Does your current SAP Concur configuration live up to its full potential?  If your answer is no, or you are not sure, then you might need an SAP Concur Site Review (CSR). A system review for SAP Concur might help open your understanding to whether your SAP Concur system is aligned with organizational needs, optimized for performance, and compliant with relevant policies or regulations. As with any technology solution, periodic reviews are essential to ensure the system is meeting evolving business needs and delivering optimal value.  

Phoenix Business Consulting is an SAP Concur Certified Implementation Partner (CIP) that specializes in implementing SAP Concur Expense (Standard and Professional) and SAP Concur Invoice (Standard and Professional). Our expert SAP Concur reviewers, with over 20+ years of experience implementing SAP Concur, can conduct a thorough evaluation of your current Concur configuration, identify areas for improvement and implement strategic enhancements to help you achieve peak performance.   

With our tailored optimization-check who knows what you will unlock in terms of productivity and cost savings.  Here are the top eight (8) areas that we help uncover after conducting an SAP Concur Site Review.

1. Maximizing Efficiency and Optimizing User Experience 

One of the primary benefits of an SAP Concur site review is the ability to assess and optimize user experience. SAP Concur solutions are often configured during implementation to meet the organization’s needs at that time. However, as businesses evolve, so do their requirements. Reviewing your SAP Concur setup ensures that the solution is still configured in a way that maximizes efficiency for end-users and administrators alike. 

During a site review, our SAP Concur Consultants can evaluate whether current workflows, approval processes, and policies are still relevant and efficient. For instance, are there bottlenecks in the approval chain? Are users experiencing frustrations or frequent issues when submitting expenses or booking travel? Identifying and addressing these issues can significantly improve the user experience, saving employees time and reducing administrative workload. 

2. Aligning with Compliance and Policy Changes 

Compliance is a crucial factor in T&E management. Policies surrounding travel, expenses, and supplier invoices often change due to new regulations, corporate restructuring, or market demands. An SAP Concur site review offers the opportunity to audit your system’s policies and configurations, ensuring they align with current internal and external compliance requirements. 

For instance, a review might uncover that outdated expense categories no longer align with current tax regulations or corporate policies. Adjusting these configurations can help your organization remain compliant, avoid fines, and reduce audit risks. Additionally, it helps ensure that employees are submitting and approving expenses according to the latest guidelines, which reduces the likelihood of non-compliant claims slipping through the cracks. 

3. Uncovering Cost-Saving Opportunities 

One of the most valuable aspects of an SAP Concur site review is the potential to uncover cost-saving opportunities. Through a detailed examination of expense categories, travel patterns, and vendor data, organizations can identify trends and areas where costs can be reduced. For example, a review might reveal that certain expense categories have disproportionately high expenditures, or that there are frequent violations of travel policies leading to increased costs. 

A site review can also highlight areas for vendor consolidation, such as combining travel bookings through preferred providers to negotiate better rates or simplifying expense categories to streamline spending analysis. By adjusting configurations to better track and control expenses, companies can gain better visibility into spending patterns and make data-driven decisions that directly impact the bottom line. 

4. Leveraging New Features and System Enhancements 

SAP Concur regularly releases updates and new features designed to improve the system’s functionality and adapt to changing industry needs. However, many organizations fail to take full advantage of these enhancements. A site review provides the perfect opportunity to evaluate recent SAP Concur upgrades and incorporate them into your configuration. 

For instance, SAP Concur may release a feature that automates an aspect of travel booking or expense reporting that was previously manual. By incorporating these new features into your setup, you can further automate processes, reduce manual work, and enhance data accuracy. This not only saves time but also ensures your organization is leveraging the latest technology to stay competitive and compliant. 

5. Enhancing Data Accuracy and Reporting Capabilities 

Data accuracy is paramount in expense and travel management, as inaccuracies can lead to compliance risks, budget overruns, and reduced employee satisfaction. An SAP Concur site review enables organizations to audit their data, ensuring that expense categories, policies, and workflows are accurately reflected in reports. 

Additionally, with SAP Concur’s robust reporting capabilities, a site review allows businesses to refine and improve their reporting structures. By customizing reports to focus on relevant metrics and KPIs, organizations can gain deeper insights into spending patterns, travel behaviors, and operational efficiencies. Accurate, insightful reporting is a powerful tool for decision-makers, allowing them to make strategic adjustments to control costs and streamline T&E management. 

