S/4HANA Transformation: Change Begins at the Leadership Level

In SAP S/4HANA projects, change management is an essential factor that decides the success or failure of the project. This insight is often mirrored back to us by clients and cooperation partners too. A large number of the S/4HANA projects that do not plan the change from the outset and do not actively shape the change process fail. The leaders of a company play a particularly important role here in actively shaping the S/4HANA change.

When we look at S/4HANA projects in practice, we should not consider change management only in the context of user acceptance. We should think about the change process strategically:

• How can and how will S/4HANA change our organizational design and our operating model?
• How can change management help to implement these changes sustainably?

These central strategic questions must be answered by one of the most important stakeholder groups in S/4HANA projects: namely the leaders and decision-makers of the organization. In order to be able to move successfully into implementation, it is therefore necessary that you involve your leaders and decision-makers right at the start of the process. Attune them to the goals behind the project and to how the new ERP system will change your organization.

Numerous advantages through S/4HANA

SAP S/4HANA offers the opportunity to standardize business processes, to develop a new, even more closely interlinked operating model and to connect operations worldwide across all organizational units. From this arises the need to ensure that your leaders agree on what exactly this change means for your organization. It is about much more than just introducing a new technology – it is a genuine corporate transformation. The decisions made in the course of developing the new target picture of the organization entail changes at all levels of the organization:

• Where do we want to develop as an organization?
• What will this new organization look like?
• To what degree does the new target picture require a standardization of processes?
• How independent should individual units of the organization remain?
• How high will the degree of automation in our business processes be?
• What do business and decision-making processes outside the SAP system look like?
• How will the roles of our employees change?
• What new skills will our employees need?
• To what extent does the new operating model entail a cultural change in the way our employees do their work?

If decision-makers and leaders do not agree on the answers to these questions, hurdles arise that lead to massive resistance during the S/4HANA introduction and ultimately to the failure of the project.

Fostering acceptance and commitment

One of the first and most important measures of strategic change management in S/4HANA projects is therefore to ensure that your leaders pull together. A change process initiated early on to involve decision-makers and leaders ensures that everyone has a clear vision of what the new organization with S/4HANA will look like. This is a "maturing process" that must be well moderated and orchestrated. Fostering the acceptance and commitment of your decision-makers and leaders is a first, critical step towards a successful and sustainable implementation. Solid, practical experience in change management and the right tools to support the process make the difference here.

Would you like to learn more about how the effective involvement of relevant stakeholder groups can succeed, get to know helpful tools and best practices for steering change processes, or discuss a concrete challenge from your project with us? Feel free to approach us for a no-obligation conversation!

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