WHITE PAPER

Setting the Stage

for SAP S/4HANA
with Enterprise
Architecture
WHITE PAPER

Setting the Stage for

SAP S/4HANA with
Enterprise Architecture

CONTENT

P3 Introduction

P4 SAP S/4HANA: Digital Transformation Enabler

P6 Building the Business Case and Deployment

Roadmap

P8 Enterprise Architecture’s Role in Digital

Transformation

P10 SAP S/4HANA Migration Options

P13 Summary
White Paper Setting the Stage for SAP S/4HANA with Enterprise Architecture

Introduction Reinventing your enterprise resource planning (ERP)

architecture is cause for celebration. But how do
you get from your current ERP architecture to SAP
S/4HANA? There are a lot of factors hitting enterprises
today, such as the adoption of a hybrid cloud
architecture and integrating SAP S/4HANA with other
tools, that can challenge any organization’s IT.

The road to migrate an organization’s ERP

architecture to SAP S/4HANA can be a challenging
one. Understanding all the hurdles for a smooth
transformation can be overwhelming but using an
enterprise architecture tool can turn your initiative
into a manageable project for the key stakeholders
in your company.

This white paper will:

• Explain the business value of migrating to

SAP S/4HANA.

• Give you a roadmap to ensure the phases of

your transformation are in alignment with
business needs.

• Illustrate how enterprise architecture can

help offer a smooth transformation to SAP
S/4HANA.

