SAP S/4HANA

SAP ECC is SAP’s ERP tool used globally by thousands of companies, meeting the needs of small and medium businesses and global corporations. It’s designed to coordinate all the resources, information and activities needed to support a company’s business processes in a range of areas, making it the IT backbone of operations for many organisations.

SAP S/4HANA was introduced in 2015 as the successor to SAP ECC and other core applications of SAP Business Suite 7, and is considered the most significant update to the tool in over 20 years.

SAP S/4HANA brought about many innovations over SAP ECC. Key changes include the development of a brand-new code base, utilisation of SAP HANA’s in-memory computing architecture, providing the ability to access real-time business statistics and analytics, and the convergence of transactional and analytical systems. The solution also comes with a design approach called Fiori that provides an advanced and flexible user experience across devices, improving the usability of the solution (a common criticism of older versions of SAP).

SAP S/4HANA was introduced in 2015 as the successor to SAP ECC and other core applications of SAP Business Suite 7. It’s considered the most significant update to the tool in over 20 years, and SAP has emphasised that it is pivotal in its shift to cloud technology.

SAP has announced it will discontinue mainstream maintenance of SAP ECC and other core applications of SAP Business Suite 7 from 2027 (an extension to the original 2025 deadline). Since SAP ECC is often the foundation of an IT ecosystem, it is anticipated in the coming years there will be a significant number of technology projects undertaken moving organisations to SAP S/4HANA.

As a result, there is a financial and IT maintenance rationale for upgrading to SAP S/4HANA, with older solutions being phased out and maintenance fees increasing. Additionally, newer and optimised solutions and technology provide a potential transformational factor in SAP S/4HANA upgrades.

SAP is committed to provide mainstream maintenance for SAP ECC / Business Suite 7  until the end of 2027. Companies have the option to buy a maintenance extension until 2030 for an incremental 2% in maintenance fees.

The original 2025 support deadline was pushed to 2027 after customers requested more time to move to the new release, making it unlikely that the 2027 deadline will be moved yet again.

Success depends on the vision, mission and scope of the project. Some projects may target a technical upgrade without implementing features to improve the user experience and functionality, whereas others may seek to fully re-engineer and try to simplify or automate processes to improve efficiency.

Is success the ‘go-live’ being achieved? From a technical perspective, it likely is. If, however, success means adoption – that the organisation has embraced and embedded new ways of thinking and working – then the people aspects of change must be addressed with the same weight as process, technology and data.

SAP S/4HANA is a significant investment and its success depends on the organisation’s readiness and commitment to adopt and embed new ways of thinking and working.

It is therefore important to define your organisation’s specific success criteria before embarking on your journey.

The vision and mission of a project underpin its goals and objectives and help to communicate its strategic importance for all stakeholders. Executive sponsorship will help to reinforce the key messages while emphasising the commitment of management to execute and deliver.

The vision and mission can be adapted through the project to reflect changing circumstances and priorities, but they should not deviate too far from the initial vision commitments agreed with the project sponsorship group. Ideally, the key messages will tie in to the corporate values and mission statements where applicable.

If people are impacted by your project, then focusing on change is essential.

Typically, such projects rely on a system integration partner for much of the skills and experience needed to secure a successful implementation. Integration partners are subject matter experts in the technical and functional aspects of this type of project, but a focus on the big picture is important, including the people who will make change happen and the organisational attributes which may obstruct adoption. A successful SAP S/4HANA programme will rely upon a solid change management programme to support a successful go-live and adoption across the organisation.

Prosci ADKAR™ change management methodology can be used to support the organisation and individual through a typical change journey. ADKAR™ is Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. It is a sequential and systematic approach to enable individuals to progress, adopt and embed change, with emphasis on individual ownership for change. In addition, there will be a focus to develop internal capability, enabling change to be owned and driven from inside the communities.

