OREANDA-NEWS. July 17, 2015. Getting started quickly with brand new innovations like SAP S/4HANA might sound like a tall order, but this is exactly the purpose behind SAP Activate, which is designed to help companies implement SAP S/4HANA as fast and risk-free as possible.

According Bernd Welz, Executive Vice President and Global Head of Solution & Knowledge Packaging at SAP, SAP Activate builds on the company’s long-time investments in accelerators like SAP Best Practices that help customers get up and running quickly for faster business outcomes.

“SAP Activate helps customers to migrate to SAP S/4HANA quickly, and to be well-positioned to adopt every new innovation faster than ever before,” he said. “We’re shipping quarterly software updates, and SAP Activate will support companies incorporate those innovations to get the fastest, best results from their investment with us.”

Step One: Best practices speed up migration path

In the not too distant past, it was impossible to determine the difference between best practices and customized functionalities for deployed software, making the path forward time-consuming and unclear. SAP Activate changes all that as it arrives with pre-configured best practice scenarios and functionalities, followed up with continuous updates as new enhancements become available.

SAP Best Practices for SAP S/4HANA provides ready-to-run financial and logistics business processes integrated with other cloud solutions, such as SuccessFactors Employee Central or Ariba Network. These SAP Best Practices guide customers through the migration process to SAP S/4HANA, whether customers migrate from a non-SAP database to SAP S/4HANA, or whether they migrate from legacy systems to SAP S/4HANA.

Using real-life scenarios based on SAP’s deep business process expertise, customers can determine the optimal path forward given their industry, existing systems and strategic business imperatives.  From day one, customers can make optimal implementation decisions using SAP Best Practices, and easily adjust them as needed over time. Included are specific migration recommendations for companies that typically have multi-faceted systems across numerous databases.

“With SAP Activate, we are answering one of the biggest questions customers have about how they can migrate their existing data onto SAP S/4HANA,” said Welz.

Bernd thinks Activate also provides SAP partners with a simpler path to continuous innovation. “All of the knowledge and accelerators consolidated in SAP Activate represent an incredible opportunity for SAP partners, helping them expand their own best practices and continue co-innovating for our mutual customers,” he said. “Tapping their domain expertise by process and industry, partners can build on top of our SAP Best Practices and add functionalities on the SAP HANA Cloud Platform as new scenarios become available, effectively becoming both a services company and recognized thought leader.”

Step Two: Guided Configuration boosts time to value

SAP Activate contains a comprehensive set of tools designed to guide customers and partners step-by-step through the process of software implementation. Simple, easy-to-follow, on-screen instructions provide technical guidance with visually engaging displays.

“In the new SAP Activate world, it’s much easier to adopt innovations because we can track what SAP business processes the customer has actually configured and activated, including any changes,” said Welz. “Besides supporting faster initial implementations, in the long run this approach lets customers move quickly to add new functionalities as they are released. The objective is continuous, speedy innovation adoption whether customers are running SAP software in the cloud, on-premise or a combination of both.”

Step Three: Methodology

SAP Activate includes a methdology to help companies develop a comprehensive project plan encompassing all of the tasks required for migration and implementation. Regardless of whether a customer has cloud-based, on-premise or hybrid solutions, the methodology behind SAP Activate helps chart the simplest path to innovate for greater business value. The methodology begins with SAP Best Practices and includes a fit-gap analysis to determine individual company needs. The methodology is also designed for partners to incorporate into their own best practices.

“Everyone has moved from multi-year, long-term implementations to quicker, easier, predictable timeframes,” said Welz. “SAP Activate reflects this business imperative, beginning with pre-configured SAP Best Practices based on our industry process expertise, followed by an action plan that closes the gaps immediately and on a continuous basis.”

Like every new journey, the first steps into the unknown are often the most challenging. But with a clearly defined path forward, organizations are finding SAP S/4HANA is the quickest route to faster innovation and growth long term.