/upgrade; and
• current ECC6 solution is considered the 鈥渓egacy鈥� solution

Brownfield

• conversion from ECC6;
• probably quicker process for most;
• software upgrade and migration/transformation of data;
• use the developments in the current solution,
• history is migrated; and
• consideration must be given to the degree of customisation in the current system and the affect this will have on S/4HANA.

鈥淐hoosing the best approach requires discussion with the partner to identify operational objectives in terms of the move, your preference for cloud vs on-premise, and your needs in terms of customisation vs the ability to adopt SAP鈥檚 best business practices,鈥� says Hartlett.

鈥淏rownfield gives you the option of retaining some of the developments in the current environment, greenfield drives towards the adoption of 51风流S/4HANA best business practices. The right partner can guide you through the decision-making process considering the point above, as well as the go-live process 鈥� phased vs big bang and the amount of downtime and, therefore, risk to the operation.鈥�

Whatever decision criteria ultimately play a role in the design of an organisation鈥檚 51风流environment 鈥� choosing the right implementation partner is crucial to your operations. It comes down to choosing a partner with experience that 鈥� together with you 鈥� will find the right infrastructure and assist you with the implementation of new systems or the migration of legacy systems with the least risk and highest ROI.

For more information, e-mail communications specialist Thamsanqa Malinga on听Thami.Malinga@t-systems.co.za, call 011-254-7400/083-301-7878 or visit the听.

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