A typical change journey involves building:-
Awareness – why is there a need for change?
Desire – what are the benefits and what is in it for me?
Knowledge – knowing what needs to be done differently;
Ability – having the tools and being equipped with the skills to perform the change;
Reinforcement – constantly reinforcing key messages throughout the change journey (consistent messaging from sponsors and project ambassadors)

This will depend on a number of factors.

• The volume, magnitude and complexity of the change (use your change impact assessment to clarify this)
• The number of people impacted by the change
• The internal support from your business (e.g. sponsors, subject matter experts, super users, change network)

There is no one size fits all approach, and each organisation and project is unique.

The SAP solution will be based on end-to-end business processes. The focus of training should be on what is changing within the business process or within the supporting ERP systems.

Often, a SAP S/4HANA project is an opportunity to refresh training and improve the skills and efficiency of the organisation.

There is also an opportunity to develop sustainable materials that can be used for future re-training of existing employees and for onboarding new joiners. Performance management tools can be deployed to support the training activities and to tailor the training strategy to the individual needs of user groups, e.g. classroom training, web-based learning, etc.

Having a comprehensive business change strategy and plan is a key success factor for any technology project. Change Management should be given sufficient importance to ensure successful adoption of solutions that essentially form the backbone of an organisation.

Onboarding a business change partner to support the SAP S/4HANA journey will contribute towards a successful rollout, adoption, benefit realisation and return on investment, and will allow your integration partner to focus solely on the technology, where they can add the most value.

It’s never too early to think about change and onboard a change partner; the earlier the better. During the pre-implementation phase, setting up the correct governance, sponsorship and process ownership is essential. In addition, preparing the business for what’s to come will help pave the path to success, and manage the expectations of what is needed from the business teams to secure the success of the project.

A change partner is essential towards the end of the detailed design phase. They will help to perform a change impact assessment on the major changes and gaps identified in the project. A seemingly trivial system change may have a significant organisational or functional process change that needs to be considered holistically. Having a strong change partner in place will help to ensure that by the end of the design phase there is a clear understanding of what is changing, why it is changing and how it will impact on the people, processes and technology

Your ERP is the backbone of your organisation, and therefore its importance scales with your size. This means you can’t afford to fail in your S/4HANA transformation, so if there is any aspect of change management you’re not confident delivering, you will benefit from specialist support.

A dedicated change parter will be able to tailor their solution to the specific scale, scope and requirements of your transformation, meaning they can add value whatever the size of your programme.

At Afiniti, business change is all we do: we don’t have any other agenda, and we thrive on helping clients shape change, be ready for change, make change happen and ultimately make change stick.

We really are all about people; it’s people that will drive change and make the new way of working the norm.  Our holistic blend of change management services is part of an integrated approach to the people agenda of change. Using a tailored mix of our services to suit your SAP S/4HANA project, we will help you accelerate and embed change, driving your business forward to its potential future state.

Contact us today to find out how we can help make your change stick.

SAP Fiori provides an app-based user interface presented as tiles supporting the most broadly used functionality, including self-service tasks, workflow approvals and information lookups. Fiori can also be used to provide mobile functionality, meaning SAP services can be accessed on the go. Learn more about Fiori from SAP here.

SAP S/4HANA is available for both on-premise and cloud deployments, depending on your infrastructure and what will suit your budget and requirements.

However, it should be noted that the cloud-based implementation will enable more options for automation and efficiency, and SAP’s own cloud-first strategy is already seeing additional features being released that aren’t available in on-premise versions.

Pre-implementation is the project phase which precedes the official project initiation and can include onboarding sponsors and process owners, data preparation / cleansing and setting up the change management team to help secure the success of the project.

Typically, a high-level scoping and analysis would be carried out in the ‘pre-implementation’ phase to understand the perimeters of the project and identify any significant gaps, issues, interfaces, considerations, etc.

If people are impacted by your project, then focusing on change is essential.