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White Paper Setting the Stage for SAP S/4HANA with Enterprise Architecture
SAP S/4HANA: Digital Transformation Enabler
With its postmodern ERP approach, SAP S/4HANA
serves as the digital core of an enterprise’s data-driven
processes, complemented by cloud-based solutions
that enable new and innovative business models.
Importantly, it enables enterprises to work seamlessly in
a digital economy. But what exactly is S/4HANA?
SAP S/4HANA is SAP’s intelligent, integrated ERP system
that’s designed to run on SAP’s in-memory database.
It can be deployed on premises, in a public or private
cloud, or in a hybrid environment. This newest system
replaces SAP ECC ERP, the company’s legacy suite
of enterprise applications. ECC (Enterprise Core
Components) was designed to run on a third-party
database, such as Oracle or SQL Server. SAP ECC 6.0 is
the latest version of the software.
However, SAP S/4HANA is more than just a new version
of SAP ERP. Rather, it is a major step similar to moving
from SAP R/2 (an older version of SAP ERP) to SAP R/3
and going from SAP R/3 the SAP ECC. At some point,
customers are always required to migrate to the latest
of SAP ERP. While it can be challenging, the move to
S/4HANA provides opportunities for customers to
operate more efficiently and supports their digital
transformation efforts.
Why it’s time to embrace the change
The foundation of SAP S/4HANA is its new technical
architecture that embeds automation and system
intelligence to help with business practices across the
entire platform. Its new data structure, modern user
experience, and key embedded technologies can
help customers drive business process improvements.
It was designed to solve problems that are common
to traditional ERP systems, including manually driven
processes, batch latency, and data sprawl. The result
is better stability and lower IT costs.
In addition to providing performance benefits, SAP
S/4HANA can improve productivity and enable better
decision-making. It offers end users active, realtime
decision support that’s data-driven, taking into
consideration internal and external data sources.
That means businesses processes that took minutes to
complete will now take seconds.
Since SAP is sunsetting SAP ECC 6.0, customers that are
using that or earlier versions will have to migrate SAP
S/4HANA. For example, SAP is ending support for ECC
in 2027 for customers buying standard support, or until
2030 for customers that purchase extended support
contracts. So, it’s not a matter of “if” customers have to
migrate, but “when.”
Consequently, all customers, small, medium, and large,
need to actively begin planning a smooth transition to
S/4HANA. Not meeting SAP’s deadlines will limit your
ability to execute digital transformation and put your
company—no matter your industry—at a competitive
disadvantage. You’ll be less productive, less agile, and
less effective at deriving marketing insights from the
massive amounts of data that flows into your company
every day. And, if you don’t migrate to SAP S/4HANA
soon, it’s likely that you won’t be able to use newer
versions of third-party software.
Migrating your ERP will bring a lot of positive changes
to your company, including a better user experience,
improved performance, and reduced total cost of
ownership. Additionally, since SAP S/4HANA is a more
secure and easier to maintain platform, it will become
an important part of your digital transformation
strategy.
Technology-driven competition
In today’s digital age, organizations everywhere are
facing unparalleled challenges as well as unparalleled
opportunities as market and technology changes are
driving companies to re-evaluate how they operate.
To remain competitive, organizations will have to
reinvent themselves and accelerate their digitization
efforts. Consulting firm McKinsey & Co. observes that
as digital technologies dramatically reshape industries,
“many companies are pursuing large-scale change
efforts to capture the benefits of these trends or simply
to keep up with competitors.”
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White Paper Setting the Stage for SAP S/4HANA with Enterprise Architecture
Digital transformation is the integration of digital
technology into all areas of an organization, basically
changing how the business operates and meets the
needs of its customers. It’s about finding innovative
ways to operate more efficiently, deliver value to its
customers, and generate revenue. And companies are
using cutting-edge technologies to achieve these goals.
For example, innovative technologies, such as Internet
of Things and artificial intelligence, are becoming
more mature, more accessible, and more affordable.
Consequently, enterprises are turning to these
technologies to transform the customer experience
as well as to become more productive and more
competitive.
However, it’s not always easy for organizations to move
away from a business model that has been highly
successful. It can also be challenging to commit to a
new mindset, implement new technologies, and obtain
the employee buy-in necessary to succeed.
But companies that persist, even though they
understand the difficulty of digital transformation, are
the ones in the best position to achieve a competitive
advantage. Organizations that can adapt to a new way
of doing things and develop new skills are more likely to
reap the benefits of a successful digital transformation.
A new competitive advantage
SAP S/4HANA is designed to efficiently link complex
business processes in real-time, and, as such, it is the
main pillar of many companies’ digital transformation
efforts. Realizing that digital transformation is more
than just a technical update, these enterprises are
combining the conversions of their systems with
business process improvement and the complete
modernization of their solution architectures. That is
why it makes sense for organizations to migrate sooner
rather than later.
One key driver of companies’ digital transformation
strategies is the need to digitize their customer
interactions and overall journeys to meet their
changing needs. Another important driver is the need
to incorporate new technologies and platforms into the
business to enable faster change cycles.
Additionally, many of the core SAP enterprise solutions
that support companies were implemented during the
late 1990s and early 2000s. And although they met the
needs of the business at the time, that’s no longer the
case. The reality is that the needs of the business have
become intertwined with these digital drivers. However,
the core systems haven’t evolved rapidly enough to
keep up.
For enterprises to realize the benefits of their digital
transformation planning, they must continually innovate
at scale to react to new types of competition and
opportunities today and in the future. This requires more
than just a software upgrade or even moving to the
cloud; it requires a new operating model and a culture
that brings together the business, the IT drivers, and
talent. This intersection of technology, strategy, and
talent is precisely where enterprise architects come in.
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White Paper Setting the Stage for SAP S/4HANA with Enterprise Architecture
Building the
Business Case
and Deployment
Roadmap
One of the biggest challenges organizations face when
it comes to migrating to SAP S/4HANA is showing value
that can be generated in the long-term.
A business case documents the important business
benefits of a migration, which helps justify the
investment in the initiative. A strong business case
indicates how a new investment aligns with your
organization’s strategic goals.
A robust business case will help convince executive
decision-makers of the need to move to SAP S/4HANA.
Before writing a business case, your enterprise
architects should extensively research the problems of
your existing SAP ECC system.
This will help you evaluate the benefits of SAP S/4HANA
for your business and sell the migration to your
management, demonstrating its benefits and ROI. It’s
important to get executive buy-in early as executive
leadership can navigate roadblocks and maintain
momentum throughout the migration project.
The structure of the business case has to lead
management through the problems of your existing
SAP ECC ERP system, help to identify all the possible
options to address these issues, as well as help your
company leaders decide which option will be best for
the company.
Creating a business case that sells
Building the Business Case and Deployment Roadmap
The right business case can be a driving force
behind your digital transformation strategy. It brings
stakeholders together, encouraging them to accept
an idea by communicating the goals of the project,
explaining why the investment in migrating to SAP
S/4HANA is necessary, and detailing the actions the
business and functional stakeholders have to take.
Traditionally, a business case is the proven way to
help your organization understand everything about
its digital transformation project, i.e., the who, what,
when, where, and why. However, you have to support
this information with the relevant calculations, such as
return on investment and improvement rates, to enable
your company’s executives to determine whether to
embrace the migration to SAP S/4HANA.
It’s also important to get your users on board with the
migration. Getting the business users to support the
implementation and adoption process is equally as
important as the technical aspects of deploying the
new system.
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White Paper Setting the Stage for SAP S/4HANA with Enterprise Architecture

