Migration to SAP S/4HANA: why data management must not be an afterthought

Is your organisation preparing to migrate to SAP S/4HANA? If so, now is the time to look beyond the technical implementation alone.

A migration to SAP S/4HANA involves far more than transferring data from one system to another. It presents an excellent opportunity to make lasting improvements to data quality, data structures and data management. In practice, however, we often see ETL, data migration and data quality receiving the attention they deserve only relatively late in the project. This is precisely where risks begin to emerge.

Who is responsible for the data?

During an SAP S/4HANA implementation, the technical work is usually carried out by a specialist implementation partner. The organisation itself often remains responsible for the data migration and the quality and integrity of its data. On paper, this division of responsibilities makes sense. In practice, however, a grey area frequently arises between the implementation partner, the business and those responsible for the data.

For example, who decides:

• which data actually needs to be migrated to SAP S/4HANA?
• which data needs to be cleansed first?
• how master data should be structured in the new environment?
• which business rules should be applied?
• how existing ETL processes need to be adapted?
• which processes can be automated during or after the migration?

These are not purely technical questions. They have a direct impact on business operations.

The new SAP environment is still unfamiliar

A key challenge is that, during the preparation phase, the organisation is often not yet sufficiently familiar with the capabilities and limitations of the new S/4HANA environment. At the same time, important decisions already need to be made about data and processes.

Consider the following areas:

Data quality
What errors, duplicate records, missing information and inconsistencies exist in the current system?

Master data
How should customers, suppliers, materials and other master data be structured in S/4HANA?

Business rules
Which rules and controls should be applied before data enters the new system?

ETL and data migration
How will data be extracted, transformed, validated and loaded?

Automation
Which manual activities can already be automated and developed further at a later stage?

Waiting until the end of the implementation process to address these areas means missing an important opportunity.

What happens if you start too late?

We regularly see the same patterns recurring in SAP migration projects:

• Data quality becomes an issue during the migration.
• Transactional data is often created manually, such as purchase and sales orders.
• Data still needs to be cleansed, requiring additional time and resources.
• Data is technically correct but configured in a way that is impractical for the business.
• Users consequently experience the new environment as complex or less user-friendly.
• Business rules are defined too late, resulting in missed opportunities.

This leads to process issues and solutions having to be developed retrospectively. Data and integration challenges only become apparent during the implementation, when making changes is often more expensive and complex.

In short: anything that is not prevented in advance can become a problem during implementation.

SAP expertise is not the same as integrated data management

An SAP consultant will typically have indepth knowledge of a specific SAP module or business process. This expertise is essential to a successful implementation. However, it does not automatically mean that sufficient integrated data management expertise is available across different modules, processes and data sources. It is precisely this cross-functional perspective that is crucial during a SAP S/4HANA migration. Data does not exist in isolation. Customers, suppliers, materials, prices, orders and other data are interconnected and collectively support the organisation’s business processes. This is why we regularly see data management specialists being added to SAP projects relatively late, often only after problems have already arisen. This is a missed opportunity.

Start with your data before you migrate. Our experience shows that it is far more effective to review the data, business rules, ETL processes and automation opportunities together before the actual migration begins. The objective is not to take over the work of the SAP implementation partner, but to ensure that data and processes are properly considered from the very start.

This offers three key benefits:

1. Lower risk during implementation
Issues relating to data quality, migration and configuration become visible at an earlier stage.

2. A stronger starting point for SAP S/4HANA
You avoid simply transferring existing problems to a new environment.

3. A foundation for further optimisation
The solutions and automations developed during the migration can be expanded further after go-live.

Are you planning to move to SAP S/4HANA?

Is your organisation at the beginning of a SAP S/4HANA migration or upgrade? If so, now is the time to consider not only the technical implementation, but also the following question:

Is our data genuinely ready for  SAP S/4HANA? And perhaps more importantly:  What can we improve now, so that we ultimately have not only a new ERP system, but also better data and more efficient processes?

At Tentive, we help organisations with Master Data Management, Data Governance, Data Migration & Integration and Data Process Automation. We are keen to engage with organisations at an early stage as they prepare to move to SAP S/4HANA, not to resolve problems after they arise, but to prevent as many of them as possible in advance. After all, a SAP S/4HANA migration is not merely an IT project. It is an opportunity to establish a stronger foundation for your data and processes. Please contact us to discuss how we can support your organisation.