Typically, such projects rely on a system integration partner for much of the skills and experience needed to secure a successful implementation. Integration partners are subject matter experts in the technical and functional aspects of this type of project, but a focus on the big picture is important, including the people who will make change happen and the organisational attributes which may obstruct adoption. A successful SAP S/4HANA programme will rely upon a solid change management programme to support a successful go-live and adoption across the organisation.

Prosci ADKAR™ change management methodology can be used to support the organisation and individual through a typical change journey. ADKAR™ is Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. It is a sequential and systematic approach to enable individuals to progress, adopt and embed change, with emphasis on individual ownership for change. In addition, there will be a focus to develop internal capability, enabling change to be owned and driven from inside the communities.

A typical change journey involves building:-
Awareness – why is there a need for change?
Desire – what are the benefits and what is in it for me?
Knowledge – knowing what needs to be done differently;
Ability – having the tools and being equipped with the skills to perform the change;
Reinforcement – constantly reinforcing key messages throughout the change journey (consistent messaging from sponsors and project ambassadors)

The change management strategy should be an integrated strategy covering change management, communications, engagement and learning. The strategy should consider the specific project, the organisational attributes (structure, culture, existing activities/priorities, etc.), sponsor model, special tactics and risk assessment.

The objective of establishing a formal strategy is to ensure that any negative effects of change will be minimised and any risks identified and mitigated.

The strategy should set out the strategic importance for change which is aligned to the company’s strategic direction and core values.

The vision and mission of a project underpin its goals and objectives and help to communicate its strategic importance for all stakeholders. Executive sponsorship will help to reinforce the key messages while emphasising the commitment of management to execute and deliver.

The vision and mission can be adapted through the project to reflect changing circumstances and priorities, but they should not deviate too far from the initial vision commitments agreed with the project sponsorship group. Ideally, the key messages will tie in to the corporate values and mission statements where applicable.

Underpinning the change strategy is the Change Agent Network (CAN) who, as a collective, are pivotal to the successful adoption of the project. This network should be equipped and supported by the project change team and will reflect a cross section of those impacted by the change from all impacted departments or locations.

Ensuring the CAN are sequencing activities in support of project changes is important because this group will own and promote the change from within their communities, actively driving adoption over the longer term.

When tackling resistance to change, it is important to provide an overview of why the change is required. Explaining the vision of the project with the endorsement and sponsorship of senior stakeholders will help to provide the justification for change. Focusing on the benefits / dis-benefits (or regressions) will help to answer many questions and help stakeholder understand the ‘what’s in it for me’. Explaining the change management strategy and the various steps through the project will help to reassure people that they will be supported through the transition.

Communication supports adoption throughout the full change lifecycle, allowing you to take people on the journey via the communication plan through Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. If communication is missed at any stage, then it has an impact on the effectiveness of the overall messaging and achievement of subsequent stages, including adoption. Training and learning are also included in the communication plan, and it is important to lay some foundations so that trainees attend with a baseline level of awareness of the project, its importance and any key changes.

It is important to ensure that the correct skillsets exist within the change management team or can be leveraged from existing internal resources/departments. If in-house skills don’t exist then a company like Afiniti can support the project and also build the internal capability to sustain activities/projects.

The communication throughout the project can often determine long-term success, buy-in and business engagement, so having a strong communications lead is often a key enabling factor in SAP S/4HANA projects.

A change impact assessment describes the current (as-is) and future (to-be) ways of working and the impact moving to the new way of working will have on people, process, systems and data. Understanding this will define the volume and magnitude of change expected and allow the correct mitigations to be planned.

During the design phase it is typical to implement Gap Board or Design Board Governance to manage any significant gaps (improvement requests / evolutions) in the solution design and ensure there is robust governance in place to manage scope, budget, and schedule. A change impact assessment can often help during the gap analysis to ensure that the gap is not just arbitrated based on the system development effort, but instead considers all organisational, roles and responsibilities and process implications.

A change impact assessment defines the volume and magnitude of change. The information uncovered during the change impact assessment will help shape the change strategy and plan to support people through the change journey. Change impact assessments can be used as an input into the testing cycles, data migration activities and end user training.