6. Improving System Security and User Access Control 

As organizations grow, they often add new users, locations, and departments to their SAP Concur system. However, without regular review, user roles and permissions can become outdated or misaligned, increasing security risks. A site review helps ensure that user access aligns with job roles and responsibilities, reducing the potential for unauthorized access to sensitive financial data. 

During a site review, administrators can evaluate user permissions, ensuring that access controls are strictly enforced according to the organization’s security policies. This step is critical in protecting against internal fraud, maintaining data integrity, and ensuring that only authorized personnel can access certain financial data. 

7. Enhancing Employee Adoption and Satisfaction 

An SAP Concur site review can also improve employee adoption and satisfaction by addressing usability issues and simplifying processes. If employees find SAP Concur challenging or time-consuming to use, they may resist submitting expenses or following travel policies, which can lead to non-compliance and frustration. 

By identifying pain points and implementing solutions that make the system more intuitive and user-friendly, organizations can enhance employee adoption rates. Simplifying submission processes, streamlining approval workflows, and ensuring that employees understand policy requirements contribute to a smoother user experience, fostering higher satisfaction and compliance. 

8. Supporting Long-Term Strategic Goals 

Lastly, conducting regular site reviews supports an organization’s long-term strategic goals. T&E management plays a significant role in overall financial health and operational efficiency, so ensuring that SAP Concur aligns with these goals is essential. Whether the organization is pursuing aggressive cost control, compliance with new regulatory frameworks, or global expansion, a site review can adapt the system to support these objectives. 

A comprehensive review provides a roadmap for SAP Concur’s role in the organization’s future, ensuring that the system is equipped to manage upcoming challenges and opportunities. By aligning SAP Concur configurations with strategic goals, organizations can maximize their investment in this powerful platform and drive continued business success. 

Conducting an SAP Concur site review offers numerous benefits that extend beyond simply assessing the system’s configuration. By periodically reviewing and optimizing the platform, organizations can ensure they are getting the most value from their investment, meeting compliance requirements, uncovering cost-saving opportunities, and supporting broader financial and strategic goals. Investing in an SAP Concur site review today can lead to enhanced efficiency, stronger compliance, and a more user-friendly experience, positioning the organization for sustained growth and success. To schedule your SAP Concur site review, please contact us for a discovery call and we can discuss our approach in detail.  

By: David Szymanski, SAP Concur Consulting Manager and Senior Architect 

The post Top 8 Reasons Why You Need an SAP Concur Site Review  appeared first on Phoenix Business Consulting.

Brevard County, a leading SAP customer in the public sector, had been using SAP ERP for over a decade relying on SAP HR (also known as SAP ERP HCM) to manage their extensive employee database, payroll, and HR processes. As SAP announced the end of maintenance and deprecation for legacy SAP and SuccessFactors applications (i.e., ONB 1.0), Brevard is faced with a dual challenge of migrating to a newer HR system while ensuring minimal disruption to their HR functions and enhancing overall HR capabilities.  

With the end of maintenance and deprecation of legacy SAP Onboarding applications, Brevard County’s SAP HR system would no longer receive updates, product support, or security patches. This posed several operational risks and issues with system stability and compliance. The County needed continued guidance in providing strategic evaluation and planning services and a unique approach to recommending an upgrade strategy with minimal disruption or upgrade to the Onboarding (2.0) platform to start their SAP Cloud and SuccessFactors journey.  

Phoenix’s team of SAP experts brought years of industry knowledge and experience across the ranging SAP applications of the County. This expertise was leveraged to provide clear and concise road mapping and implementation services to the County through a customer-centric approach focusing on understanding specific needs and delivering solutions aligned with the County’s business objectives. With Phoenix’s proven history of successful SAP implementations, like Brevard County, who have experienced significant improvements in their operations we stay at the forefront of SAP technology and best practices, ensuring that the County benefited from the latest advancements and methodologies. 

