Summary. In this article I will tell you which decisions you should make to find the way through the maze that will lead you to trusted high-quality master data for your RISE with SAP Business Transformation.
Introduction: Bad decisions lead to bad Master Data
As part of RISE with SAP, many decisions have to be made that are highly relevant to the subsequent outcome. A very important one is how you deal with your Master Data.
You can easy feel like you're in a maze, looking for the way to the right exit.
Fortunately there is a way to get your Master Data clean before migrating to S/4HANA and to keep it clean when managing your business with S/4HANA later.
Technology cannot compensate poor data quality. We talk about the business value you’ll gain from your Business Transformation and therefore not more or less it's about your competitiveness.
If you want to learn more about how bad Master Data affects your business operations, read my recent blog "Master Data – lifeblood of the Intelligent Enterprise!" in the context of our "Give Data Purpose Weekly" series.
Is there a viable way through the maze to find the right exit to high-quality Master Data?
Using the latest version of SAP Master Data Governance (MDG) while gaining first experience with SAP S/4HANA at the same time, establishing a single source of truth while your existing systems remain untouched and migrating later with high-quality data - if you are wondering how all this should be possible, you are here spot on.
The following signposts will guide you safely through the maze. I assume that you have already decided on RISE with SAP. However, most of the tips will generally help you to polish your master data to a high gloss before any S/4HANA migration.
The first decision you have to make is whether you want to invest in your Master Data quality at all.
Take the Quality way!
Why: I am very aware that a RISE with SAP Business Transformation means a lot of effort. You may secretly tell yourself that the topic of data quality can be postponed until later. You and I know if we're honest with each other that later means never in this case. If we consider how long the next generation of business software, S/4HANA, will be in use, the question arises as to whether we can really work with bad master data for that long. Now is the time, the opportunity has never been greater.
The second decision you need to make is whether to deploy SAP Master Data Governance on S/4HANA or on SAP ECC.
Take the S/4HANA way!
Why: Some functions like SAP MDG Data Quality Management that can be invaluable to you later are not part of SAP MDG on ECC and will never be. Deduplicate your customers and suppliers through consolidation before the SAP Business Partner is created by the Customer Vendor Integration. Leveraging MDG Key Mapping, you can choose your number ranges the way you want them to be later in your S/4HANA business system.
The third decision you need to make is whether to deploy SAP Master Data Governance on premise or in private cloud.
Take the Cloud way!
Why: You can set up your new SAP MDG system as separate Master Data Hub on S/4HANA in the private cloud without affecting your existing installation in any way and the best thing is that we offer a SAP Master Data Governance Quick Start Package.
The fourth decision you need to make is whether to immediately start entering master data via SAP MDG - Central Governance.
Take the immediate way!
Why: Familiarize your business users with the modern state-of-the-art FIORI interface and give them full benefit from the high degree of automation in master data entry. Build your Master Data organization slowly and don't overwhelm your business users when the jump to S/4HANA will bring so many different new things. They will be grateful to you when the Master Data process has already settled in. You can replicate Master Data from your hub bidirectionally to your ECC systems and at the same time to your new S/4HANA business system when the time is right.
The fifth decision you need to make is whether to leverage SAP MDG Rule Mining leveraging AI to improve Master Data quality.
Take the AI way!
Why: Artificial intelligence was invented by humans for humans. You can use this amazing achievement to find out quality deficits in your master data that you didn't know about before. Based on the measurement results, you can initiate the remediation process directly. It can hardly be more integrated.
The reward for venturing into the maze and finding the right exit is no less than:
- Single source of truth of your Master Data
- Trustworthy, high-quality, complete, refined, standardized and enriched Master Data before migrating to S/4HANA
- Perfect basis for seamlessly transitioning into the "Keep Clean" phase and ensuring that your data quality never erodes again with a closed quality cycle
- Enjoying your new technology, in this case your new S/4HANA system
- Added business value and a very big step towards to becoming a data-driven company
- Possibility of running embedded analytics on your operational data in S/4HANA in order to be able to derive and conduct real actions from your insights based on trustworthy Master Data
If you have any questions about SAP Master Data Governance, leave them in SAP Community Q&A,visit our SAP Community topic page or the Frequently asked questions about SAP Master Data Governance, cloud edition.
Join us for our #GiveDataPurpose Trusted Data Workshop where we work together with you to align your business goals and your data management capabilities in order to provision the right platform. We touch new trends such as Data Mesh, Data Fabric, Data Culture etc. to show possibilities to follow them with SAP Business Technology Platform.
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