Preparing for SAP S/4HANA: Ensuring Quality and Success

SAP users face a major transition as support for ECC systems ends in 2027. About 73% of SAP customers plan to adopt S/4HANA, the next-generation ERP suite promising enhanced business capabilities, revenue growth, improved cash flow, ROI, and elevated customer satisfaction.

However, deploying S/4HANA is complex. Its advanced in-memory database and dense, multi-layered application landscape make migrations time-consuming and challenging. Enterprises must navigate strict deadlines, potential cost overruns, and skill shortages while ensuring regulatory compliance. A robust Quality Assurance (QA) strategy from the outset is essential to transform S/4HANA from a technological promise into a fully operational ERP environment.

Key Tenets for a Smooth S/4HANA Journey

We recommend that organizations focus on the following tenets:

• 1. Emphasize Business Process Assurance: SAP processes span multiple applications, so QA teams must maintain an end-to-end view of business processes to identify and mitigate potential defects early. Skipping this can result in monetary losses and user dissatisfaction.
  Example: A biopharmaceutical company automated business process validation across critical workflows using an impact analysis tool. This targeted approach reduced regression testing cycles by 30%, focusing on testing the right processes rather than everything.
• 2. Adopt an Automation-First Approach: Automation accelerates testing, increases coverage, and reduces defect leakage to production. Leveraging machine learning-based intelligent automation, QA teams can capture workflows during functional testing and establish frameworks early in the project lifecycle.
  Example: A German manufacturing firm with over 600 business processes and 15 critical systems implemented an automation-first QA strategy during a greenfield S/4HANA rollout. This approach enabled zero critical production defects and a 40% reduction in QA investment.
• 3. Test for Security and Scalability: Security and performance are critical for S/4HANA deployments, whether on cloud or on-premise. QA strategies must ensure access control, data synchronization, and system performance under user load.
  Example: A global pharmaceutical company deployed S/4HANA across 60+ countries, partly on Microsoft Azure. Early performance testing identified bottlenecks, fine-tuned system performance, and helped avoid transaction failures while improving the user experience.

Embracing new thinking

Embracing new thinking

Best-in-class tools—commercial, licensed, or open-source—can accelerate S/4HANA adoption, whether for new deployments or migrations. Enterprises should adopt an advisory-led QA approach aligned with business objectives, IT architecture, risk tolerance, and available resources

Our Intelligent ERP offering supports organizations in moving to S/4HANA with first-time-right quality, ensuring smoother transitions and better business outcomes.