Brevard County, with SAP support from Phoenix, has successfully navigated the end of maintenance for their SAP HR systems by transitioning to continued innovations with SAP SuccessFactors. Through strategic planning, phased implementation recommendations, and effective change management, the County addressed the immediate challenges and also provided a path for enhancing its HR capabilities. The migration resulted in planning a secure and user-friendly HR environment, aligning with the County’s commitment to innovation and excellence in human resources. 

About Phoenix Business Consulting: 

Founded in 1998, Phoenix Business Consulting is an SAP Gold Partner consulting firm providing SAP implementation, training, production support, and review services for SAP’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms. 

About SAP: 

SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an SAP system. Their AI, Machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. Their end-to-end suite of applications and services enables their customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference.

The post Brevard County – SAP SuccessFactors Onboarding Migration  appeared first on Phoenix Business Consulting.

Pacific Electric, a power distribution company in Southern California, was looking for a complete ERP solution to help support their growing business.  With their ‘current state’ consisting of many silos, the choice was made of SAP Business One to not only transition their current processes, but to transform their overall business through process standardization.  An experienced team with industry leaders, the transition to SAP will help propel Pacific Electric through their current growth phase.​ 

Key success factors of the implementation encompassed: 

• Implementation of a complete and integrated solution with SAP Business One as the core solution   
• Utilizing SAP’s ‘Fit to Standard’ implementation approach with a focus on Best Practices  
• A ‘train the trainer’ approach to ensure an internal knowledge base  
• Cloud deployment model utilizing the latest technology utilizing AI and IoT  
• KPI-driven dashboards through built-in analytical reporting  

Hanif Sarangi, President of Phoenix Business Consulting, expressed enthusiasm about the projects success, and collaboration: “It was a pleasure working on the SAP Business One implementation with the team at Pacific Electric Inc. Their exceptional, experienced team played a crucial role in the project’s success. At Phoenix, we adopt a ‘fit to standard’ approach rooted in Best Practices for SAP Business One implementation. This ensures our clients receive a flexible solution, leading to seamless transitions, reduced effort, and cost savings.”  

To know more about SAP Business one: https://phoenixteam.com/sap-business-one/ 

To learn more about Phoenix Business Consulting’s SAP services, please visit:  https://phoenixteam.com/services/sap-implementation/ 

The post Successful Go Live for Pacific Electric on SAP Business One appeared first on Phoenix Business Consulting.

SIONYX is a high-tech manufacturing company specializing in digital night vision technology, “The company is scaling, and we are growing both in headcount and processes and products. We had islands of capability, whether it be finance or supply chain tools. We recognized the fact that we had to get a monolithic system that was going to fuse all of the elements of the company functions together to drive to the next level of capability. Some of the biggest challenges we were facing was that we were still using multiple spreadsheets and had to do things that were manual. We had several different software applications that we were using that did not talk to each other at all,” said Steve Anderson, COO, SIONYX.

Phoenix Business Consulting provided SIONYX direction on how best to use the SAP ByDesign software, where it has allowed them to create efficiencies in not only the retrieval of the data, but how they can package that data together. Now they have all their information right at their fingertips, and they can drill through all the different screens and get the information that they need in a timely manner.

Phoenix Business Consulting has a wide range of expertise in areas where we were able to give SIONYX guidance on improvements in many areas.  

Phoenix Business Consulting has been in business for over 25 years. We are an SAP Gold partner that focuses on implementation, training and support of the entire SAP suite of products. SIONYX came to us with a very common problem. They had several different silos on many different systems in which they input data. We sold them SAP Business ByDesign, a cloud-based ERP, and then consolidated all of their current systems into one ERP system (SAP Business ByDesign).

The post SAP Business ByDesign Implementation for SIONYX appeared first on Phoenix Business Consulting.

In the ever-evolving landscape of education, efficient and well-organized administrative processes are key to delivering a seamless experience for students, parents, and faculty members. One crucial aspect of this is Accounts Payable (AP) management. In 2024, schools can make significant strides in enhancing the AP process by adopting innovative practices and leveraging technology. This article will explore strategies and best practices to improve AP processes within educational institutions.

• Implement Automated Invoice Processing

Automation is a game-changer for schools looking to enhance their AP process. Automated invoice processing tools can capture, extract, and validate data from invoices, reducing the need for manual data entry. This not only speeds up the processing time but also minimizes the risk of errors and enables staff to focus on more value-added tasks.

