How to deal with legacy systems and where to put the data
The situation is all too familiar: IT systems grow and thrive, and users become hunters and gatherers of data. Sooner or later, you inevitably must...
3 min read
When SAP decided to transition its solution portfolio to the cloud, it’s time for customers to follow. For the past years the focus has been to establish SAP S/4HANA public or private cloud as the new ERP standard. As a consequence, other solutions become redundant, out of favor, or fall through the cracks when it comes to further investment.
SAP Business ByDesign is one of those. Despite still being on the price list, there is no longer a true road map for this solution which translates to customers rightfully questioning its future.
What options are available for SAP Business ByDesign customers?
When SAP Business ByDesign hit the market in 2007 it was presented as an innovative cloud solution for companies of 100 up to 500 employees. Today, the mid-sized 3,500 employee companies which jumped onboard are at a crossroads. They either stay with SAP and adopt the new digital core SAP S/4HANA cloud or move on and seek a future with alternatives such as MS Dynamics or Workday. With a commitment to SAP, there remains the choice to go with the public cloud version, which is positioned as the Business ByDesign succeeding solution, or select the private cloud or even retain an existing on-premise infrastructure
In any case, the situation requires customers of SAP Business ByDesign to already start planning for the inevitable migration.
A challenging migration and transformation is ahead!
If a software solution plays an operation critical role, the company must not allow this software to become outdated. Now, many mid-size companies face exactly this issue. Unlike larger corporations, these companies rarely have the necessary resources and competence to take on an SAP S/4HANA transformation on their own.
Let’s not forget the time pressure. On average, an SAP S/4HANA transformation takes a large company about two years, and that is assuming no major issues are encountered. For smaller organizations this duration may be less, but again, under optimal conditions. Companies need an alternative now, and next steps can only be planned with the support of transformation experts.
Experience shows that compared to larger corporations, mid-size companies’ IT and data environments have grown over time into heterogeneous landscapes. Consequently, databases might be smaller, but structures tend to be more individually organized and data spread across many sources in a more siloed fashion. In order to successfully transform, data and processes must be analyzed and straightened out first. If an organization has omitted to continuously maintain its environment in this context, the analysis will most likely demand considerably more time and resources.
The good news: support is around the corner!
Companies that have gone the Business ByDesign route should not feel trapped in a dead end. Whether the transformation journey will reroute your company to SAP S/4HANA or to an alternative ERP vendor such as Microsoft or Oracle, the Natuvion transformation professionals make sure you will see the light at the end of the migration tunnel. And the best of it: it does not matter where they start from, an on-premise or older cloud solution, and where they are headed, SAP S/4HANA on-premise, private cloud or public cloud, or non-SAP.
Jointly, Natuvion and customers complete all housekeeping activities for data and processes and define the path forward for the project with all resources identified. Companies benefit from the vast experience the experts at Natuvion bring to the transformation project to keep it on track and achieve its goals quickly.
The transformation accelerator: high degree of automation
Staging is the key concept to data transformation. This approach is supported by the Natuvion Data Conversion Server (DCS) which is a complete ETL Platform (Extract, Transform, and Load). Natuvion DCS also offers analytical capabilities and migration validation features. Its platform architecture allows a high degree of transformation process automation, eliminating the risk of typical errors caused by manual work and accelerating the project. Templates help to efficiently manage recurring project tasks including the structure mapping from SAP Business ByDesign to SAP S/4HANA. Users of SAP Business ByDesign particularly benefit from using Natuvion DCS because the tool already comes out of the box with an SAP Business ByDesign mapping template.
With Natuvion DCS you create templates which can be reused in subsequent activities or inherited from other projects. The integrated data quality management (QAS) provides the necessary security layer for complex transformations through object validation with plausibility checks, technical data analyses, and data and process integrity checks.
The least disruption: act now and ensure business continuity
SAP quietly discontinues SAP Business ByDesign. What does this mean for its users? It is time to act now! As soon as the latest 2022 updates have been implemented, your SAP Business ByDesign ERP will remain status quo. It is expected that SAP will not provide any functional enhancements aside from security patches, and the level of future support remains uncertain. However, status quo is not an option for your business which must evolve with changing requirements. Let‘s state the obvious: use the small time window and prepare your business for a transformational new ERP version.
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