Seizing Opportunities in Digital Financial Transformation by Migrating from SAP ECC to S/4HANA

With every accounting close, businesses running SAP ECC become increasingly adept at operating and managing their financial software. The high level of comfort with the existing systems prompts them to ask, “Do we really need an upgrade of our SAP systems?”

The short answer is, yes.

While users may be comfortable with the status quo, an upgrade to S/4HANA imparts the strategic foresight, analytical capabilities, and enhanced processes, that the business is unaware it is lacking.

Core areas of focus in financial transformation

Finance is integral to value creation across the business. All workstreams from sales, logistics, manufacturing, supply chain, to HR, eventually converge into finance.

A financial transformation, therefore, impacts the whole organization. Through its implementation, it addresses several inconsistencies, inefficiencies and anomalies that exist undetected in the organization.

Siloed processes leading to inconsistent methodologies. When functions within the same organization work in siloes, it leads to variance in approaches to computation of key performance indicators. SAP S/4HANA integrates processes and processes flows to standardize terms, KPIs and processes to generate reliable operational and financial reports that drive value within an organization.

Processes outside the ERP eco system. ECC users often add processes or software outside the SAP source system, not advised to the fact that SAP S/4HANA already has built-in capabilities. During a transformation, SAP practitioners highlight these and help businesses eliminate external addons while also training them to use built-in tools that reduce costs and streamline their processes.

Upgrades offer newer, better solutions. S/4HANA implementations and the transformations it brings enable Finance and Accounting to shift from a number crunching and processing tasks role to that of a more strategic decision-making partner for the business. It evolves from a back-office activity as a counter of transactions and balancing the books, to growing and enabling business value.

What an upgrade implies

An upgrade integrates disparate systems to create cohesive, consolidated process workflows. Businesses can take the opportunity to evaluate and potentially do away with unwarranted customizations and maintenance with S/4’s process optimizations.

The combination of SAP best practices, guided configuration, and implementation methodology delivers a modern and standardized solution for the business processes.

An S/4HANA financial transformation reprioritizes financial reporting to become more analytical and timelier, recalibrating the focus of the finance function from basic accounting and reporting function to business enablement. Organizations are moving from spending time closing the financial calendar, to interpreting and reacting to the data their new system provides.

Opportunity for accelerated growth

An SAP S/4HANA implementation is an opportunity to overhaul the core systems, set right broken processes and reconstruct the strategies to become efficient, value-driven, standardized, and to limit replication.

A successful financial transformation impacts all functions, opening the floodgates to better business partnering. It accelerates the time-to-process, helps businesses run lean processes, and becomes more cost-effective and aligned with business goals.

Microexcel is an SAP partner. Our team of SAP practitioners and consultants are key enablers to drive your digital finance transformation and meet broader strategic goals that strengthen your business. Talk to us for your Digital Transformation needs.