Greenfield vs Brownfield

S/4HANA Migration
The Complete Guide to
A Non-Disruptive Transition

SAP S/4HANA?
1 Greenfield vs Brownfield S/4HANA Migration
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3 Why S/4HANA? Why Now?

5 Greenfield vs Brownfield: All Things Considered

6 Greenfield – A New Implementation

7 Brownfield – System Conversion

8 S/4HANA Move: The Change Management Perspective

8 How to Choose the Right S/4HANA Migration Approach

9 SAP’s Recommended Migration Strategy

9 SAP S/4HANA Migration How-To

SAP S/4HANA?
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Why S/4HANA? Why Now?
With its flexible data structures, rich UI and real-time insights, SAP S/4HANA is a momentous
release in SAP’s history. According to an SAPInsider report, the opportunities for improving
business operations presented by this next-generation release, combined with the looming
end of support for traditional SAP systems based on SAP ERP Central Component (SAP ECC),
due to expire in 2025, is driving the acceleration of customer adoption.

S/4HANA Migration: State of the Market

Panaya’s customer feedback shows that the S/4HANA migration ship is definitely sailing, and
everyone wants to be on it. Our findings are on a par with those of a SAPinsider recent report.
According to the SAPinsider survey, 52% of organizations are currently in the evaluation phase
of their S/4HANA migration.
Here are just some of the insights we gathered from talking to customers in different
industries, like; consumer goods, retail, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals:
› Most organizations are taking the System Conversion (Brownfield) path to S/4HANA
› A major pain point is the evaluation (business case) phase
› Project scope, resources, and timeline are difficult to evaluate

Who Is Moving to SAP S/4HANA?

An ASUG survey further identified a few characteristics for organizations that have started
to make the move:
› They tend to be early tech adopters who can make IT-led business cases.
› They’ve had to make a business case around external IT factors, such as a merger or
acquisition.
› Or, they’ve needed to do a system refresh and see the move as an opportunity.

SAP S/4HANA Migration - Where to Start?

Use Value Stream Management to realize your IT priorities. Allocate resources based on added
value to the end-user experience. Do not automatically assume your most challenging projects
are also the most impactful ones.

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 Start building a viable business case well
Over 52% are currently ahead of your move. This may sound obvious,
in the evaluation or but apparently some organizations could use
a reminder. Waiting for the last minute means
pilot phase of their you will have to pay the cost of indecision;
S/4HANA migration. t e c h n i c a l d e b t , m a r ke t s h a re l o s s t o
competi tion and eventuall y, a r ushed,
insufficiently resourced migration project.

Organizations' SAP S/4HANA Adoption Strategy

41%

21%

11% 12%

7%
4% 4%

No plans No plans Currently Pilot project Currently Already No plans

yet – likely yet – likely evaluating under way implementing using
to consider to consider
within 12 within 24
months months Source: SAPinsider , April 2019

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Greenfield vs Brownfield:
All Things Considered
There is no single solution when it comes to SAP S/4HANA migration, and each organization
is in a different stage of SAP S/4HANA readiness. Some have chosen the Greenfield
approach, which means implementing a new system. Others have chosen the Brownfield
approach or, System Conversion, because it doesn’t disrupt their existing business
processes. And for those who wish to consolidate their current system landscape into SAP
S/4HANA, there’s landscape transformation.
According to the SAPinsider survey report, SAP S/4HANA: State of the Market, ‘31% of
companies overall are planning a “lift and shift” (Brownfield) approach. These companies
want to preserve their existing investment and the customization of their business
processes and are looking for the easiest, least disruptive path forward.

SAP S/4HANA Implementation Approaches

36%
31%

15%
13%
4%

Greenfield Brownfield Hybrid Unsure Other

Source: SAPinsider , April 2019

As each methodology has its advantages and challenges, you must take a look at your
database, platform, and configuration before deciding which route may be most suitable
to your given situation. Below, we analyze each methodology to help you do just this.

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Greenfield – A New Implementation
The Greenfield approach means a new implementation of SAP S/4HANA. On the bright side,
it enables complete re-engineering and process simplification. The Greenfield approach
lets organizations predefine migration objects and best practices. It lowers Time-to-Value
and TCO and facilitates faster adoption of innovation with S/4HANA capabilities.
On the downside, a Greenfield implementation can be a time-consuming project, especially
on the change management side, since you have to start everything from scratch.
As an SAP manager, going through the re-implementation route can be unnerving. Your
SAP system is expected to operate entirely different but you are unsure as to what
exactly will change. Finally, a Greenfield implementation in and of itself does not
guarantee that the newly implemented system will be operational. Organizations
choosing this approach will need to allot time for adjustment.