Further advantages of SAP S/4HANA
Because of its simpler data model, SAP S/4HANA
offers major process improvements and enhanced
productivity. For example, SAP S/4HANA helps your
finance department by removing the need to perform
manual and error-prone data reconciliation at the end
of a fiscal period. And conveying information about
these changes to your affected users enables them to
understand the benefits of migrating to SAP S/4HANA
and involves them in the process in a positive way.
SAP HANA’s simplified data model also makes it easier
for you to migrate your data from your legacy SAP ERP
system to SAP S/4HANA. SAP also offers a complete set
of data migration tools to help you move data from
your old systems so you can more quickly get up and
running again.
SAP’s BiModal IT approach lets you disconnect your
core mission-critical applications from line of business
edge applications, which you can develop on the SAP
Cloud Platform. This enables SAP S/4HANA to act as the
digital core of the enterprise and allow line of business
applications to be developed at their own pace
without jeopardizing business-critical processes.
As organizations continue to prioritize S/4HANA
migration as part of their larger digital transformation
initiatives, they need a tool that provides a holistic
overview of an enterprise, one with every business
capability mapped alongside its underpinning
technologies, to lead rather than merely guide strategic
transformations. And to make it all configurable to
different architectural targets. That’s where enterprise
architecture comes into play.

Figure 1
3 Steps to Get Your SAP S/4HANA Migration Project Off the Ground

3
Create a detailed
roadmap to reimagine
your business and
plan your digital
2 transformation.

Hold initial workshops

for functional planning.
You can develop

1 prototypes and test

systems inexpensively in
the cloud that are useful
Set up SAP S/4HANA
for gathering early
deployment team
feedback from users.
consisting of SAP experts,
either internal resources
or those of an SAP
partner.