Yes, the Change Management team should be involved in the role mapping activities.

There are usually two kinds of role mapping. There are technical activities to assign SAP transaction codes to authorisation roles within SAP. The Change Management team would have an interest in this mapping to drive learning preparation and execution.

There is also an organisational focused activity to assign people to the correct authorisation roles in SAP. This business task is supported by the Change Management team and is critical to ensure people are assigned to the correct training courses and have the required skills and abilities to perform their role in the business.

Too often projects are focused on the technical solution and delivery. Ensuring that the correct change management representation is included at the steering committee level will ensure that there is a focus on people and the impact change will have on them. Ideally, there would be a workstream for change management with the lead attending any steering committee meetings.

In many projects, business readiness is more likely to be a bigger factor in delaying or derailing the project deployment than the technical solution readiness.

Additionally, representation of the Change Management team at gap boards can be useful to capture the impact of the change in the decision making; change management and data migration elements are often not considered in solution design decision making.

Project success depends on active and visible sponsorship from executive level stakeholders. Executive sponsorship will ensure the correct messages are communicated from the correct people within the organisation, positioning the programme for success (in alignment with other business priorities). Strong leadership and sponsorship is critical in helping teams understand the need for change, which for some might feel like a retrograde step. Mitigating resistance and consistently conveying key messages through active and visible leadership is vital. The ‘bigger picture’ benefits should be consistently and continually voiced by the sponsors.

The Change Management team should support coordinated and active sponsorship by bringing clarity and capability to the role of the sponsor through regular meetings, coaching and activities.

Research suggests programmes with active and visible executive level sponsorship will be 90% more successful than programmes without this level of support.

Preparations for the blackout period, including communication, procedures, offline templates and escalations, are vitally important as there will be no system available for a time, yet business activities will not fully cease. The Change Management team can often support to ensure that people are aware of the interim processes and are equipped with the knowledge and ability to perform tasks during this period.

Blackout periods can range between one or two days to three or four weeks of downtime. The expected blackout duration often determines the level of involvement of the Change Management team. Nevertheless, involving them is crucial to ensure communications throughout this cutover phase are managed and all stakeholders are kept up-to-date on the progress and readiness for go-live.

Sustainability should be part of the change management strategy to build internal change capability throughout the project.

The project artefacts and documentation should always be prepared with longevity and future in mind, including learning materials, documentation and communication tool kits.

Success depends on the vision, mission and scope of the project. Some projects may target a technical upgrade without implementing features to improve the user experience and functionality, whereas others may seek to fully re-engineer and try to simplify or automate processes to improve efficiency.

Is success the ‘go-live’ being achieved? From a technical perspective, it likely is. If, however, success means adoption – that the organisation has embraced and embedded new ways of thinking and working – then the people aspects of change must be addressed with the same weight as process, technology and data.

SAP S/4HANA is a significant investment and its success depends on the organisation’s readiness and commitment to adopt and embed new ways of thinking and working.

It is therefore important to define your organisation’s specific success criteria before embarking on your journey.

This will depend on a number of factors.

• The volume, magnitude and complexity of the change (use your change impact assessment to clarify this)
• The number of people impacted by the change
• The internal support from your business (e.g. sponsors, subject matter experts, super users, change network)

There is no one size fits all approach, and each organisation and project is unique.

The SAP solution will be based on end-to-end business processes. The focus of training should be on what is changing within the business process or within the supporting ERP systems.

Often, an SAP S/4HANA project is an opportunity to refresh training and improve the skills and efficiency of the organisation.

There is also an opportunity to develop sustainable materials that can be used for future re-training of existing employees and for onboarding new joiners. Performance management tools can be deployed to support the training activities and to tailor the training strategy to the individual needs of user groups, e.g. classroom training, web-based learning, etc.

Having a comprehensive business change strategy and plan is a key success factor for any technology project. Change management should be given sufficient importance to ensure successful adoption of solutions that essentially form the backbone of an organisation.