End of SAP ECC Support

Your vanilla S/4 system goes
live with (some) capabilities
that (may or may not) match
business needs

Finished? Hold your breath, cross your

fingers and (optionally) pray for a
smooth go-live

Build new system – run – then mitigate

risk – run – test - Repeat.

Store and manage the retired

processes and data

Rewrite your system

customizations
Configure your vanilla
S/4 system from scratch

Redesign your business

processes according to the
S/4 standard

Retire all business

processes

Greenfield Means Starting from Scratch

New deployment. New system. New processes. New everything!

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Brownfield – System Conversion
System conversion, also known as the Brownfield approach, enables migration to SAP
S/4HANA without re-implementation and without disruption to existing business processes.
At the same time, it enables the reevaluation of customization and existing process flows.
System conversion is about moving your entire SAP system and business processes to a
new platform of S/4HANA. This approach is preferable if you’d like to avoid any changes
to your business processes. It allows you to run your business with less disruption since
it’s more of a technical system conversion. The downside is that possible issues on the
technical side can arise, but with the right tools and technology, like Panaya Release Dynamix,
the risk can be mitigated.
For organizations aiming to keep their investments in their current ECC, a system
conversion is the preferred approach. Panaya S/4HANA Impact Assessment Pack
provides the certainty and ease you need to start your S/4HANA migration, including
valuable insights and a detailed report.

Landscape Transformation
Landscape transformation is a derivative of the Brownfield approach. Through landscape
transformation, you can selectively migrate parts of your business process to S/4HANA or
consolidate your business landscapes into one global system. This means that you can first
select the process that gives you the best—and fastest—ROI to be migrated to S/4HANA.
Customers may choose to go down this route, for instance, when adopting S/4HANA capabilities
for Central Finance.

Landscape Transformation Use Case: Central Finance

The components architecture surrounding S/4HANA allows organizations to implement a
stand-alone business process linked to S/4HANA’s ERP core system. One example of this is
SAP Central Finance. With landscape transformation, you can utilize SAP Central Finance by
migrating your financial postings to the HANA database. It uses the single database table
called Universal Journal for all data from General Ledger, Profitability, Management Accounting,
Asset Accounting, and Material Ledger. This new architecture allows you to produce a
multidimensional financial reporting structure by incorporating the data from your legacy
systems into Central Finance without any data duplication.
Using this function of Central Finance, you can still perform the financial postings in your legacy
system while the data is being replicated into the Universal Journal entry database via the
SAP Landscape Transformation Replication Server. This means that you can gradually move
the process, piece by piece into the new SAP S/4HANA before completely turning off the old
system. This reduces the risk of replacing many different systems all at once.

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S/4HANA Move:
The Change Management Perspective
An S/4HANA migration is not only a technical challenge. It also touches and affects
nearly every business unit. From a change management perspective, a Greenfield
implementation project is a major undertaking.
Organizations are daunted by the uncertainty regarding the scope of potential
change caused by a reconstruction of the entire SAP environment.
As opposed to a full migration, with system conversion, IT professionals and users
can build on existing elements of the SAP environment, as well as on satellite systems
such as supplier and partners’ systems. The gradual approach minimizes delays and
disruption caused by testing to mission-critical applications.
Change managers can take time and adjust the migration-pace based on available
budget and market conditions (e.g., development freeze during busy season). Additionally,
a step-by-step migration allows for more leverage of business users' experience.

How to Choose the Right

S/4HANA Migration Approach?
Choosing the right approach requires that an organization performs extensive analysis and
evaluation of both technical and functional aspects. The existing system landscape, business
function, and user readiness are a few things that need to be taken into consideration.
More importantly, you should take a look at your own roadmap for digital transformation.
That is, identify where you are and where you want to go in the upcoming years.