One area, that is overlooked is how automation projects improve approval workflow process.

• Well-defined approval workflows are crucial in ensuring that invoices are processed efficiently and in compliance with school policies.

• Implement clear approval hierarchies and notification systems to keep stakeholders informed about the status of invoices.

• Use technology to automate routing based on predetermined rules, expediting the approval process.

In our experience, Industry studies also show, that implementing an automated Invoice solution speeds up the processing cycle by up to 74% and reduces invoice processing costs by up to 80%.  In order to achieve this, your Invoice Automation solution should. One of the leading Invoice automation solutions, SAP Concur Invoice, made this happen by providing system features that reduce manual data entry, automate routine tasks such as matching prices and purchase orders, and have documents ready for faster and more efficient approval.

• Improve Supplier Collaboration

In 2024, successful AP departments should prioritize supplier collaboration. Building strong relationships with suppliers can lead to better terms, discounts, and improved overall supply chain efficiency. Leveraging supplier portals and communication tools can facilitate real-time collaboration, making it easier to resolve issues, negotiate terms, and share critical information. AP teams should focus on transparent communication and mutually beneficial partnerships to foster a harmonious vendor ecosystem.

One way to improve collaboration is by encouraging vendors to use online portals for invoice submission and tracking. Vendor portals streamline the invoicing process, reduce the need for manual handling, and provide real-time visibility into invoice status. If you don’t have vendor portals, a simple use of central AP email where vendors can send the invoice and get “triage” will already give you 30-40% improvement in processing time. 

From the School AP perspective, if you use the right vendor collaboration tool, such as SAP Concur Invoice, you can take advantage of early payment discounts, lower transaction error, and better fraud mitigation, and allow constant transaction tracking (answers the question where is the invoice and the payment). From the vendor side, the right tool should allow them to view the status of their payments.

• Use Credit Card Rebate Program

In the world of Accounts Payable (AP), every dollar saved can have a significant impact on a company’s bottom line. One innovative strategy businesses are increasingly adopting to boost their financial efficiency is adopting new ways of using Credit Card Products. One such innovation is using a Credit Card Rebate Program. A Credit Card Rebate Program is a financial arrangement in which a business uses a corporate credit card to make payments to vendors, suppliers, or service providers. In return for using the card for these transactions, the company receives a percentage of the total purchase amount back as a cash rebate or reward points.

One of the immediate benefits of using a corporate credit card for AP is the potential for cost savings. Many credit card companies offer competitive cashback percentages or rewards, effectively reducing the overall cost of business expenditures.  One of the leading Credit Card Rebate Program providers is Avidxchange – an SAP Concur partner. In their experience, AP automation software saved more than $7 per invoice.

But beyond the cost savings, consider also that Credit cards simplify the payment process by consolidating all transactions onto a single statement. This makes it easier for AP teams to track expenses, reconcile accounts, and identify discrepancies.

In addition, cash flow may also be improved. Credit card payment terms often provide a grace period, allowing businesses to delay actual payment while earning rebates immediately. This can significantly improve cash flow management and working capital.

Lastly, using Credit Cards for paying vendors can provide an extra layer of reports that can provide spending insights. Credit card statements provide detailed transaction data, making it easier to categorize and analyze expenses. This data can be invaluable for budgeting, expense analysis, and financial planning.

Conclusion

Efficient AP processes are pivotal in supporting the administrative backbone of educational institutions. By embracing tools like SAP Concur Invoice to improve automation, vendor collaboration, and integration with innovative products –like AvidXchange’s Credit Card Rebate program, schools can significantly improve their AP processes in 2024. These enhancements not only streamline operations but also enable better financial control, cost savings, and improved compliance. Ultimately, the result is an educational institution that is better equipped to provide a seamless experience for all stakeholders in an ever-evolving educational landscape.

By: JL Diaz

The post Elevating Education: How Schools Can Improve the AP Process in 2024 appeared first on Phoenix Business Consulting.

S/4HANA Cloud or on-premises S/4HANA? 

Today it has a large portfolio of cloud applications and deployment options that are both hugely attractive and scary to companies entrenched in old, familiar ways of doing business. 