Onboarding a business change partner to support the SAP S/4HANA journey will contribute towards a successful rollout, adoption, benefit realisation and return on investment, and will allow your integration partner to focus solely on the technology, where they can add the most value.

It’s never too early to think about change and onboard a change partner; the earlier the better. During the pre-implementation phase, setting up the correct governance, sponsorship and process ownership is essential. In addition, preparing the business for what’s to come will help pave the path to success, and manage the expectations of what is needed from the business teams to secure the success of the project.

A change partner is essential towards the end of the detailed design phase. They will help to perform a change impact assessment on the major changes and gaps identified in the project. A seemingly trivial system change may have a significant organisational or functional process change that needs to be considered holistically. Having a strong change partner in place will help to ensure that by the end of the design phase there is a clear understanding of what is changing, why it is changing and how it will impact on the people, processes and technology

Your ERP is the backbone of your organisation, and therefore its importance scales with your size. This means you can’t afford to fail in your S/4HANA transformation, so if there is any aspect of change management you’re not confident delivering, you will benefit from specialist support.

A dedicated change parter will be able to tailor their solution to the specific scale, scope and requirements of your transformation, meaning they can add value whatever the size of your programme.

At Afiniti, business change is all we do: we don’t have any other agenda, and we thrive on helping clients shape change, be ready for change, make change happen and ultimately make change stick.

We really are all about people; it’s people that will drive change and make the new way of working the norm.  Our holistic blend of change management services is part of an integrated approach to the people agenda of change. Using a tailored mix of our services to suit your SAP S/4HANA project, we will help you accelerate and embed change, driving your business forward to its potential future state.

Contact us today to find out how we can help make your change stick.

An inflight project describes a project which is already in progress.

When tackling resistance to change, it is important to provide an overview of why the change is required. Explaining the vision of the project with the endorsement and sponsorship of senior stakeholders will help to provide the justification for change. Focusing on the benefits / dis-benefits (or regressions) will help to answer many questions and help stakeholder understand the ‘what’s in it for me’. Explaining the change management strategy and the various steps through the project will help to reassure people that they will be supported through the transition.

Communication supports adoption throughout the full change lifecycle, allowing you to take people on the journey via the communication plan through Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. If communication is missed at any stage, then it has an impact on the effectiveness of the overall messaging and achievement of subsequent stages, including adoption. Training and learning are also included in the communication plan, and it is important to lay some foundations so that trainees attend with a baseline level of awareness of the project, its importance and any key changes.

It is important to ensure that the correct skillsets exist within the change management team or can be leveraged from existing internal resources/departments. If in-house skills don’t exist then a company like Afiniti can support the project and also build the internal capability to sustain activities/projects.

The communication throughout the project can often determine long-term success, buy-in and business engagement, so having a strong communications lead is often a key enabling factor in SAP S/4HANA projects.

A change impact assessment describes the current (as-is) and future (to-be) ways of working and the impact moving to the new way of working will have on people, process, systems and data. Understanding this will define the volume and magnitude of change expected and allow the correct mitigations to be planned.

During the design phase it is typical to implement Gap Board or Design Board Governance to manage any significant gaps (improvement requests / evolutions) in the solution design and ensure there is robust governance in place to manage scope, budget, and schedule. A change impact assessment can often help during the gap analysis to ensure that the gap is not just arbitrated based on the system development effort, but instead considers all organisational, roles and responsibilities and process implications.

A change impact assessment defines the volume and magnitude of change. The information uncovered during the change impact assessment will help shape the change strategy and plan to support people through the change journey.

Change impact assessments can be used as an input into the testing cycles, data migration activities and end user training.

Too often projects are focused on the technical solution and delivery. Ensuring that the correct change management representation is included at the steering committee level will ensure that there is a focus on people and the impact change will have on them. Ideally, there would be a workstream for change management with the lead attending any steering committee meetings.

In many projects, business readiness is more likely to be a bigger factor in delaying or derailing the project deployment than the technical solution readiness.

