Ongoing data quality and governance, through SAP Advanced Data Migration helps ensure continued successful use of S/4HANA post-go-live.
In this edition of the Syniti blog, we’ve got some exciting lessons to pass along. In a recent interview with IDC Worldwide Research Director, Stewart Bond, Endeavour Energy Information Manager, Simon Lewis, gave us some incredible insights into how they planned, conducted, and succeeded with their SAP S/4HANA migration program.
Endeavour Energy, one of the largest Energy Companies in Australia, is a regulated utility provider whose status as such made business continuity and efficiency an absolute project necessity. To help increase the agility and performance of the organization, Endeavour Energy began planning a major digital transformation that would move their operations from 30 legacy systems to SAP S/4HANA. To de-risk the project and to ensure a smooth operation, they implemented SAP Advanced Data Migration by Syniti, creating a hub for the organization to consolidate and transform data, and then implement an agile approach for the loading of data into SAP S/4HANA.
“Traditionally for data migration we used quite an adhoc approach, built off spreadsheets, and quite a high level of manual coordination… We brought in to ADM to be a completely new way of working.”
- Simon Lewis
So, what lessons did Endeavour Energy learn as they embarked on the journey to S/4HANA with SAP ADM by Syniti? You can watch it for yourself, but if you’re short on time, here are our 5 key takeaways:
The first and foremost lesson from Simon Lewis’ talk with IDC was that data must be valued and appreciated by an organization when migrating to SAP S/4HANA.
“Data is the key to any digital transformation, it really is the oil that makes the engine run... High quality data (delivered) in the lowest risk fashion was incredibly important for us and when we went to embark on the project, ADM was the key tool to coordinate that quality data into the system.”
- Simon Lewis
This necessity to deliver high-quality data into the new S/4HANA instance, became even more of an imperative considering project scope included 100m+ records that needed to be moved and 2.1m historical records that needed to be thoroughly cleansed before migrating. All this didn’t even include new data that was being constructed in real-time! In enterprises like Endeavor, with their enormous scale of data records, it’s very important not to underestimate the time and complexity of moving and improving all this data, on-time.
We at Syniti, continuously discuss the importance of having an AI-driven technology solution in place to automate and orchestrate processes throughout the migration, but as in this example, it is important not to underestimate the role that people play in project success or failure.
“We thought coming in that both the coordination of new technology… and the processes… would be incredibly challenging, and it was, but nothing in comparison to the people. Bringing people along with the change journey and helping them understand the new systems we’re putting in and new ways of working. Data had been a by-product, rather than a focus of the organization historically, so bringing people along on that data journey was challenging. We were constantly selling the benefits of high-quality data to people in the organization.”
- Simon Lewis
With the essential coordination of many stakeholders in a migration program, gaining buy-in for the "new world" is essential to the success of any transformation mission. Having a clear strategy with powerful messages reminding users how and why data quality impacts their daily lives seems to be the best place to start.
As discussed in lesson 1, data is highly important, but how to go about getting buy-in for those data initiatives is another step entirely. As Simon Lewis explains:
“Everybody understands that data is important, that it’s the new oil, but being able to put a $ figure on it that’s the challenge. Getting people to take that next step takes a lot of effort...”
In addition to the front-end pitching of benefits, there are many ways a tool such as SAP Advanced Data Migration by Syniti can help keep executives engaged and comfortable with the migration process.
“ADM allowed executives to check on the migration process and the data cleansing (via dashboarding in ADM), so it has touched on everybody and acted as a hub for everybody to come together. The value to the executives was that they didn’t have to panic or worry about if the migration is going successfully. That assurance to track and trace was highly beneficial for them.”
As with all programs and initiatives, it’s important to show those holding the wallets that the program is working and is driving bottom-line business value. Data Migration is no different.
There are many ways for organizations to develop interest in a data investment such as Syniti. Often these are done through ROI calculations or cost/benefits analysis, but Simon Lewis and Endeavour Energy’s focus with their internal business case was rather more close-to-home.
“Our business case was made around risk avoidance… As anyone who has done large transformation projects before knows, there are many wheels in motion and even a month’s delay can cost many millions of dollars … The business case for purchasing the software was quite simple when we put it in that context… And ADM was the tool we felt we needed for high quality data at low risk.”
- Simon Lewis
As Simon explains in the interview with IDC, not only did the risk avoidance case show the business why SAP ADM was essential, it also turned into reality. With Endeavour Energy now on their third phase, the risk in every phase has been kept “very, very low,” and secured the business trust that the S/4 Transformation would be completed on time and on budget.
For those organizations looking at their data ecosystem and believing they can fix all their data problems in one fell swoop as they migrate, think again - that’s the clear message from Endeavour Energy’s success.
“(In addition to using it for future migration phases), we’ve also deployed SAP ADM post-go-live for quality monitoring and ongoing loading of new data into SAP, because it isn’t a one-off cleanse…. Given the success so far, there is no reason why we wouldn’t continue to use ADM going forward (on a continuous basis).”
While SAP ADM is incredibly effective at extracting, constructing, and transforming data to create a high level of historical data quality in SAP S/4HANA, data doesn’t stop getting created at day one of the new system. Ongoing data quality and governance, through SAP ADM, is required to ensure continued successful use of S/4HANA post-go-live to avoid a degradation of data quality over time.
To review the complete conversation with IDC Research Director, Stewart Bond, and Endeavour Energy Information Manager, Simon Lewis, you can access the full interview here.
To read more news and thought leadership from Syniti visit our blog at blog.syniti.com.
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