IBM has introduced IBM Rapid Move for SAP S/4HANA, a new approach designed to provide a faster way to digital transformations. Businesses across industries can look to accelerate the process of migrating existing SAP systems to SAP S/4HANA. This should enable the efficient reinvention of core business processes and integration of new technology.
Arauco, a manufacturer of sustainable forest product solutions in Chile, is one of the first companies to benefit from the new capabilities. IBM Services is working to upgrade and transform Arauco’s existing SAP systems across the company’s financial, procurement and production activities. By deploying IBM Rapid Move for SAP S/4HANA, Arauco anticipates achieving a reduction in time of up to 50% for certain activities during the project, based on their specific environment and configurations, such as unicode conversion, generating significant time savings for the overall project.
Accelerating the modernisation process
“As we prepare for future growth, we needed to implement a digital platform that will streamline our processes through business transformation. This included converting our existing SAP systems to SAP S/4HANA. Speed of deployment has been key to ensuring we experience the benefits of digital technology faster,” said Leandro San Miguel, CIO Arauco. “The IBM Rapid Move for SAP S/4HANA approach can help accelerate our modernisation of processes. This allows us to deploy an integrated and consolidated financial reporting system across the business with SAP S/4HANA.”
Companies in every industry are reinventing their processes and operations with digital strategies enabled by new technologies, such as AI, automation and blockchain. SAP S/4HANA allows companies to simplify complex business processes while upgrading their technology infrastructure and enterprise systems. The company says this results in greater efficiency and improved business outcomes.
“Businesses working to transform themselves amid ongoing market disruption must consider how to convert and extend their existing investments. At the same time capitalising on the digital reinvention imperative,” said Mark Foster, Senior Vice President, IBM Global Business Services and IBM Services. “With IBM Rapid Move for SAP S/4HANA, we’ve introduced an approach that helps simplify migration. It enables our clients to safely and securely move to the future at pace.”
A beautiful relationship
IBM Services and SAP formed the Digital Transformation partnership in 2016. They have worked together to provide services and capabilities that help customers around the world modernise their systems and processes. The objective, to accelerate businesses path to becoming an intelligent enterprises. The two companies continue to deliver new solutions that address rapidly changing market needs. This includes SAP Model Company services combined with enhanced industry specific pre-configured IBM Impact accelerators. The configurations are designed to simplify the change process, speed-up innovation enabled by SAP S/4HANA and unlock business benefits faster. As announced late last year, IBM Services completed more than 100 SAP S/4HANA implementations.
IBM has also released IBM Rapid Move for SAP S/4HANA, complete with integrated delivery framework from SAP. This includes the SAP Value Assurance programme and SAP Model Company service. These help accelerate migration to the SAP S/4HANA platform with minimal risk. This agile transformation approach offers design and build flexibility that can deliver user experience and automated business processes. By taking advantage of IBM Rapid Move, businesses can also leverage and transform existing SAP investments without the need to fully redesign their legacy systems.
“The partnership between SAP and IBM continues to grow. IBM is delivering an innovative way to give customers a major head start on their digital transformation projects. It also provides clients with the ability to realise value from their deployments with even greater speed and agility,” said Michael Kleinemeier, member of the Executive Board and head of the SAP Digital Business Services organization, SAP SE.
IBM building new partnerships
IBM Services teamed up with transformation software company SNP. The partnership created a highly automated migration that combines the SAP management and technical expertise of the two companies. IBM Rapid Move for SAP S/4HANA incorporates a hybrid transition approach to target process redesign and standardisation. IBM has embedded automation into the process. Leveraging “digital workers” that execute SAP S/4HANA configuration, code remediation and data reconciliation to reduce the complexity of implementation.
“Almost every company deals with SAP S/4HANA and wants to tap into the opportunities of digital transformation,” says Dr. Andreas Schneider-Neureither, CEO SNP. “Working with IBM Services, we can now offer a simpler and faster way to take advantage of SAP S/4HANA. By adopting SAP S/4HANA, companies accelerate their digital transformation and take advantage of the platform earlier than with traditional methods. This includes improving performance in complex and time-critical business processes such as real-time planning, execution, reporting, analytics and forecasting based on live data, as well as a personalised and simplified user experience across all business units, tasks and devices.”
Enterprise Times: What this means for businesses?
There’s a desperate shortage of qualified and experienced engineers and consultants who fully understand the SAP eco-system. Professionals who understand all the critical architectural component points that need to be addressed to support digital transformation. Hence why both companies are looking to automate as much of the migration process as possible. SAPs eco-system accounts for 10% of IBM’s revenue. This explains why the two companies happily remain firmly in bed.
