ECC to S/4HANA Lift & Shift and Consolidation

[TheTechiePilot]

Hello everyone,

We're currently planning the migration of functionality and data from our legacy SAP ECC system to S/4HANA. Our ECC system handles front office functionalities such as Customer-to-Cash (C2C) and Sales & Distribution (S&D), integrated with peripheral systems for Order Management and Billing for multiple customers. Meanwhile, our S/4HANA system serves as the Book of Record (BoR) offering General Ledger (G/L) and Accounts Payable (AP) functionalities. Both systems interact with other enterprise and partner systems via SAP Process Integration (PI) and third-party platforms.

We've identified a "Lift & Shift" approach as the fastest and least risky migration strategy. While this may initially limit our ability to exploit S/4HANA's innovations, it will set the groundwork for future business transformation.

I would appreciate insights from those who have undertaken similar migrations:

1. Lift & Shift: What methodology did you employ for the Lift & Shift process? Any best practices to share?

2. Custom Code Adaptation: Did you utilize native SAP tools or third-party accelerators to adapt custom code to S/4HANA?

3. Integration Strategy: What strategy did you follow for migrating integrations? Insights on effort and challenges would be valuable.

4. SAP BTP: Did you use BTP to move customizations out of the core ERP system, and was this feasible with a Lift & Shift approach? If not, were there other reasons for leveraging BTP, considering the approach taken?

5. Consolidation: Did you consider consolidating SAP instances into one? Were there any compelling reasons to maintain two separate S/4HANA instances?

6. Data Quality and Cleansing: How did you address data quality and cleansing during the migration process? Were there specific tools or methodologies used?

7. Testing and Validation: What testing and validation strategies did you implement to ensure the migrated data and functionalities worked as expected in S/4HANA?

8. Change Management: Any key strategies for training and communication that helped ease the transition?

9. Performance Optimization: Post-migration, were there any particular optimizations or adjustments required to enhance system performance in S/4HANA?

10. Security and Compliance: How did you ensure security and compliance during the migration process? Were there any specific challenges or solutions?

I do not expect a response to all of the topics, but anything you may have valuable information to share.

Thank you in advance.