When an organization embarks on a business transformation project, they are optimistic that it will progress smoothly. Whichever area of the business they want to change, it is usually to try and improve the customer experience, be more innovative, or make operations more efficient, and ultimately gain some form of competitive advantage.

Yet, in lockstep, companies face increasing pressure to become more adaptable and quickly respond to these changes while staying aware of new regulations and business opportunities. Incorporating the latest technologies, such as ERP transformation, is also vital to supporting business initiatives.

In such a complex and changing landscape, what is the most effective route to successful ERP transformation?

Holistic view of operations with process observability

To overcome such transformation hurdles, businesses should aim to take a holistic view of operations that looks at the health of the overall company, identifies critical processes and functions, and creates the opportunity for improvement and change.

By delivering this improved process observability, companies can progressively increase the understanding of end-to-end business processes, the operational systems they touch, how well they meet business goals, and the needs of customers and employees.

Furthermore, as companies look to drive complicated business and technology transformation faster, at scale, and with more confidence, understanding the actual state of company operations is more critical than ever, helping to navigate change and stay resilient and agile.

The reality of business transformation

With this, the recent IDC white paper, sponsored by SAP, Business Process Observability: A Collaborative Approach to Transformation Enablement (doc #EUR251308223, November 2023) looks at organizations’ business process management (BPM) capabilities and the challenges they face.

The research showed 87.5% of respondents do not have an effective collaboration environment for process change that provides visibility to all process participants. Around 74% of businesses are struggling to get deep operational insights.

It’s little wonder that many organizations cannot easily associate business issues with business process performance. It’s also not surprising that the reality of business transformation can differ radically from the ideal.

Accelerating transformation – the plug and gain approach

Process observability and the deep insight and understanding into processes that it provides should be an objective for any transformation project. Customers can obtain a higher level of process observability with SAP Signavio solutions used with the plug and gain approach.

The plug and gain approach is suited to SAP customers without migration plans, preparing for migration to SAP S/4HANA, or already on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. It involves using SAP Signavio solutions in concert to quickly analyze how an organization’s processes actually function, then supports more effective alignment between the employees running those processes and the company’s business goals. In short, building one digital source of truth helps fix the “observability deficit” that can prevent effective transformation.

This means people can make fast, data-driven decisions on how to design processes, what to keep, and what to change based on as-is practices, company best-run execution, and SAP Best Practices packages. The automated correction and innovation recommendations allow a user to understand areas to focus on and improve based on internal and external benchmarks.

Plug and gain benefits – transformation acceleration to continuous improvement

SAP offers solutions to accelerate insights and collaboration – delivering capabilities for a resilient and sustainable business. With the plug and gain approach, companies can streamline the transition to SAP S/4HANA Cloud and help people know where to start, prove the value of, and address failure concerns in their ERP transformation.

• Accelerate transformation. The plug and gain approach can significantly reduce the time required to prepare for your SAP S/4HANA transformation from months to just hours. Users can quickly analyze how your whole organization runs, by getting deep insights into processes in a matter of hours.
• Reduce time to deploy. This occurs and de-risks projects by implementing customization in SAP S/4HANA only where necessary. It also fosters closer collaboration between business and IT by sharing process models between those who design processes and those who implement and test processes in IT solutions.
• Continuous improvement. Any transformation should evolve and constantly improve. The plug and gain approach supports this by providing tailored recommendations based on individual process performance, meaning continuous improvement and monitoring processes to quickly identify, decide, and implement changes as conditions change.

Realizing maximum business potential

This more inclusive, accelerated transformation intensifies value creation and shows if you have truly delivered on a business case, helping limit project challenges. Furthermore, plug and gain offers many advantages for IT transformations from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

From identifying the best path to begin transformation to providing the continuous improvement that is so pivotal to successful ERP transformation, SAP Signavio solutions enable you to not only achieve a higher level of process observability, but also realize the maximum potential of your organization.

For more in depth insight on how the plug and gain approach can accelerate your ERP transformation, read the paper “Transition to SAP S/4HANA Cloud – fast, with maximum value and minimal risk”.