Hanif Sarangi, President of Phoenix Business Consulting shares, “With on-premise versions of SAP software, they’re very customizable. I can do virtually anything with an on-premise system,” Sarangi said. “Now my cloud customers have to be willing to accept the best practice scenarios that are available in the system. If they’re going from an on-premise to a cloud system, they’re going to lose some functionality sometimes.” 

 SaaS ERP also comes with quarterly patches that can clash with tailored systems. “If your system is too customized, the testing involved in making that system work is going to be extensive,” he said. 

 SAP is fond of saying that the several flavors of S/4HANA have the same code base, which can make it sound like the differences are minimal. But it doesn’t mean they all work the same. It depends on which features have been activated, according to Sarangi. “On-premise versions of S/4HANA do have more capability,” he said. 

 He recounted one small business’s decision to forego S/4HANA Cloud because of the specialized needs of its niche, which it handled with a custom-developed ERP built up over 25 years. “I tried to sell them the standard SaaS functionality because they’re of the size where SaaS makes sense,” Sarangi said. But after he looked closely at the company’s business processes, it became clear that they couldn’t fit into SaaS ERP. “They ended up having to buy an on-premise system and have it customized,” he said — the on-premises S/4HANA hosted on Amazon Web Services. 

 In contrast, an insurance customer illustrates the time and cost savings of multi-tenant SaaS. Sarangi said that in the past, implementing on-premises ERP for an insurance company would have cost at least $10-15 million and take a year or two. But this customer is willing to accept the standard business processes of SaaS ERP and is paying $1-2 million to implement it in six months. 

 “It’s mind-blowing for me, having worked in the business for 30 years and seeing the pricing of implementation,” Sarangi said. “They have millions of transactions flowing through the system, they have complicated business processes, lockboxes and integration — all of that — and I’m doing it for somewhere between a million and two million dollars, which is amazing.” 

 SAP cloud migration has a downside for SAP partners, Sarangi was forthcoming about the financial challenges of moving to the cloud with SAP and its customers. The main issue is what’s sometimes called the SaaS revenue trough, in which revenue from the typically upfront licenses for on-premises products declines faster than SaaS subscription revenue can replace it. The financial strain on SAP and similarly positioned ERP vendors extends to their implementation partners. Sarangi’s SaaS difficulties began when he continued responding to requests for proposals with on-premises ERP just as SaaS ERP was taking off. “The SaaS companies were coming in and doing it at a fraction of my cost,” he said. “Even though I was demoing well, they loved the product, and we were meeting all of the requirements, just on a purely cost factor, we were losing.” 

 Phoenix eventually made selling SaaS the priority, but the numbers remained challenging. Before, Sarangi might put 50 people on-site for two years and bill for $20 million. “Now I’m selling a $200,000 project … but my sales costs haven’t come down,” he said. “What I have now is people working at home working on multiple SaaS projects at the same time.” And now it’s become a price war. 

 Phoenix revenue was down in the past two years while costs have gone up because more staff is needed for each of SAP’s many cloud products, according to Sarangi. He is banking on rising SaaS subscription revenue eventually offsetting the loss. 

Also discussed in the podcast: 

• Why SAP’s other SaaS ERP product, Business ByDesign, is often the best choice for SMBs; 
• the role of SAP Cloud Platform in extending S/4HANA — both cloud and on-premises versions; 
• SAP’s progress in integrating its acquired cloud products, including Ariba and Concur, with each other and with S/4HANA; and why starting with S/4HANA Finance is a typical entry point to adopting other S/4HANA modules. 

The post SAP Cloud Migration – ERP Market Leader Podcast appeared first on Phoenix Business Consulting.

1. PMO Office should be installed first.

Setting up a Project Management Office (PMO) can appear to be daunting. It requires careful planning, deliberate relationship building, flawless execution and continuous improvement. At the top of program/project organization charts is a box titled PMO, representing the Project Management Office. The role of the PMO is a function most critical for all SAP enterprise projects. This is because it brings about a convergence of the necessary leadership, experience, methodology, tools and resources that result in project success and delivering value for the business. Our experience in successfully delivering SAP enterprise program and project management consulting and staffing services enables companies to harness, harmonize and improve their technology, processes, and human performance. Therefore, improving business capability resulting in greater business value.

