SAP S/4HANA Transformation

De-risk and Accelerate your SAP Program

SAP S/4HANA Migration: The Clock is Ticking

SAP ECC mainstream maintenance ends in 2027. This isn’t optional – you must upgrade to SAP S/4HANA to maintain support. Make no mistake: this is the biggest SAP update in two decades, and since SAP powers your entire operation, this isn’t just a technical upgrade – it’s a business transformation.

If you haven’t started your migration yet, you’re already behind schedule. S/4HANA implementations typically span years, and qualified experts are becoming harder to secure as the deadline approaches. With 70% of digital transformations failing, partnering with a dedicated change management team to accelerate and de-risk your migration is essential – even if you’ve already begun. Here’s why Afiniti should be your SAP S/4HANA change partner.

Your Top Questions Answered
Keep your project on track with our SAP S/4HANA frequently asked questions tailored for every phase of your journey.

When should I engage a business change specialist for my SAP S/4HANA Transformation?

Now. Today. The earlier you bring in a change partner like Afiniti, the better your results will be. We put people at the heart of change from the start. But regardless of where you are in your journey – whether implementing greenfield, brownfield or bluefield – Afiniti delivers significant value to your transformation.

Pre-Program

Bringing Afiniti in during planning stages positions your S/4HANA project as a central component of your enterprise digital strategy. We align your leadership on objectives and milestones, and engage your people from day one to maximize success.

Failing Migrations

When relying solely on systems integrators focused on technical implementation, program failure often isn’t apparent until you’re deep into the process. Afiniti specializes in recovering struggling S/4HANA migrations by realigning and engaging your people.

Post-Implementation

Go-live is just the beginning, not the finish line. True ROI comes when your people actually use the new systems and processes. Afiniti excels at ensuring your new ERP is fully embedded throughout your organization.

Can I just use a systems integrator?

Can I just use a systems integrator?

We hear this question often. Afiniti specializes in business change, not technical architecture. So why invest in Afiniti alongside your systems integrator?

Beyond the risk of depending on a single vendor, there’s a far greater risk to your S/4HANA program: neglecting your people.

New technology – whether SAP, Oracle, Microsoft or any platform – will fail to deliver ROI if your people don’t embrace it. With a transformation as massive as S/4HANA impacting systems, processes and workflows, your teams must be guided through this change journey to understand why and how to adopt the new state.

Afiniti focuses exclusively on the human side of change. We ignite passion and capability in your people to double the value of business change while significantly reducing costs.

While systems integrators prioritize technical delivery, we take a holistic view of your organization to address how operations and people will be impacted by this transformation.

What is a systems integrator?

Systems integrators excel at the technical aspects of SAP S/4HANA implementation. However, they aren’t business change experts and typically don’t consider the broader organizational impact of your program. This is Afiniti’s specialty – we bring the people perspective to your migration, complementing your SI. Without both elements working together, your risk of failure increases dramatically.

Here’s what sets us apart:

What does Afiniti do?

What does Afiniti do?

Afiniti brings a comprehensive toolkit to your SAP S/4HANA transformation, including:

  • Strategic support for your initial business case
  • Data-driven discovery to assess your current state and uncover requirements
  • Change readiness assessments that reveal gaps in your people’s ability to adopt S/4HANA
  • Leadership alignment behind a unified transformation vision and expected benefits
  • Detailed change impact assessments identifying affected roles, people and processes
  • A compelling change narrative that excites your people about what’s changing and “what’s in it for them”
  • Creative engagement initiatives that connect teams and functions
  • Interactive learning resources that address capability gaps
  • Strategic planning for critical blackout and hypercare periods
  • Ensuring effective adoption and embedding S/4HANA across your organization

Our flexible business model lets us deploy these specialized skills exactly when needed, scaling our team as required. It’s virtually impossible for an internal team, technical SI, or individual contractor to deliver all these critical components for a successful, low-risk SAP S/4HANA migration.