Key Points to Help You Decide Which Path to Take for Your S/4HANA Migration

What Are You Looking For? Path to Take

Simplification of current business processes Greenfield
A quick transformation into the new S/4HANA system Greenfield
Converting your current SAP ERP system into S/4HANA Brownfield
Selective migration, such as for a certain business process Landscape Transformation
or organizational unit. Consolidation of multiple systems,
both SAP and non-SAP, into one global system

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SAP’s Recommended Migration Strategy
SAP users deliberating the migration process often wonder what SAP’s official
recommendation is. The Brownfield route is endorsed and recommended by SAP for
existing customers that wish to migrate to S/4HANA while still capitalizing on their SAP
ECC investment.
In a recent interview, Rudolf Hois, SAP VP and chief product owner for SAP S/4HANA was
quoted saying that 50-60% of the SAP S/4HANA install base has already chosen system
conversion as their route. In fact, to accommodate this route’s growing popularity, the latest
version, S/4HANA 1809, simplifies and improves automation and downtime for system
conversion. Mr. Hois also shared lessons learned on different implementation projects.
He noted that the route chosen for SAP S/4HANA migration is really dependent on the
Change Management methodology a given organization can afford.

SAP S/4HANA Migration How-to

Once the path has been decided upon, it’s time to prepare for the actual migration by
planning the exact steps needed for a successful implementation.

Greenfield: Step by Step

If Greenfield is your method of choice, the ‘SAP Activate’ is an Agile methodology that can
assist you. Here it is in 6 simple steps:

The ‫״‬SAP Activate‫ ״‬Methodology

Discover Prepare Explore Realize Deploy Run

Discover The first step is to identify the value of your business and then develop the roadmap and strategy
to be used in the implementation of the project.

Prepare In this phase, you initiate and start working on your final project plans as well as preparing your
team. Choosing the right people for your team is essential to ensure the project will run optimally.

Explore SAP S/4HANA offers a wide range of solutions for your business, especially for a new
implementation. In this phase, the scope evaluation process will be performed, and a Fit / Gap
analysis can be adopted—instead of traditional blueprint requirements—in order to ensure a more
efficient and faster implementation.

Realize This phase focuses on the realization process of the business requirements that have been defined
in the previous phase. These include system configuration settings, integration scenarios, and data
migration.

Deploy The production environment is set up in this phase. When it’s ready, cutover activities will be
performed and business operations are moved to the new system.

Run Go live with your new S/4HANA system!

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Brownfield: Step by Step
The Brownfield migration process is divided into two phases: preparation and realization.

Preparation Phase Realization Phase

System Custom
Conversion System Follow - On
Requirements Code
Pre-Check Installation Activities
& Planning Migration

Preparation Phase
› System Requirements & Planning: This assessment should be conducted to analyze the
existing system and then define the best possible solution to execute the migration.
› Conversion Pre-Check: A compatibility check of any add-ons or business functions that
are active in the current system is required to ensure they can technically be converted
into S/4HANA. Consult SAP’s Simplification Item Check to identify the mandatory steps before
converting your system.
› Custom Code Migration: Take this step to check your custom code against S/4HANA
compatibility. This is essential, especially if there are enhancements in your current system.

Realization Phase
› System Installation: After the preparation phase, you can start the conversion to SAP
S/4HANA. This step includes database migration and data conversion.
› Follow-On Activities: After the technical conversion, all relevant customized settings must
be migrated.
› Data Consistency Check (especially for financial data): Since SAP S/4HANA collects all
relevant components from Financial Accounting (FI) and Controlling (CO) into one data
pool, called the Universal Journal, it is imperative that you perform reconciliation between
your accounting components. In this way, the data can be merged correctly into the Universal
Journal.
› Iteration Testing: When all customization has been performed and all data have been
migrated, you must run test iterations for final business process validation.

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 If you've already decided on migrating to S/4HANA and are struggling to choose
your path, Panaya's Assessment Pack can help you decide. With a comprehensive
analysis of your ECC landscapes, Panaya can show you upfront the potential
of System Conversion efforts savings, based on both standard and custom
code S/4HANA impact.

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Panaya, an Infosys company, is the leader in SaaS-based change automation and testing for SAP®, Oracle®
and Salesforce. Panaya provides a cloud-based solution to manage application changes, reducing the time,
cost and risk associated with any application change by 50%. Since 2008, 2,000 companies in 62 countries,
including a third of the Fortune 500, have been using Panaya to enable safe go-live for their business critical
applications. www.panaya.com

11 Greenfield vs Brownfield S/4HANA Migration