2. Change Management should not be an afterthought

A smooth, sustainable SAP rollout isn’t merely a question of technology, but also of user acceptance, so a change management officer can play a key role in a project’s success by identifying the changes and actively supporting the management team during the adjustment process. IT projects – especially those associated with an SAP rollout – change more than just the system landscape. Since the responsible project group is focusing on technical issues, however, key aspects of change management are often not even on its radar, and yet high user acceptance is a prerequisite for the success of any IT project.

This being the case, a change management officer should be appointed early on in the project. The task of this officer is to reinforce the management team so that they can commit themselves to support their staff during the change process.

Some staff fear any change and immediately become defensive. If they are able to gauge exactly what it will mean for them personally, this will have a positive impact – especially on their willingness to adapt. Managers dealing with this issue need to show employees they are appreciated – the key to successful change management.

3. SAP Super Users are Very Valuable

The first thing to understand as an SAP Super User is that you are the first line of support for your customers (your colleagues using SAP).When they need help running a transaction, identifying the source of a problem, or understanding integration points, they turn to you for answers. This will take a solid understanding of SAP, knowledge of your business processes, and a great deal of patience. The patience becomes imperative when you are asked the same question for the eleventh time.”

So, a Super User is an answer person for SAP at the local level, where the action is. However, Joe goes on to say that an SAP Super User is also a liaison between the technical staff and the user group. He also adds that a Super User can be called upon to perform testing of new SAP versions; and must be ready to provide user training, sometimes at a moment’s notice.

4. Testing, testing, testing

With SAP S/4HANA, there are a number of architecture and technical changes, along with functional changes, to take on board. These will have a big impact on what and how you test in your SAP landscape going forwards.

With the numerous architecture and functional changes in mind, it is important to thoroughly test both new and existing features when embarking on a S/4HANA Migration. Why? To ensure that business operations, systems, and processes continue as usual during and after the move. Four key tests are recommended:

• Role-based testing

With the introduction of SAP Fiori, role-based testing has a vital role to play. There are more than 300+ roles available, all of which can be run on compatible devices. It is thus very important to test all the roles, not only on laptops and desktops, but also on all compatible mobile devices.

• Functional testing

Thorough testing of all the new functions will be one of the most important aspects of SAP S/4HANA migration testing. A regression test suite can be built around the functional changes and I would urge the use of automation for this. Organizations that have already invested in automation tools can leverage these to test the new functionalities. Apart from these verifications, functional tests should also be undertaken to verify the functionality of a HANA project on multiple devices, including popular mobile platforms.

• Performance testing

As SAP has introduced its own SAP HANA database, it is important to invest some time in making sure that the performance of your SAP HANA project is well above the required performance level. Here we should stay focused on newly introduced processes and not be confused by doing performance testing of the SAP HANA database as SAP HANA delivers leading performance and scale-out ability and enables real-time BI for businesses. Rather your performance testing of the newly introduced processes should be validated by an already existing performance baseline. This will ensure that real-time data transfer is optimal for those processes.

• Reports testing

With the introduction of SAP HANA systems that notably combine real-time analytics with transactional information, verifying BI reports has become essential. In addition to verifying the accuracy of HANA-based BI reports, functional testing of those reports ensures that SAP HANA applications and reports under test are fully functional.

5. Follow Best Practices for S/4HANA Migration

What’s at stake in the SAP S/4HANA migration process? Risks range from unnecessary spending on the migration due to lengthy work cycles to possible business disruptions from breakdowns in established business processes. Working with many organizations on S/4HANA migration, we have found the following practices to be useful in mitigating migration risks:

