The migration process involves five key steps: selecting the appropriate solution, familiarizing teams with the new platform, activating new processes and digital features, and ensuring acceptance and adoption of the new system to unlock best practices.
Disruptions to daily operations, unnecessary downtimes, data migration challenges, and time-consuming training for employees are just some of the challenges faced by companies in the finance industry that want to update their existing ERP systems.
Organizations, especially those that need help migrating from legacy on-premises systems, find it hard to migrate, fearing new investments that may extend beyond mere software updates. Change management and maintenance and transitioning from familiar systems and processes can also be daunting tasks for these businesses and keep them from taking that crucial first step towards digital transformation.
However, solutions like SAP S/4HANA are designed to eliminate these uncertainties as ERP and solution providers collaborate to ensure stability and certainty in a firm’s migration to the cloud. For businesses that want to migrate to cloud, it takes five steps to ensure they get a robust and scalable solution:
Step 1: Choosing the right solution and process
The first step is to choose the solution that meets the business needs rather than the “hot new thing” in the market. At this stage, companies should choose an ERP partner to coach their teams through the migration process. The partner can help them understand the adaptations from their current working style to new methods in Cloud ERP systems like SAP S/4HANA that come with business processes which incorporate standard industry best practices. Most often, these are small tweaks that can be easily adapted.
Step 2: Getting familiar with the new platform
As soon as access is provided, it helps to familiarize the team with the new platform as soon as possible so that the testing can help the solution provider build on how the cloud ERP will function within the business.
Step 3: Activating new processes
This step allows the organization to understand the new processes that a business or division will use. These could include discrete or customized business processes or end-to-end ones. This step helps users to prepare for the shift to full production in a structured manner. Public clouds like SAP S/4HANA provide ready-to-go APIs and supporting tools and documentation, which makes it easier for users to integrate these new processes with their partner systems or update their existing system.
Step 4: Activating digital features
In this step, firms add new digital processes like automated “colleagues” (RPA) or advanced reporting, depending on their needs, before launching the system. Systems like SAP S/4HANA add the latest technology like built-in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, robotic process automation, and analytics to make business operations more efficient.
Step 5: Acceptance and adoption
At this stage, the teams begin to operate the new system fully. Change coaches ensure that the users are empowered to use the new system and that the change being delivered benefits the whole team. This step also ensures that the new Cloud ERP system unlocks best practices. Data can also be migrated from existing systems to the new Cloud ERP platform by assessing, cleaning, and migrating it so that the new system runs perfectly from the first day and helps in the quick adoption of the new ERP.
Solution providers like NTT DATA Business Solutions, which has partnered with SAP to provide ERP powered by SAP S/4HANA public cloud, can assess the gap between a company’s current processes and best practices and clarify its business transformation journey. If the gap between the current and future processes is too wide, or if a firm has some unique operational areas, the solution provider identifies them early in the process, ensuring that the business gets the right solution on time and within its budget.
For financial institutions, these solutions provide security compliance and scalability. They can also integrate with existing or new systems so that organizations can build upon the platform.