Source: LeanIX GmbH

7
White Paper Setting the Stage for SAP S/4HANA with Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture’s Role in Digital
Transformation
Increasingly, business leaders are recognizing the
crucial role enterprise architecture plays in tackling IT
complexity and accelerating digital transformation
efforts. The practice of enterprise architecture is key to
aligning a company’s strategic goals with the technical
initiatives necessary to achieve them.
Enterprise architecture is key to digital transformation
because it offers a common language for enterprises to
support users through technology upgrades, workflow
changes, and adopting enterprise mobility.
But not having enterprise architecture leads to IT
complexity that goes unmanaged. For example, you
may face such issues as increased costs through the
duplication of resources to develop, operate, and
maintain systems, along with reduced flexibility because
you aren’t benefiting from the economies of scale.
Delays in delivering changes also act negatively
because they promote further complexity and
uncertainty.
A modernized approach to EA
To move to a modern enterprise architecture,
organizations need to keep the best of the old—a
few key applications that still deliver best-in-class
capabilities—while taking advantage of new
technologies, design approaches, workflows, and
business models.
To pull all these applications and technologies together,
organizations need a comprehensive vision, business
savvy, and a holistic enterprise architecture. The job
calls for an enterprise architect who understands
business
strategies and how to create IT infrastructures to
support these strategies.
The result of the enterprise architect’s work is not just
architectural. It goes further, providing integrated
business capabilities that support business strategies,
improve customer insights, automate workflows, and,
when linked to people and process, deliver competitive
advantage.
Given the importance of technology, enterprise
architects should be intricately involved in strategic
planning efforts for digital transformation. They
typically possess valuable knowledge and experience
to make the best decisions regarding technology
investments and how they fit into the existing enterprise
infrastructure.
Table 1
How Enterprise Architects Help Define Current
and Future Business Objectives
Migrating legacy systems to the cloud
Replacing common legacy systems,
such as email, with software-as-a-service
solutions
Ramping up a mobile workforce technology
framework so your employees can be productive
and secure
Redesigning legacy workflows for your mobile
workforce so that mobile applications replace
legacy interfaces
Creating common requirements across business
and IT departments
Implementing change management
Resolving the complexity of digital
transformation and application modernization
Source: LeanIX GmbH
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White Paper Setting the Stage for SAP S/4HANA with Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise architects do the modeling that’s necessary
to change the operating model, map business
capabilities, and align technology to the strategic goals
of the organization.
EAs help you deal with the complexity associated
with digital transformation. They’ll establish rules and
processes to ensure that your IT landscape is consistent
across business units, while overseeing the entire IT
architecture, including your business processes.
BEST PRACTICES TO DEFINE
Business Capability Maps
STRATEGIC
MANAGEMENT
Strategy Development
Develop Vision/Mission
Define Strategy
Track Strategy
Adapt Strategy
Manage Strategy
Organization Development
Coordinate Process Strategy
Plan Long Term
Develop Organization Goals
Strategize Business Unit
Mergers & Acquisitions
Manage M&A Strategy
Manage M&A
Track Acquisitions
Manage M&A Integration
Manage Core Business
Evaluate Existing Products
Manage Bus. Performance & Ops
Coordinate Projects
Manage Projects
Innovation & Technology
Management
Scout Trends
Manage External Innovation
Manage Internal Innovation
Manage Innovation Process
Track Innovation
Externals Management
Evaluate & Select
Maintain Contracts
Monitor Performance
Manage Payments
Terminate Contracts
Strategic Business Initiatives
Develop Strategic Initiatives
Evaluate Strategic Initiatives
Select Strategy
Establish High-Level Measures
Business Concept
External Assessment
Market Surveys
Internal Analysis
Concept Establishment
Restructure Organization
CUSTOMER PRODUCT & SERVICE
RELATIONSHIPS DEVELOPMENT
Customer Management Engineering
Identify Customer Manage Requirements
Manage Production Requirements
Manage Customer Design Products
Manage Customer Hierarchy Conceptualization
Manage Community Construction
Manage Org. Context
Quality Management
Contact Management Test Initial Quality
Outbound Contact Track Quality
Inbound Contact Manage Debugging
Classify Demand Manage Product Document
Route Contact
Contact Interaction R&D
Manage Interaction Manage Product Portfolio
Manage Innovation
Customer Scoring Manage Patent
Define Customer Risks Manage R&D Process
Manage Customer Risks
Check Credit-Worthiness Requirements Definition
Evaluate Existing Products
Order Management Review Demand
Validate Order Manage Materials
Track Order Require Distribution
Bundle Order
Steer Order
Method Development
Cancel Order Define Method
Validate Method
Contract Management Refine Method
Manage Contract Execute Method
Negotiate Contract
Manage Frame-Contract Product & Service Delivery
Manage Product Usage Schedule Production
Manage Production
SLA Management Test Quality Performance
Track & Report SLA Breaches Manage Product Traceability
Manage SLA Violations
Production Preparation
Align Resources
Procure Materials & Services
Select Suppliers & Developers
Master Production Schedule
Market Testing
Market Survey
Analyze Customer Intelligence
Evaluate Market Opportunities
Establish Measures
PRODUCTION
Production Design
& Planning
Manage Purchase Requirements
Define Production Process