A Tale of Two SAP S/4HANA Transformations

Example 1

Our telecommunications client initially engaged their ERP vendor as systems integrator. The SI focused exclusively on technology, neglecting business change and people aspects. They developed purely technical training with no context about why changes were happening, how the new ERP connected to business processes, or how daily work would be affected.

When the client recognized the change wasn’t being well received, they brought in Afiniti. We created a compelling, people-focused vision that brought the transformation to life and generated buy-in.

Due to our late engagement, the client team faced enormous pressure to deliver both technical and people change in a compressed timeframe, risking program failure. Through Afiniti’s collaboration with the SI, the client successfully implemented SAP S/4HANA.

Example 2

Afiniti partnered with our energy client at the crucial pre-program stage of their SAP S/4HANA journey. We didn’t just consult – we collaborated. Together, we built a compelling vision, developed clear objectives, defined measurable benefits, and crafted impactful messaging. By bringing key stakeholders into the process immediately, we created champions across the organization.

Leadership alignment wasn’t just important – it was transformative. With executive sponsors fully on board, we produced engaging video content that positioned S/4HANA as an opportunity rather than a threat. This proactive approach completely shifted the narrative. We also implemented a strategic governance framework with empowered global and local process owners who understood their crucial roles and consistently delivered aligned messaging.

The results speak for themselves. Our tailored change strategy addressed the specific needs of each impacted function. Now, the migration is progressing with minimal resistance, dramatically reduced stress for program leads, and significantly lower implementation risk.

Get in Touch Today

Get in Touch Today

The 2027 deadline is approaching fast. Don’t delay your migration. Connect with our team today to schedule a call with our SAP Business Lead, Gill Hughes. We’re ready to discuss how Afiniti can power your SAP S/4HANA transformation.

gill hughes

The Afiniti SAP S/4HANA FAQ Tool

We’ve developed this SAP S/4HANA FAQ tool, giving you quick answers to the most important questions about SAP S/4HANA and the business change it requires, wherever you are in your implementation journey.

To start, please select where you are in your change journey…

I’m just curious

All your general questions about SAP S/4HANA answered.

SAP ECC is SAP’s ERP tool used globally by thousands of companies, meeting the needs of small and medium businesses and global corporations. It’s designed to coordinate all the resources, information and activities needed to support a company’s business processes in a range of areas, making it the IT backbone of operations for many organizations.

SAP S/4HANA was introduced in 2015 as the successor to SAP ECC and other core applications of SAP Business Suite 7, and is considered the most significant update to the tool in over 20 years.

SAP S/4HANA brought about many innovations over SAP ECC. Key changes include the development of a brand-new code base, utilization of SAP HANA’s in-memory computing architecture, providing the ability to access real-time business statistics and analytics, and the convergence of transactional and analytical systems. The solution also comes with a design approach called Fiori that provides an advanced and flexible user experience across devices, improving the usability of the solution (a common criticism of older versions of SAP).

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SAP S/4HANA was introduced in 2015 as the successor to SAP ECC and other core applications of SAP Business Suite 7. It’s considered the most significant update to the tool in over 20 years, and SAP has emphasized that it is pivotal in its shift to cloud technology.

SAP has announced it will discontinue mainstream maintenance of SAP ECC and other core applications of SAP Business Suite 7 from 2027 (an extension to the original 2025 deadline). Since SAP ECC is often the foundation of an IT ecosystem, it is anticipated in the coming years there will be a significant number of technology projects undertaken moving organizations to SAP S/4HANA.

As a result, there is a financial and IT maintenance rationale for upgrading to SAP S/4HANA, with older solutions being phased out and maintenance fees increasing. Additionally, newer and optimized solutions and technology provide a potential transformational factor in SAP S/4HANA upgrades.

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SAP is committed to provide mainstream maintenance for SAP ECC / Business Suite 7  until the end of 2027. Companies have the option to buy a maintenance extension until 2030 for an incremental 2% in maintenance fees.

