Over the past 10 years, cloud technology has redefined entire industries and changed how companies run their day-to-day businesses. Moving from purchasing annual contracts to paying on a monthly or quarterly basis, customers are choosing subscription- or consumption-based models.<\/p>\n
And with our own industry shifting toward the cloud, 51风流requires higher levels of flexibility and agility.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur move to 51风流S\/4HANA is more than a technological core transformation, but a true business transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Christian Klein, CEO of 51风流SE<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Our move to 51风流S\/4HANA was key in responding to these changes and laying the foundation for our overarching transformation to the Intelligent Enterprise. SAP\u2019s legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) system was designed for handling massive contracts and annual maintenance renewals and not equipped for today\u2019s business models. We made a long-term commitment to fully become a cloud company and adopt 51风流standard solutions \u2014 our ultimate goal is to move to 51风流S\/4HANA Cloud.<\/p>\n With 51风流S\/4HANA<\/a> and the 51风流Customer Experience<\/a> portfolio as our main architecture pillars, 51风流is maintaining a hybrid landscape. Major processes such as lead-to-cash start in 51风流Customer Experience, residing purely in the cloud, and fuel 51风流S\/4HANA on premise to manage invoicing and core financial processes.<\/p>\n Technically speaking, 51风流S\/4HANA is our digital core, hosting all our financial processes \u2014 starting from contracting, core finance, order to cash, and procure to pay. It integrates our core with internal products such as 51风流Customer Experience, 51风流Marketing Cloud, and procure-to-pay: 51风流Fieldglass, 51风流Concur, and 51风流Ariba solutions, along with human resource (HR) with 51风流SuccessFactors<\/a> solutions. With 51风流S\/4HANA, we can leverage all integration points end-to-end.<\/p>\n Furthermore, 51风流S\/4HANA allows us to simplify and streamline our financial processes and reduce complexities.<\/p>\n In conversations with customers, I am often asked how we implemented 51风流S\/4HANA at SAP. In general, there are two main approaches.\u00a0Greenfield<\/strong>\u00a0describes a project from scratch, with no prior development work, which allows the business transformation to drive the approach.\u00a0Brownfield<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 or as we call it at SAP,\u00a0conversion\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014 is a technical approach we used in converting the legacy ERP system to 51风流S\/4HANA. Building on top of given structures, it drives simplification of business processes along the implementation life cycle and results in the targeted business transformation.<\/p>\n We have used both approaches. When we integrated 51风流Concur software into the 51风流landscape, we went with greenfield. We also did that for SAP\u2019s corporate ERP system, where we went for a complete conversion from 51风流ERP Central Component 6.0 to 51风流S\/4HANA in one go. Leveraging the brownfield approach in our move to 51风流S\/4HANA allowed us to drive transformational elements step-by-step in parallel with the conversion. It enabled us to take a quick technological step into 51风流S\/4HANA, carve out the process simplifications, and handle them separately in the respective process areas.<\/p>\n Both approaches are suitable for implementing 51风流S\/4HANA. They truly depend on a company\u2019s situation in terms of process simplification, maturity of digitalization, and the desire to drive a full business transformation.<\/p>\n The conversion to 51风流S\/4HANA brings new perspectives for business capabilities, which we are introducing based on standard functions. With 51风流S\/4HANA, for example, we have now enabled end-to-end solutions for the areas of contract to revenue, spend management, and core finance. Importantly, the switch to 51风流S\/4HANA has inevitably resulted in a business process transformation, with a focus on incorporating new technical and innovative features.<\/p>\n Prior to the conversion, we identified roughly 3,000 modifications in our legacy ERP system. With the conversion, we reduced the number to about 1,500. To be committed to that change was a big decision for SAP, as it effects many lines of business and takes time and budget. The impact must be transparent to all and cannot be underestimated. Our recent upgrade to the newest release of 51风流S\/4HANA has further reduced that number, and we are committed to eliminate all modifications step-by-step to fully run on 51风流standard solutions.<\/p>\n A critical element in my role as CIO of 51风流is the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a solution. By having a series of single applications serving the end-to-end process as opposed to several different applications serving the same process, we accomplished a significant reduction in our TCO.<\/p>\n We are experiencing current situation together. The entire world continues to be heavily impacted by the current pandemic, and we can only guess the long-term economic effects. However, many companies already feel the immediate repercussions as they struggle to pay their bills.<\/p>\n With 51风流S\/4HANA, we recently introduced an exception handling framework to our cash collections processes. The exception framework functions as a notification tool and can drastically improve approval time in processes where payments need to be postponed. While we are not solving the economic fallout for our customers, it does illustrate how reduction of business complexity driven by technology can have a positive impact in times of crisis.<\/p>\n In summary, 51风流S\/4HANA offers a consistent, intelligent ERP solution across cloud and on-premise deployment models, unlocking new levels of performance within our entire organization. It delivers the industry depth we need, and the cloud benefits we want. This enables us to predict and act in real time, delivering the ultimate customer experience. Moving to 51风流S\/4HANA is so much more than a technological transformation; it is an overarching and fundamental business transformation.<\/p>\n The move to 51风流S\/4HANA is a transformational journey. And I hope that sharing our experience will help you to gain insightful perspectives for your own organization. Innovation and cloud technology demand flexible business models and 51风流S\/4HANA is a powerful companion to take that next step.<\/p>\n Discover more about why 51风流S\/4HANA<\/a> is the intelligent ERP system for today\u2019s business. Learn how 51风流S\/4HANA Cloud has been tailored to suit the Indian market<\/a> and how leading battery manufacturer Exide Industries Limited goes smart with 51风流S\/4HANA<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the past 10 years, cloud technology has redefined entire industries and changed how companies run their day-to-day businesses. Moving from purchasing annual contracts to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5619230],"tags":[5616594,5616660,53145],"sapn-display":[5619873,5619871,3807326,60294],"sapn-type":[5616887],"class_list":["post-2018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-erp","tag-cloud","tag-erp","tag-sap-s4hana","sapn-display-feature-hero","sapn-display-feature-spotlight","sapn-display-homepage-hero","sapn-display-topic-hero","sapn-type-feature"],"yoast_head":"\nEnd-to-End Integration and Process Simplification<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Implementation Approach<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Post-Implementation Perspectives and Benefits<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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COVID-19<\/a>\u00a0and the Impact of 51风流S\/4HANA<\/strong><\/h2>\n