Define Production Site
Plan Material Requirements
Manage Waste Disposal
Production Steering
Retrieve Product Information
Monitor Production Process
Localize Product
Bill of Material Management
Define Sourcing Requirements
Deliver Product
Manage Sourcing Tender Process
Production Order
Management
Plan Supply Quantity
Plan Production Orders
Manage Order Validiy
Plan Production Program
Pre-production Planning
Machine Management
Build Machine
Manage Supplier Collaboration
Operate Machine
Calibrate Machine
Manage Machine Information
Manage Supplier Contact Routing
Optimize Machine
Materials Management
Manage Containers
Handle Dangerous Goods
Fetch Material
Manage Material Requirements
Manage Supplier Frame Contract
Manage Incoming Materials
Maintenance
Manage Maintenance Plan
Handle Spare Parts
Recognize & Recover Failure
Change Management
Manage Deviation Allowance
Analyze Deviations
Goods Receipt & Service Entry
Access Deviations
Plan & Execute Deviations
Trace Deviations
Infrastructure Management
Plan & Control Construction
Operate Site Infrastructure
Build Site Infrastructure
Manage Location Restrictions
PROCUREMENT
& LOGISTICS
Purchasing
Manage Purchase Order
Manage Purchase Catalogue
Tendering
Manage Purchase Requisition
Approve & Transmit Order
Manage Purchase Procedure
Manage Category
Sourcing
Define Sourcing Strategy
Information Management
Decide On Sourcing
Logistics Management
Manage Returns
Manage Logistic Order
Manage Transportation
Manage Demand Forecast
Supplier Contact
Management
Manage Supplier Registration
Classify Supplier Offer
Supplier Contract
Management
Negotiate Supplier Contract
Enact Supplier Contract
Manage Supplier Contract
Enterprise Effectiveness &
Warehouse Management
Material Disposition
Restocking
Packaging
Manage Claims
Shipping
Manage Inventory
Commissioning
Corporate Governance Policies
Preventive Law Program Dev.
As more companies look to digital transformation
to help them operate more efficiently and gain a
competitive advantage, enterprise architects can
enable you to rid yourself of IT complexity and gain the
visibility you need into your entire IT landscape.
BEST PRACTICES
ENTERPRISE MARKETING FINANCE &
SUPPORT & SALES CONTROLLING Business capability modeling is a technique for
the representation of an organization’s business
IT Management Sales Controlling
anchor model, independent of the organization’s
structure, processes, people, or domains.
IT Strategy Management Qualify Opportunity Business Planning
EA Management Manage Client Cost Accounting
IT Service Management Advise Client Forecasting Don’t overlap
Application Management Create Specific Offer Good capabilities do not overlap; they are
Technology Management Negotiate Offer Payroll
mutually exclusive. A good test is to check
IT Project Management Create ERP whether you can assign Level 2 capabilities
Time Stamp Report
without ambiguity.
Manage Trials Manage Payment
Workforce Management Process Taxes
Deploy Workforce Demand & Offer
Define “What”; not “How”
Management
Workforce Planning Treasury Business capabilities encapsulate what
Identity Customer
Manage Work Order Foreign Exchange Management a business is doing right now and what it
Manage Customer Profile
Financial Risk Management must be doing to meet current and future
Manage Customer Hierarchy
Cash Management challenges.
Manage Community
Define Reports and KPIs
Manage Customer
Gather Data Settlements & Payments
Manage Org. Context Long-term stability
Process Data Account Payables
Identify New Channels Properly defined business capabilities are
Illustrate Data Travel & Expense Management
fairly stable over time, persisting throughout
Govern Data
Billing any organizational changes. Only major
Customer Success
Management
Revenue Cycle Management business model updates should affect them.
Knowledge & Research
Manage Customer Onboarding
Management
Increase Customer Lifetime Value Tax Management
Manage Knowledge
Handle Trading
Cross-organizational
Avoid Customer Churn
Manage Research Don’t focus too much on business units.
Define Plans for Customer Upsell Tax Settlements
Manage Tech Scanning Capabilities should remain the same and
Manage Upsells Tax Returns Mgmt.
be independent of the current structure
Tax Planning Strategies
Terminate Contracts of the organization.
Enterprise Risk
Tax Determination
Management
Manage Tax Questionnaire
Marketing & Sales
Manage Compliance
Manage Fraud
Development 7 to 10 capabilities at the top level
Define M & S Requirements Asset Management The highest level capabilities should be a
Manage Insurance
complete description of your business. Aim
Monitor Channels Investment Planning
Manage Security
Develop M&S Channels
to make your categories reflect key aspects
Decommissioning
Business Continuity
of what the business actually does.
Develop M&S Messages Asset Performance Mgmt
Define Customer Value
Manage Asset Lifecycle
Proposition
Project Management Breadth rather than depth
Define Marketing Budget
Accounting
Manage Portfolio Don’t go too deep. Illustrate the breadth of
Manage Programs Manage General Ledger your organization’s business capabilities by
Develop Projects Enterprise Consolidation going no more than three levels down. This
Cost Accounting will be enough to represent the IT landscape
External Reporting
of your enterprise.
Human Resources
Management Performance Reporting
Manage Employee Inventory Valuation
Accepted by all stakeholders
Manage Payroll Investor Relations
The goal of business capabilities is that they
HR Policies & Processes
become a common basis for discussion and
Recruiting
planning. Take every opportunity to anchor
Manage Talents your organization’s processes to the model.
Legal
Linking strategy and execution
Involve those who define the strategies
when creating your map. Consider strategy
Ensure Compliance
as one input when defining your business
capabilities on the highest level.
www.leanix.net
Model your business
capabilities. Download
our free poster.
9
White Paper Setting the Stage for SAP S/4HANA with Enterprise Architecture

