For organizations considering SAP S/4HANA Cloud, the implementation methodology can often feel just as important as the technology itself. One of the key enablers of a successful deployment is SAP Activate—a structured, flexible framework designed to guide businesses through every phase of the transition. Drawing on years of experience in ERP projects, I’ve seen firsthand how Activate provides clarity and consistency, ensuring projects stay on track while aligning with business goals. In this article, I’ll break down each phase of the SAP Activate methodology to provide a clear understanding of how it supports the S/4HANA Cloud journey.
Discover
The Discover phase initiates your journey by exploring how SAP S/4HANA Cloud can align with and support your business objectives. This phase is about assessing the solution’s potential fit and value for your organization.
Key activities include:
Exploring SAP’s capabilities: Engage with trials, demos, and case studies to understand the functionalities of S/4HANA Cloud.
Evaluating alignment: Assess how the solution integrates with your operational and strategic goals.
Outlining a transformation vision: Develop a high-level roadmap for your digital transformation.
This phase emphasizes creating a shared understanding of the benefits S/4HANA Cloud can bring to your business.
Prepare
The Prepare phase lays the groundwork for your project. By its conclusion, you should have a solid project plan, an assembled team, and a defined governance structure, providing a clear path forward.
Key activities include:
Assembling the implementation team: Bring together internal and external stakeholders essential for the project.
Defining project parameters: Establish timelines, milestones, and governance frameworks.
Setting up the initial system landscape: Prepare your SAP environment and conduct readiness assessments.
A well-prepared start in this phase minimizes risks and prevents unnecessary delays in subsequent stages.
Explore
In the Explore phase, the focus shifts to understanding how S/4HANA Cloud’s standard processes can address your business needs. This is achieved through fit-to-standard workshops, which compare your current processes against SAP’s best practices.
Key activities include:
Mapping business processes: Align your operations with S/4HANA’s predefined workflows.
Identifying gaps: Determine areas where additional configuration or customization may be necessary.
Refining project scope: Adjust the project plan based on insights gained during this phase.
This phase is crucial for aligning your business processes with SAP’s standardized solutions, minimizing customization, and enabling future scalability.
Realise
The Realize phase brings the insights from the Explore phase to life through system configuration and testing.
Key activities include:
Configuring the system: Set up S/4HANA Cloud based on your specific business requirements.
Migrating data: Transfer data from legacy systems into the new environment.
Conducting testing: Perform unit and integration tests to ensure the system functions as intended.
This phase is about building a system that meets your needs and resolving any issues early to ensure a smooth go-live.
Deploy
The Deploy phase focuses on transitioning from the project environment to live operations.
Key activities include:
Finalizing preparations: Complete data migration and system configurations.
Training end-users: Ensure your team is equipped to use the new system effectively.
Transitioning to support: Move from implementation to ongoing support structures.
A smooth deployment ensures that your organization can begin leveraging S/4HANA Cloud’s capabilities without disruption.
Run
In the Run phase, your S/4HANA Cloud system is live, and the focus shifts to ongoing support and optimization.
Key activities include:
Monitoring performance: Keep an eye on system operations to ensure optimal functionality.
Implementing improvements: Use real-time analytics to make continuous enhancements.
Supporting users: Provide assistance and address any issues that arise.
This phase is about ensuring the long-term success and adaptability of your S/4HANA Cloud solution.
“Creating reusable data products and patterns for piecing together data technologies enables companies to derive value from data today and tomorrow.”
In the article “How to Unlock the Full Value of Data: Manage it Like a Product,” McKinsey & Company’s QuantumBlack division discusses the importance of treating data as a strategic asset and managing it in a way that maximizes its value.
According to the article, many companies fail to fully realize the potential value of their data because they do not have a systematic approach to managing it. To unlock the full value of data, the authors recommend treating it like a product and applying the same principles of product management to its development and deployment.
This includes establishing a clear vision for the data product, setting measurable goals, and regularly tracking and analysing its performance. It also involves creating a data culture within the organization, in which data is seen as a valuable resource and is used to inform decision-making at all levels.
The article goes on to provide practical steps for implementing a data product management approach, such as building a data governance framework, investing in the right tools and technologies, and establishing strong partnerships with external data providers.
The article offers valuable insights for any company looking to maximize the value of its data and drive business success. I highly recommend giving it a read.
“Data is increasingly the differentiator between winners and also-rans in business. Today, information can be captured from many different sources, and technology to extract insights is becoming increasingly accessible.” – Bernard Marr
Here’s a look at the top 5 data science and analytics trends, according to a recent article by Bernard Marr:
Data Democratisation – Data driven organisations will continue to enable entire workforces with analytics, so they can undertake their role more effectively and efficiently.
Artificial Intelligence – Will play a significant role in automating mundane tasks such as data collection and cleansing and provide more accurate predictive models. By automating many manual tasks, AI will be an important enabler for the democratisation of analytics across the organisation.
Cloud and Data-as-a-Service – Businesses will leverage data collected and curated by 3rd parties as subscription SaaS offerings rather than build their own expensive proprietary systems. These data services will be used largely to augment an organisation’s internal data assets.
Real-Time Data – While perhaps not a broad requirement for most organisations, real-time data is used in financial services to monitor transactions to prevent fraud and by online businesses to analyse website click stream data to optimise real-time promotions to customers.
Data Governance and Regulation – Significant data breeches in 2022 across Australia have highlighted the need for businesses to review their processes relating to customer data, including auditing personal information stored, where and how it is stored and processes relating to securing it.
“Moving to a data-driven business model – where decisions are made based on what we know to be true rather than “gut feeling” – is core to the wave of digital transformation sweeping through every industry in 2023 and beyond. It helps us to react with certainty in the face of uncertainty – especially when wars and pandemics upset the established order of things.
But the world of data and analytics never stands still. New technologies are constantly emerging that offer faster and more accurate access to insights. And new trends emerge, bringing us new thinking on the best ways to put it to work across business and society at large. So, here’s my rundown of what I believe are the most important trends that will affect the way we use data and analytics to drive business growth in 2023.“
In today’s market, companies need to think differently about their overall approach to company health — the “growth-at-all-costs” model adopted by many companies over the past few years is no longer creating the same results as the way the market determines value shifts, Chris Cabrera, founder and CEO of intelligent revenue service Xactly, said. The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company uses technologies such as predictive analytics to help companies create and implement revenue plans or improve sales performance.
“I think everybody that was in that growth at all costs model is just facing the reality that the market doesn’t value those companies the way they used to,” Cabrera said.
Businesses and their financial leaders facing economic headwinds must reconsider the way they think about their firms’ growth strategies in the current market. Companies such as software-as-a-service (SaaS) entities may be used to thinking about growth by using what is known as the “rule of 40,” for example, a growth metric popularized in 2015 which states that when adding a software company’s growth rate and profit margin, the combined total should exceed 40%, according to a 2018 report by Bain & Company….
Using data to drive education, opportunities
Making the switch to a more balanced model is a good correction, he said — the belief is that hopefully, “smart leaders will not view this as a pendulum swing,” because building “a balanced rule of 40 business, having a business that has a balance of growth and profitability is a much healthier business in the long run,” he said.
“I’m hopeful that companies will make the shift for quality and stay there and not try to chase the market and…just focus on building quality businesses,” Cabrera said.
For CFOs and other executive leaders, the key to making the shift to a more balanced growth and profitability model is focusing on building “quality revenue,” he said — meaning they need access to key information.