Additionally, representation of the Change Management team at gap boards can be useful to capture the impact of the change in the decision making; change management and data migration elements are often not considered in solution design decision making.

Yes, the Change Management team should be involved in the role mapping activities.

There are usually two kinds of role mapping. There are technical activities to assign SAP transaction codes to authorisation roles within SAP. The Change Management team would have an interest in this mapping to drive learning preparation and execution.

There is also an organisational focused activity to assign people to the correct authorisation roles in SAP. This business task is supported by the Change Management team and is critical to ensure people are assigned to the correct training courses and have the required skills and abilities to perform their role in the business.

Project success depends on active and visible sponsorship from executive level stakeholders. Executive sponsorship will ensure the correct messages are communicated from the correct people within the organisation, positioning the programme for success (in alignment with other business priorities). Strong leadership and sponsorship is critical in helping teams understand the need for change, which for some might feel like a retrograde step. Mitigating resistance and consistently conveying key messages through active and visible leadership is vital. The ‘bigger picture’ benefits should be consistently and continually voiced by the sponsors.

The Change Management team should support coordinated and active sponsorship by bringing clarity and capability to the role of the sponsor through regular meetings, coaching and activities.

Research suggests programmes with active and visible executive level sponsorship will be 90% more successful than programmes without this level of support.

Underpinning the change strategy is the Change Agent Network (CAN) who, as a collective, are pivotal to the successful adoption of the project. This network should be equipped and supported by the project change team and will reflect a cross section of those impacted by the change from all impacted departments or locations.

Ensuring the CAN are sequencing activities in support of project changes is important because this group will own and promote the change from within their communities, actively driving adoption over the longer term.

The SAP solution will be based on end-to-end business processes. The focus of training should be on what is changing within the business process or within the supporting ERP systems.

Often, a SAP S/4HANA project is an opportunity to refresh training and improve the skills and efficiency of the organisation.

There is also an opportunity to develop sustainable materials that can be used for future re-training of existing employees and for onboarding new joiners. Performance management tools can be deployed to support the training activities and to tailor the training strategy to the individual needs of user groups, e.g. classroom training, web-based learning, etc.

Preparations for the blackout period, including communication, procedures, offline templates and escalations, are vitally important as there will be no system available for a time, yet business activities will not fully cease. The Change Management team can often support to ensure that people are aware of the interim processes and are equipped with the knowledge and ability to perform tasks during this period.

Blackout periods can range between one or two days to three or four weeks of downtime. The expected blackout duration often determines the level of involvement of the Change Management team. Nevertheless, involving them is crucial to ensure communications throughout this cutover phase are managed and all stakeholders are kept up-to-date on the progress and readiness for go-live.

The vision and mission of a project underpin its goals and objectives and help to communicate its strategic importance for all stakeholders. Executive sponsorship will help to reinforce the key messages while emphasising the commitment of management to execute and deliver.

The vision and mission can be adapted through the project to reflect changing circumstances and priorities, but they should not deviate too far from the initial vision commitments agreed with the project sponsorship group. Ideally, the key messages will tie in to the corporate values and mission statements where applicable.

Sustainability should be part of the change management strategy to build internal change capability throughout the project.

The project artefacts and documentation should always be prepared with longevity and future in mind, including learning materials, documentation and communication tool kits.

Having a comprehensive business change strategy and plan is a key success factor for any technology project. Change Management should be given sufficient importance to ensure successful adoption of solutions that essentially form the backbone of an organisation.

Onboarding a business change partner to support the SAP S/4HANA journey will contribute towards a successful rollout, adoption, benefit realisation and return on investment, and will allow your integration partner to focus solely on the technology, where they can add the most value.

Your ERP is the backbone of your organisation, and therefore its importance scales with your size. This means you can’t afford to fail in your S/4HANA transformation, so if there is any aspect of change management you’re not confident delivering, you will benefit from specialist support.

A dedicated change parter will be able to tailor their solution to the specific scale, scope and requirements of your transformation, meaning they can add value whatever the size of your programme.

