
Recently comes the headline: SAP users struggling with data management for S/4HANA migration.
And the metrics: “According to a survey of 116 SAP user organizations, 61 percent said that data management challenges have slowed or will slow the automation of their business processes. Meanwhile, two-thirds (66 percent) state that data management is a challenge when moving from SAP ECC 6.0 to SAP S/4HANA, the study by the UK and Ireland SAP User Group (UKISUG) found.”
Is it really surprising that two-thirds of folks seem surprised by the effort required to bring data into a new system? Or that they struggle to manage data after the fact?
On reading this news, my first reaction was: There’s nothing new here! Implementing SAP ERP has always been about the data. In particular, it’s all about the master data, because SAP ERP is a master-data-driven system. Data migration has always been — and will always be — the highest-risk workstream. If your SAP master data isn’t right and governed, then woe is you!
But there’s definitely more going on with the move from SAP ECC 6.0 to SAP S/4HANA. Much more.