Until now what you have learnt, seen, read & experienced is that SA S/4HANA Central Finance is a successful deployment option but have you thought that even if there is a single ERP (let us say ECC) is in scope the Central Finance deployment can be a possible to go option. Let us discuss in detail and during a discussion the assumption is that, we have one ERP in the landscape as of now.
When SAP ECC is in existence:
When an organization has SAP ECC already up & running for sure over the period (may be by 2027), the sunset has to happen and S/4HANA will come in picture. In this case, organization will plan to implement SAP S/4HANA with migration as a possible deployment option but it carries some overheads:
- Disruption to existing business
- No scope of process change/improvement with the background what organizations has thought in last few years as areas of improvement
- Carry over all old (& even bed ridden) customizations to the new system which may or may not fit for future purposes and may be just a technical debt in the system
- Implementation approach - it may be possibly big bang.
Now, if the same organization plans to implement SAP S/4HANA with Central Finance as a deployment option what can be the benefits (with of course some cons)
- No disruption to the existing processes
- Implement replication first, then plan for financial processes and then bring logistics processes. Overall process will give some time to organization for futuristic thinking rather than just go with what is already implemented
- Use new functionalities of SAP rather than using all old customizations. Of course there will be some customizations but they should be based on new design & future vision
- It gives opportunity to implement S/4HANA in phased manner
- Drawback of this scenario is that dual maintenance of systems (SAP ECC & SAP S/4HANA needs to be taken care for few years from infrastructure, hosting & application management (AMS) perspective.
- Possibility of any M&A integration is coming up in next few years as a part of business strategy
A quick comparison
When single or multiple Non-SAP ERP is in existence:
In case the organization is on any other system (non-SAP) and the vision is to go to SAP in future then that is a perfect approach.
- Implement Central Finance & start data replication
- Start unleashing the potential of SAP starting with reporting & fiori apps
- Then move to financial transactions like Central Payments etc
- Get business users and It community aware about SAP S/4HANA
- Plan future vision with inclusion of logistics processes on top of finance
- Implement process improvements by redesigning as needed
- No disruption as project & operations (from ERP standpoint) are completely separate
so in all cases SAP Central Finance fits as a deployment model:
- When single SAP ECC is in existence
- When multiple ERPs exists
- When single Non-SAP ERP exists & organization wants to get benefits of innovation built & planned to be built by SAP with HANA and other new technologies
Happy reading…
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