At Afiniti, business change is all we do: we don’t have any other agenda, and we thrive on helping clients shape change, be ready for change, make change happen and ultimately make change stick.

We really are all about people; it’s people that will drive change and make the new way of working the norm.  Our holistic blend of change management services is part of an integrated approach to the people agenda of change. Using a tailored mix of our services to suit your SAP S/4HANA project, we will help you accelerate and embed change, driving your business forward to its potential future state.

Contact us today to find out how we can help make your change stick.

Post-implementation describes the phase after the project is complete (e.g. hypercare is finished) and would typically include embedding and adoption activities. Focus at this stage of the project should be around stabilisation and benefits realisation.

Success depends on the vision, mission and scope of the project. Some projects may target a technical upgrade without implementing features to improve the user experience and functionality, whereas others may seek to fully re-engineer and try to simplify or automate processes to improve efficiency.

Is success the ‘go-live’ being achieved? From a technical perspective, it likely is. If, however, success means adoption – that the organisation has embraced and embedded new ways of thinking and working – then the people aspects of change must be addressed with the same weight as process, technology and data.

SAP S/4HANA is a significant investment and its success depends on the organisation’s readiness and commitment to adopt and embed new ways of thinking and working.

It is therefore important to define your organisation’s specific success criteria before embarking on your journey.

The change network is an important part of embedding new ways of working. This group will help an organisation to understand the attitude in the business towards the solution, support benefit realisation and achieve post implementation KPIs.

The continuation of the change network can help to supplement the support organisation and help with continuous improvement of the solutions/processes and how they are used. Activities may include user/ super user forums, drop-in sessions to support end users, training and onboarding of new resources.

Communication supports adoption throughout the full change lifecycle, allowing you to take people on the journey via the communication plan through Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. If communication is missed at any stage, then it has an impact on the effectiveness of the overall messaging and achievement of subsequent stages, including adoption. Training and learning are also included in the communication plan, and it is important to lay some foundations so that trainees attend with a baseline level of awareness of the project, its importance and any key changes.

The SAP solution will be based on end-to-end business processes. The focus of training should be on what is changing within the business process or within the supporting ERP systems.

Often, a SAP S/4HANA project is an opportunity to refresh training and improve the skills and efficiency of the organisation.

There is also an opportunity to develop sustainable materials that can be used for future re-training of existing employees and for onboarding new joiners. Performance management tools can be deployed to support the training activities and to tailor the training strategy to the individual needs of user groups, e.g. classroom training, web-based learning, etc.

Sustainability should be part of the change management strategy to build internal change capability throughout the project.

The project artefacts and documentation should always be prepared with longevity and future in mind, including learning materials, documentation and communication tool kits.

Having a comprehensive business change strategy and plan is a key success factor for any technology project. Change Management should be given sufficient importance to ensure successful adoption of solutions that essentially form the backbone of an organisation.

Onboarding a business change partner to support the SAP S/4HANA journey will contribute towards a successful rollout, adoption, benefit realisation and return on investment, and will allow your integration partner to focus solely on the technology, where they can add the most value.

Your ERP is the backbone of your organisation, and therefore its importance scales with your size. This means you can’t afford to fail in your S/4HANA transformation, so if there is any aspect of change management you’re not confident delivering, you will benefit from specialist support.

A dedicated change parter will be able to tailor their solution to the specific scale, scope and requirements of your transformation, meaning they can add value whatever the size of your programme.

At Afiniti, business change is all we do: we don’t have any other agenda, and we thrive on helping clients shape change, be ready for change, make change happen and ultimately make change stick.

We really are all about people; it’s people that will drive change and make the new way of working the norm.  Our holistic blend of change management services is part of an integrated approach to the people agenda of change. Using a tailored mix of our services to suit your SAP S/4HANA project, we will help you accelerate and embed change, driving your business forward to its potential future state.

Contact us today to find out how we can help make your change stick.