Most European companies still run on SAP ECC 6.0 today. At the same time, S/4HANA is no longer just at the door. It is already sitting in the meeting room, demanding a decision. But anyone who believes S/4HANA is about a technical upgrade vastly underestimates the scale of this change.
S/4HANA is not a new version. It is a new platform, a new way of thinking. And above all a unique opportunity to set your own company on a course for the future.
That is exactly why this is not a migration. It is a transformation.
A transformation that ties up investment in the millions and demands resources. One that puts processes, structures and responsibilities to the test and, approached the wrong way, costs not only time and money but valuable competitiveness.
So the decisive question is not: how do we get to S/4HANA? But: how do we want to work in future?
Many companies prefer the brownfield approach. Understandable, in a way.
Existing processes are largely retained, familiar workflows are carried over and the technical complexity seems manageable.
But this is exactly where the great temptation lies. Anyone who transfers twenty years of accumulated processes and structures unchanged into a new platform often only digitalises the past.
Over the last two decades, companies have changed massively. Lean production, automated logistics, MES systems, cloud technologies, artificial intelligence, new business models and changed customer expectations have rewritten the rules. Nevertheless, many organisations still work in structures that stem from the past.
Silos were created. Isolated solutions established. Shadow IT tolerated. Special processes developed. Each of them had a good reason at some point. Today, many of them are above all one thing: very complex.
An SAP transformation offers the rare chance to question exactly this complexity rigorously.
Which processes create real value, which systems are actually needed and where do organisational boundaries prevent efficient workflows?
And what would actually happen if you didn’t defend the status quo but rethought it completely?
The real challenge doesn’t lie with SAP, but within the company itself.
Transformation begins where companies stop treating historical compromises as laws of nature. That includes redefining responsibilities and organising processes along value streams rather than departmental boundaries.
Because while companies increasingly think in end-to-end processes, many organisations still work in functional silos. Yet the future belongs not to the companies with the most applications, but to those with the best processes.
S/4HANA is the platform for this. Transformation is the decision to make something of it.
Why second unit?
We see processes, organisation, technologies and people as one connected whole. In doing so, we use the most valuable resource that already exists in every company: the knowledge of its own employees. No outside consultant knows the daily challenges better than the people who master them every day.
That is why we rely on collective intelligence rather than standard presentations, on active participation rather than strict requirements. On insights from within the company rather than worn-out consulting clichés.
Together we analyse which processes should sensibly be mapped in SAP in future, which systems need to be integrated and which workflows simply no longer fit the digital future. We are technology-agnostic. Just because something is possible in SAP does not mean it has to be implemented there. What matters is not the platform. What matters is the benefit.
While traditional transformation approaches often focus on the technical introduction of S/4HANA, we see the introduction for what it really is: the biggest organisational and digital change initiative since the introduction of the original ERP system. An opportunity to integrate isolated solutions, eliminate shadow IT and redesign processes. That is how a compulsory investment becomes a real competitive advantage.
Your transformation team is accompanied by experienced SAP strategists, process experts and digitalisation pioneers who have been planning and delivering SAP projects successfully for decades. As partners who challenge your thinking and bridge the gap between business functions, management and technology.
Our clear goal: an SAP transformation without the drama.
An S/4HANA rollout that works technically and makes business sense. A transformation that generates a measurable return on investment while involving employees rather than steamrolling them.
And a transformation after which processes run faster, decisions get better and Excel may finally be what it actually is again: a spreadsheet. Not an operating system.
Because the most exciting question after go-live is not “Is the system running?” but “Why didn’t we do it like this years ago?”