• Assessing your current SAP landscape—You don’t have to migrate it all. You can retire or replace certain parts of your current SAP environment. Doing this right means viewing your SAP solutions from both business and IT perspectives.
• Drawing a roadmap—Again, working from a business point of view, it pays to map out where you’re headed with SAP. What future needs do you anticipate? How well will the S/4HANA migration satisfy those needs? What other gaps need to be addressed as you plot your course toward migration? (e.g. are there elements that will require custom coding?)
• Thinking through your architecture—The business that built the existing SAP landscape may not be all that similar to the business you work in today. It’s a good idea to take a careful look at your true architectural needs and plan the migration accordingly. For example, you may have integrations with third-party systems or availability requirements that need a refresh. Connectivity has also changed a great deal in recent years. The migration should reflect this reality. The new architecture may need to support new kinds of remote access and security/compliance parameters.
• Training your people—It’s not just the SAP solutions that will be migrating. Your users and IT team will be making significant changes in the way they work as well. Migrating to S/4HANA introduces new technologies, user interfaces and processes into your enterprise – all of which require training. There will be new user interfaces, new administrative workloads and so forth.
• Ensuring connectivity with third parties—S/4HANA will be connecting with third parties. Even if this isn’t your current strategy, it likely will be. Alliances between companies and technology platforms are a staple of digital transformations. There could be more than a few critical applications linking to your SAP landscape. The migration must take these connections into consideration.

6. Don’t underestimate training

S/4HANA migration is an extraordinarily complex process and requires adequate knowledge and training on the subject to attain the maxim benefits. As with any major implementation project, it’s absolutely vital to engage in proper planning upfront. Gain buy-in from all departments involved. Clearly identify the needs, challenges, and benefits of your S/4HANA system. Understand the full process and cost of migrating to ensure appropriate time and resources can be dedicated to the project.

Since S/4HANA is bound to simplify SAP (but not its prodigious functionality), it may change the way you use your ERP, ideally for the better. Expect to re-evaluate your business and supply chain processes to ensure a smooth transition of data and workflows. Be sure to set aside additional time for training users to get the most out of your new SAP S/4HANA system as well.

7. Go Live is not the End

There are many benefits to partnering with an SAP AMS provider.

• Enable your IT organization to be less tactical and more strategic

AMS providers understand the need for you to enable your IT organization to be strategic and focused on driving more value from your SAP solution. Traditionally, IT organizations primarily focus on “keeping the lights on” and not realizing the true value of SAP. A good AMS partner works as an extension of your IT staff, focused on enabling your team and organization to drive and deliver value-add SAP solutions.

• Tailored AMS solutions to your needs

As your business and IT needs change, your AMS partner adapts to meet your demands. They recognize the value of a trusted, long-term partnership as opposed to long-term contract. Application Management Services offerings will adjust to the demands of your IT operations. You can work together to define a right-sized and right-shored delivery model for your organization’s specific needs.

• AMS positively impacts ROI

A good AMS provider will provide world-class expertise at an exceptional value for any size company. Clients get expert SAP assistance on-demand, in any functional or technical area, and often without the need for travel expenses. Services are easy to access, easy to work with, and always available.

For for information on SAP S/4HANA implementation, please contact us here.

By Vikas Pathak

The post Seven Lessons Learned from SAP S/4HANA Migration in Public Sector appeared first on Phoenix Business Consulting.

You might say it’s because the cloud allows companies to become more agile, implement continuous innovation cycle, deliver real-time access to information, make quick decisions and build on the innovation roadmap faster than the competition. This concludes rapid growth for businesses.

While all this is true, you still are not 100% right.

The biggest benefit of Cloud ERP is this: You don’t have to invest in hardware and development teams. It’s like your car’s ignition – turn the key and get going at a speed that you want on the information highway once again leading to rapid growth; in a different way.

Video Case Study:

This video shows you how SAP S/4HANA Cloud professional services customers are benefiting from an intelligent cloud ERP solution and transforming into agile companies with real-time visibility across the entire organization, improved processes, innovation to better serve customer demands, and room for company growth with no boundaries.

Let me know what you think about the video case study above.[/vc_column_text][rb_sc_image customize_align=”1″ image=”3217″ custom_styles=”.vc_custom_1603387591074{padding-top: 25px !important;padding-bottom: 25px !important;}”][vc_column_text]If you want to grow faster while keeping your development, infrastructure and hardware costs low, rapid growth with Cloud ERP is the way to go. Cloud ERP has the chance to inhibit your company’s rapid growth, all the while increasing innovation.

Today’s end customer wants everything on the secured cloud. It’s a brave, new cloud world out there. Are you ready?

Let me know your thoughts and if you need any help in moving to the cloud.

By: Venkat Nanduri[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

The post Are You Ready For Rapid Growth? appeared first on Phoenix Business Consulting.