SAP S/4HANA Migration Options

There are a few options for enterprises looking to Figure 2

implement SAP S/4HANA. Depending on a few key Key Considerations for Migrating to SAP S/4HANA
factors, such as your company’s use of SAP, the size and
state of your data, and your future business needs, there
NEW IMPLEMENTATION SYSTEM CONVERSION
are three main approaches to roll out SAP S/4HANA:
the greenfield approach, the brownfield approach, or
a hybrid of the two. Do you want to keep
NO YES
your solution enhancements
or your transaction
The technical approach you select will be driven by your data history?

business objectives (see Table 2). If you want to make the NO YES
Does your system fulfill all
most of innovation, overhaul business processes, and conversion perequisites?
adopt cloud solutions, such as SAP Ariba, you may want
YES Do you need a phased NO
to do a new implementation. business roll-out?

However, if you’re on a single SAP ECC instance, want Do you need a renewal
YES NO
of your complete
to keep your existing data, and go live with a big bang ERP solution?
approach, your best option may be a system conversion.
INNOVATION How do you perceive your KEY
But if you have multiple SAP ECC instances and other BLOCKER current system? ASSET

connected SAP solutions, you may decide to use a

combination of the approaches in a phased program
(see Figure 2). Source: The Right Approach to SAP S/4HANA, SAP

Table 2
Three Technical Approaches to Migrate from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA

New implementation: System conversion: Selective data transition:

If you want to do a new
implementation, you can opt
to deploy on premise or in
the cloud. This is also called
the greenfield approach.
This is where your ERP system
is converted to SAP S/4HANA.
You can deploy on premise
in your own data center or
move to the cloud with a
hyperscaler. This is also called
the brownfield approach.
SAP offers data
management and landscape
transformation tools and
services to enable you to
selectively transfer data from
your old SAP ERP system to a
new SAP S/4HANA instance.
This is the hybrid approach.

Source: LeanIX GmbH

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White Paper Setting the Stage for SAP S/4HANA with Enterprise Architecture

At a high level, enterprise The Greenfield Approach

architects typically decide The greenfield approach means starting from a clean
slate. A greenfield approach to migrating from SAP
between the greenfield
ECC to SAP S/4HANA is a complete reengineering
approach and the brownfield of an organization’s SAP processes and workflows.
approach to migrating from Additionally, any customization you’ve done on SAP
ECC will be completely wiped out during a greenfield
their companies’ versions of SAP
implementation.
ECC to SAP S/4HANA.
There are advantages and disadvantages to this
approach. For a legacy enterprise that’s been using
SAP for many years and has amassed many complex
Greenfield Approach workflows and code that’s been heavily customized, the

Clean slate greenfield approach may be the new start it needs to

Lower TCOs overhaul its use of SAP and reduce complexities.

Flexibility
The greenfield approach, which can be done on premise

Significant time or in the cloud, enables users to predefine migration

High risk objects. And greenfield implementations result in lower

total-cost-of-ownership and faster time-to-value.
The main advantage of a greenfield migration is that
the transformation begins with a new system, providing
Brownfield Approach the flexibility to drive such topics as standardization and
simplification along with the migration itself.
Upgrade
Maintain customization
In theory, using the greenfield approach, you can have
Shorter project runtime
the core elements of SAP S/4HANA up and running in
about three months. However, the reality is that moving
Can stifle innovation
all your data onto a blank system can take some time as
On-premise only
it is a significant undertaking and will most certainly
take longer than three months.

Hybrid Deployment Moreover, the greenfield approach is definitely riskier

than a different implementation strategy. That’s
Select best of both options
because you also have to redevelop any system
Mitigate risk
customizations that are critical to your business that you
Custom redesign
were running on another SAP ERP system, which will also
take a considerable amount of time.
Third-party tool needed

Another possibility with a greenfield approach is to

selectively start with a blank slate in some areas to take
the opportunity to simplify processes, integrations,
and custom code. This approach is known as “selective
greenfield.”