The original 2025 support deadline was pushed to 2027 after customers requested more time to move to the new release, making it unlikely that the 2027 deadline will be moved yet again.

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Success depends on the vision, mission and scope of the project. Some projects may target a technical upgrade without implementing features to improve the user experience and functionality, whereas others may seek to fully re-engineer and try to simplify or automate processes to improve efficiency.

Is success the ‘go-live’ being achieved? From a technical perspective, it likely is. If, however, success means adoption – that the organization has embraced and embedded new ways of thinking and working – then the people aspects of change must be addressed with the same weight as process, technology and data.

SAP S/4HANA is a significant investment and its success depends on the organization’s readiness and commitment to adopt and embed new ways of thinking and working.

It is therefore important to define your organization’s specific success criteria before embarking on your journey.

The vision and mission of a project underpin its goals and objectives and help to communicate its strategic importance for all stakeholders. Executive sponsorship will help to reinforce the key messages while emphasizing the commitment of management to execute and deliver.

The vision and mission can be adapted through the project to reflect changing circumstances and priorities, but they should not deviate too far from the initial vision commitments agreed with the project sponsorship group. Ideally, the key messages will tie in to the corporate values and mission statements where applicable.

Related Articles

If people are impacted by your project, then focusing on change is essential.

Typically, such projects rely on a system integration partner for much of the skills and experience needed to secure a successful implementation. Integration partners are subject matter experts in the technical and functional aspects of this type of project, but a focus on the big picture is important, including the people who will make change happen and the organizational attributes which may obstruct adoption. A successful SAP S/4HANA program will rely upon a solid change management program to support a successful go-live and adoption across the organization.

Related Articles

Prosci ADKAR™ change management methodology can be used to support the organization and individual through a typical change journey. ADKAR™ is Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. It is a sequential and systematic approach to enable individuals to progress, adopt and embed change, with emphasis on individual ownership for change. In addition, there will be a focus to develop internal capability, enabling change to be owned and driven from inside the communities.

A typical change journey involves building:-
Awareness – why is there a need for change?
Desire – what are the benefits and what is in it for me?
Knowledge – knowing what needs to be done differently;
Ability – having the tools and being equipped with the skills to perform the change;
Reinforcement – constantly reinforcing key messages throughout the change journey (consistent messaging from sponsors and project ambassadors)

Related Articles

This will depend on a number of factors.

  • The volume, magnitude and complexity of the change (use your change impact assessment to clarify this)
  • The number of people impacted by the change
  • The internal support from your business (e.g. sponsors, subject matter experts, super users, change network)

There is no one size fits all approach, and each organization and project is unique.

Related Articles

The SAP solution will be based on end-to-end business processes. The focus of training should be on what is changing within the business process or within the supporting ERP systems.

Often, a SAP S/4HANA project is an opportunity to refresh training and improve the skills and efficiency of the organization.

There is also an opportunity to develop sustainable materials that can be used for future re-training of existing employees and for onboarding new joiners. Performance management tools can be deployed to support the training activities and to tailor the training strategy to the individual needs of user groups, e.g. classroom training, web-based learning, etc.

Related Articles

Having a comprehensive business change strategy and plan is a key success factor for any technology project. Change Management should be given sufficient importance to ensure successful adoption of solutions that essentially form the backbone of an organization.

Onboarding a business change partner to support the SAP S/4HANA journey will contribute towards a successful rollout, adoption, benefit realization and return on investment, and will allow your integration partner to focus solely on the technology, where they can add the most value.

Related Articles

It’s never too early to think about change and onboard a change partner; the earlier the better. During the pre-implementation phase, setting up the correct governance, sponsorship and process ownership is essential. In addition, preparing the business for what’s to come will help pave the path to success, and manage the expectations of what is needed from the business teams to secure the success of the project.

