At a glance
Industry
Manufacturing
Location
Germany
Challenge
Deliver a smooth migration to SAP S/4HANA and the cloud for a business-critical sales and order management system supporting 1,600 sales professionals in four European countries.
Success Highlights
- Complex dual migration, including 200 interfaces, delivered in 18 months with no issues
- 20 years of valuable business data safely migrated to the new environment
- Cutover to the new platform achieved over one single weekend
Our approach
Identifying the right approach to the migration was critical. Each in-country implementation of SAP ECC held 20 years of valuable business data and had been customized to match local business processes. Vorwerk wanted to move much of the data and some of the processes into S/4HANA but also saw an opportunity to harmonize some processes and take advantage of new SAP functionality.
This called for a “bluefield” migration approach, rather than rebuilding from scratch (“greenfield”) or simply replicating existing processes in the new platform (“brownfield”). We therefore reached out to SAP S/4HANA bluefield data migration specialists SNP Group to work with us on the project.
A smooth and successful 18-month transformation project
Working closely with Vorwerk and SNP, we planned, managed and delivered all seven projects over 18 months, going live on time in a single cutover. We leveraged a breadth of onsite and offshore domain expertise at each stage, including specialists in record to report (RTR), order to cash (OTC), procure to pay (PTP), commission and repair, as well as technical expertise on business application software integrated solution (BASIS), advanced business application programming (ABAP) and integrations.
This complex but highly successful transformation was delivered in multiple stages:
Assessment and roadmap
We conducted a full assessment of the existing SAP landscape, identifying custom functionality and associated ABAP objects to be considered for conversion. We leveraged our proven transformation assessment methodology (C-TAM) and experience of 35+ previous S/4HANA transformation assessments. The assessment formed the basis of a detailed migration roadmap.
Cloud infrastructure
We configured the new infrastructure in Microsoft Azure Cloud, taking best practices and SAP recommendations into consideration. Systems were deployed using a one-click deployment approach with Terraform scripts. Prior to the cutover, infrastructure was migrated seamlessly from a cloud solution provider (CSP) model to an enterprise subscription.
Stress testing was successfully carried out, with user acceptance testing (UAT) confirming that the selected stock-keeping units (SKUs) and the implemented design were best suited for the workload. AzCopy was leveraged to copy the data from the on-premises system to cloud, and continuous synchronization was enabled for delta copy. Post go-live, high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) capabilities were enabled to maximize the resilience of the infrastructure.
SAP S/4HANA configuration
We created a shell of the new S/4HANA system, with no data, on the Azure platform. This allowed us to carry out the required configurations without impacting any data. It was also an opportunity to harmonize Vorwerk's chart of accounts and introduce new parallel ledger functionality to enable faster and smoother accounting across its country-based legal entities.
Bluefield systems migration
We migrated the existing landscape to the new S/4HANA environment, including making appropriate adjustments to the application programming interfaces (APIs) to Vorwerk's SAP CRM and other non-SAP systems in Vorwerk's ecosystem.
Selective data migration
We worked with SNP to conduct multiple cycles of data migration, using its CrystalBridge® tool to safely bring 20 years of customer, account and transactional data into the new S/4HANA environment. A selective data transition (SDT) method was used to prepare and migrate the data that Vorwerk had identified as having the most value for its business.
Testing
After each data migration we conducted integration testing, and then a final UAT to identify any user-facing issues for remediation. We conducted depreciation runs with existing data in the new S/4HANA universal ledger module and tested two years of commission calculations to ensure this morale-critical process would run smoothly.
Cutover and hypercare
The final cutover was a complex one, with multiple transformations going live at once: the S/4HANA migration, the cloud migration, new business processes, a harmonized chart of accounts and a new general ledger environment. Despite this, cutover was extremely successful with minimal issues, no business disruption and no need to engage with SAP. The delivery and test team also stayed on after the cutover to provide a scheduled period of hypercare, ensuring any issues were swiftly and expertly addressed and handing over to the ongoing maintenance team on time as planned.
Business outcomes
Using a lean migration approach, the business-critical sales and order management system, including 20 years of data, was moved to an SAP S/4HANA and cloud environment over a single weekend, with close to zero downtime.
The speed and success of the migration meant 100,000 Thermomix and Kobold sales advisors across Europe could continue working as normal, while finance professionals could benefit straightaway from the harmonized reporting environment.
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