The impact of the operating model and processes on the S/4HANA migration strategy is the “Brownfield Dilemma” organisations need to address
Some companies choose to convert their SAP ECC to S/4HANA using a Brownfield approach that helps with mandatory simplifications while retaining customisations, development and the full amount of data. Further standardisation effort is needed to achieve the target standardisation level.
Other companies choose to define a fresh template based on a best practice industry solution through a Greenfield approach. The Greenfield approach takes longer but results in higher standardisation potential from the start. However, in this case you cannot migrate all your historical data.
As often customers need more options, than the two ones just outlined, PwC has been developed the Smart Greenfield approach for S4/HANA, conversion programs which allow questions about process reuse to be answered not for the entire system but for the different solutions / application areas separately. You can use the flexibility of our Smart Greenfield approach to remove parts of legacy custom code and historic data.
PwC’s Smart Greenfield enables organisations to get the most out of the business transformation to S4/HANA
What is a Smart Greenfield for SAP S/4HANA?
In this context, within our Smart Greenfield approach different options are possible, and the choice is usually tied to factors such as key drivers, degree of change, business benefits vs. risks and organisation readiness.
1. Smart Greenfield - Mix & Match
Like wiping a slate clean, this approach is essentially a reset button. With Smart Greenfield - Mix & Match, you build a new SAP S/4HANA system, install the pre-configured PwC Industry Edge solution, adopt select custom code, interfaces, or data from the productive ECC and either cut over to the new system (the so-called “big-bang” scenario) or migrate the individual business units sequentially from your legacy SAP ECC application to the new S4/HANA system (“a phased rollout”). For an organisation that has been using SAP for a long time and has accumulated a lot of complicated processes and heavily customised code, this option may be the fresh start needed to overhaul its use of SAP and reduce complexities. This is what the “back to standard” movement among SAP customers is all about. This option is also suited to companies new to SAP, if they are moving their data over from a non-SAP system.
2. Smart Greenfield - Hybrid
Smart Greenfield - Hybrid is probably the most widely used model. At the end of the day, large businesses need to redesign some of their processes and systems, while also maintaining some critical customisations and solutions. Simply starting over from scratch or transferring your data and configuration over to a new version of SAP is going to cost both time and money. Smart Greenfield – Hybrid which cherry-picks the best parts of Greenfield and Brownfield implementations - is best for large companies with a lot of data and complex systems. With the Hybrid option, you mitigate a lot of the risks associated with making the jump to SAP S/4HANA. You can selectively redesign certain aspects of your system, adopt functions from the pre-configured PwC Industry Edge solution while also keeping the ones that work at the same time that you’re cleansing and moving selective Master and Transactional data into the new S4/HANA system.
PwC’s Smart Greenfield approach, our game-changing value proposition for S4/HANA system conversion: Getting your ECC solution into an innovative S/4HANA solution environment
Smart Greenfield relies on our collective experience from many similar projects and our accelerators, but the most important part of the success story is the experience of the team. What differentiates successful data conversion projects is the right combination of experienced resources, with deep SAP knowledge, working alongside your business resources while being supported by templates and tools as accelerators.
How does Smart Greenfield for S4/HANA work?
Smart Greenfield is a two-step approach to build consensus on the change levers works well to achieve the desired level of standardisation.
In the first step, the global process owners are supported to define the target process model and to detail these to process level 4-5 where it is possible to accurately assess the impact to specific business units or geographies. PwC use proven tools and services to capture and analyse key information, including:
- Current SAP ECC system usage (Data, code, interfaces, processes)
- Usage of pre-configured PwC Edge Industry Solution as reference system helps to evaluate the back-to-standard potential. This approach allows for an objective evaluation of the standard functionality and facilitates the discussion on any potential gaps which then should be addressed in a subsequent gap closing workshop.
- Comparing the baseline based on the as-is analysis (comprising process mining and custom code analysis) with the PwC Edge Industry Solution, a first top-down standardisation potential per E2E process can be derived. From there, through a series of fit-to-standard workshops, back-to-standard processes, sub-processes, and process steps can be identified.
- Potential for “back-to-standard” or retirement of configuration
- Assessment of the business reasons to persist with select custom coding, interfaces, or historical Master and Transactional data
- Assessment of the current solution configuration against S/4HANA compatibility, performance, and general code, interface, and data quality.
In the second step, roadshows and alignment meetings are conducted with local and regional process leads to ensure localisation aspects have been sufficiently covered in the target process model. Once the target process is agreed upon by the process owners (global and local) and key users in the organisation, it is important to lay out the roadmap for the process changes to be activated. This is typically the start of the S4/HANA journey for organisations that take the opportunity to simplify, standardise, harmonise, digitise, and automate their processes as part of the upgrade from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA.