A change partner is essential towards the end of the detailed design phase. They will help to perform a change impact assessment on the major changes and gaps identified in the project. A seemingly trivial system change may have a significant organizational or functional process change that needs to be considered holistically. Having a strong change partner in place will help to ensure that by the end of the design phase there is a clear understanding of what is changing, why it is changing and how it will impact on the people, processes and technology

Related Articles

At Afiniti, business change is all we do: we don’t have any other agenda, and we thrive on helping clients shape change, be ready for change, make change happen and ultimately make change stick.

We really are all about people; it’s people that will drive change and make the new way of working the norm.  Our holistic blend of change management services is part of an integrated approach to the people agenda of change. Using a tailored mix of our services to suit your SAP S/4HANA project, we will help you accelerate and embed change, driving your business forward to its potential future state.

Contact us today to find out how we can help make your change stick.

Related Articles

SAP Fiori provides an app-based user interface presented as tiles supporting the most broadly used functionality, including self-service tasks, workflow approvals and information lookups. Fiori can also be used to provide mobile functionality, meaning SAP services can be accessed on the go. Learn more about Fiori from SAP here.

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SAP S/4HANA is available for both on-premise and cloud deployments, depending on your infrastructure and what will suit your budget and requirements.

However, it should be noted that the cloud-based implementation will enable more options for automation and efficiency, and SAP’s own cloud-first strategy is already seeing additional features being released that aren’t available in on-premise versions.

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We haven’t started yet

So, you’re just at the start of your SAP S/4HANA journey? Great – it’s important to consider the people aspect of your change right from the start. Please find a range of FAQs below.

Pre-implementation is the project phase which precedes the official project initiation and can include onboarding sponsors and process owners, data preparation / cleansing and setting up the change management team to help secure the success of the project.

Typically, a high-level scoping and analysis would be carried out in the ‘pre-implementation’ phase to understand the perimeters of the project and identify any significant gaps, issues, interfaces, considerations, etc.

If people are impacted by your project, then focusing on change is essential.

Typically, such projects rely on a system integration partner for much of the skills and experience needed to secure a successful implementation. Integration partners are subject matter experts in the technical and functional aspects of this type of project, but a focus on the big picture is important, including the people who will make change happen and the organizational attributes which may obstruct adoption. A successful SAP S/4HANA program will rely upon a solid change management program to support a successful go-live and adoption across the organization.

Related Articles

Prosci ADKAR™ change management methodology can be used to support the organization and individual through a typical change journey. ADKAR™ is Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. It is a sequential and systematic approach to enable individuals to progress, adopt and embed change, with emphasis on individual ownership for change. In addition, there will be a focus to develop internal capability, enabling change to be owned and driven from inside the communities.

A typical change journey involves building:-
Awareness – why is there a need for change?
Desire – what are the benefits and what is in it for me?
Knowledge – knowing what needs to be done differently;
Ability – having the tools and being equipped with the skills to perform the change;
Reinforcement – constantly reinforcing key messages throughout the change journey (consistent messaging from sponsors and project ambassadors)

Related Articles

The change management strategy should be an integrated strategy covering change management, communications, engagement and learning. The strategy should consider the specific project, the organizational attributes (structure, culture, existing activities/priorities, etc.), sponsor model, special tactics and risk assessment.

The objective of establishing a formal strategy is to ensure that any negative effects of change will be minimized and any risks identified and mitigated.

The strategy should set out the strategic importance for change which is aligned to the company’s strategic direction and core values.

Related Articles

The vision and mission of a project underpin its goals and objectives and help to communicate its strategic importance for all stakeholders. Executive sponsorship will help to reinforce the key messages while emphasizing the commitment of management to execute and deliver.

The vision and mission can be adapted through the project to reflect changing circumstances and priorities, but they should not deviate too far from the initial vision commitments agreed with the project sponsorship group. Ideally, the key messages will tie in to the corporate values and mission statements where applicable.

Related Articles

Underpinning the change strategy is the Change Agent Network (CAN) who, as a collective, are pivotal to the successful adoption of the project. This network should be equipped and supported by the project change team and will reflect a cross section of those impacted by the change from all impacted departments or locations.