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White Paper Setting the Stage for SAP S/4HANA with Enterprise Architecture
The Brownfield Approach
While a greenfield approach represents a complete
reengineering of your SAP ERP, a brownfield approach
is more like an upgrade.
Using the brownfield approach, you can get SAP
S/4HANA up and running, and at the same time, migrate
your existing SAP workflows and systems over to the
newest version of SAP S/4HANA.
You also can keep your proven business processes as
well as the customizations you’ve been using to manage
your data since you don’t have to move everything over.
The brownfield approach lets you reevaluate and edit
your existing processes and port over the ones that are
working.
The main advantage of brownfield is that there is
usually a shorter project runtime, and therefore there’s
less disruption to your business. A brownfield approach
lets you migrate to SAP S/4HANA without a new
implementation and disruption of existing processes,
building on existing elements of the SAP landscape, such
as interfaces to suppliers and partners.
Still, brownfield has its disadvantages. Because you’re
basically porting over everything from your previous SAP
ERP, it’s often seen as stifling innovation. The success
of the brownfield implementation centers around how
well your existing workflows and systems are replicated.
Because of all the complexities that come with porting
over customization and workflows, a brownfield
implementation is best done on premise.
Brownfield is best suited for customers who are looking
to continue using their current solutions and want to
rapidly convert from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA.
Hybrid Deployment
The most widely used deployment model may be the
hybrid implementation. A hybrid approach lets you
select the best parts of greenfield and brownfield
implementations. This approach is best for large
enterprises with a lot of data and complex systems.
A hybrid approach lets you mitigate a lot of the risks
associated with migrating to SAP S/4HANA. You can
select which aspects of your system you want to
redesign, keeping the parts of your current system that
work at the same time that you’re cleansing and moving
your data into the new system.
The downside to the hybrid implementation approach is
that you need a third-party tool to do the job and distill
the pieces of greenfield and brownfield that are part of
your migration plan.
It can be difficult to decide which SAP S/4HANA
implementation strategy is right for you. However, the
first step is to define the business need, build a business
case, and develop a strategy and roadmap. Only then
can you define your implementation path.
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White Paper Setting the Stage for SAP S/4HANA with Enterprise Architecture

Summary

Migrating all your data and operations to SAP S/4HANA
is easier said than done. However, it is a move every SAP
ERP customer will have to make.
That’s why it’s time to draw up your digital transformation
roadmap to migrate your company from your legacy SAP
ERP to SAP S/4HANA. Considering that moving to the next
generation of SAP ERP is inevitable, it’s important to start
developing your roadmap to SAP S/4HANA now.
Moving to SAP S/4HANA offers a number of benefits,
including speed, cost savings and innovation. However, it
also comes with many challenges – challenges that you
can prevent if you plan well in advance and keep all your
stakeholders in the loop.
SAP S/4HANA transformation is key to many companies’
current digital transformation strategies. As this is much
more than just a technical update, organizations are
taking advantage of the opportunity to combine the
migration with business process improvement and
overall modernization of their solution architectures.
Every S/4HANA transformation starts with an analysis of
the enterprise architecture. Look for our white paper on
how LeanIX acts as an accelerator in an SAP S/4HANA
migration.

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This document is current at the time of its initial publication. LeanIX GmbH reserves the right to alter it at any time.
THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED AS IS, WITH NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLICIT.

LeanIX offers a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) application for driving Enterprise Architecture and Cloud Governance, enabling companies to accelerate their IT
transformation. From on-premises to cloud native and microservices, architecture teams using LeanIX have the power to strategically support their business and
take decisions faster. More than 270 global brands including Volkswagen, adidas, Bosch, DHL, Santander, Atlassian, and Zalando rely on LeanIX to improve trans-
parency, visibility, and drive real-time efficiencies. LeanIX addresses IT’s critical need to ensure high-quality, real-time data is accessible to stakeholders whenever
needed. Use cases include Cloud Governance, Application Portfolio Management, and Technology Risk Management. LeanIX was founded in 2012 by
Jörg Beyer and André Christ. The company is headquartered in Bonn, Germany, with U.S. headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts, and an office in Hyderabad, India.

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