Ensuring the CAN are sequencing activities in support of project changes is important because this group will own and promote the change from within their communities, actively driving adoption over the longer term.

When tackling resistance to change, it is important to provide an overview of why the change is required. Explaining the vision of the project with the endorsement and sponsorship of senior stakeholders will help to provide the justification for change. Focusing on the benefits / dis-benefits (or regressions) will help to answer many questions and help stakeholder understand the ‘what’s in it for me’. Explaining the change management strategy and the various steps through the project will help to reassure people that they will be supported through the transition.

Communication supports adoption throughout the full change lifecycle, allowing you to take people on the journey via the communication plan through Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. If communication is missed at any stage, then it has an impact on the effectiveness of the overall messaging and achievement of subsequent stages, including adoption. Training and learning are also included in the communication plan, and it is important to lay some foundations so that trainees attend with a baseline level of awareness of the project, its importance and any key changes.

Related Articles

It is important to ensure that the correct skillsets exist within the change management team or can be leveraged from existing internal resources/departments. If in-house skills don’t exist then a company like Afiniti can support the project and also build the internal capability to sustain activities/projects.

The communication throughout the project can often determine long-term success, buy-in and business engagement, so having a strong communications lead is often a key enabling factor in SAP S/4HANA projects.

Related Articles

A change impact assessment describes the current (as-is) and future (to-be) ways of working and the impact moving to the new way of working will have on people, process, systems and data. Understanding this will define the volume and magnitude of change expected and allow the correct mitigations to be planned.

During the design phase it is typical to implement Gap Board or Design Board Governance to manage any significant gaps (improvement requests / evolutions) in the solution design and ensure there is robust governance in place to manage scope, budget, and schedule. A change impact assessment can often help during the gap analysis to ensure that the gap is not just arbitrated based on the system development effort, but instead considers all organizational, roles and responsibilities and process implications.

Related Articles

A change impact assessment defines the volume and magnitude of change. The information uncovered during the change impact assessment will help shape the change strategy and plan to support people through the change journey. Change impact assessments can be used as an input into the testing cycles, data migration activities and end user training.

Related Articles

Yes, the Change Management team should be involved in the role mapping activities.

There are usually two kinds of role mapping. There are technical activities to assign SAP transaction codes to authorization roles within SAP. The Change Management team would have an interest in this mapping to drive learning preparation and execution.

There is also an organizational focused activity to assign people to the correct authorization roles in SAP. This business task is supported by the Change Management team and is critical to ensure people are assigned to the correct training courses and have the required skills and abilities to perform their role in the business.

Related Articles

Too often projects are focused on the technical solution and delivery. Ensuring that the correct change management representation is included at the steering committee level will ensure that there is a focus on people and the impact change will have on them. Ideally, there would be a workstream for change management with the lead attending any steering committee meetings.

In many projects, business readiness is more likely to be a bigger factor in delaying or derailing the project deployment than the technical solution readiness.

Additionally, representation of the Change Management team at gap boards can be useful to capture the impact of the change in the decision making; change management and data migration elements are often not considered in solution design decision making.

Related Articles

Project success depends on active and visible sponsorship from executive level stakeholders. Executive sponsorship will ensure the correct messages are communicated from the correct people within the organization, positioning the program for success (in alignment with other business priorities). Strong leadership and sponsorship is critical in helping teams understand the need for change, which for some might feel like a retrograde step. Mitigating resistance and consistently conveying key messages through active and visible leadership is vital. The ‘bigger picture’ benefits should be consistently and continually voiced by the sponsors.

The Change Management team should support coordinated and active sponsorship by bringing clarity and capability to the role of the sponsor through regular meetings, coaching and activities.

Research suggests programs with active and visible executive level sponsorship will be 90% more successful than programs without this level of support.

Preparations for the blackout period, including communication, procedures, offline templates and escalations, are vitally important as there will be no system available for a time, yet business activities will not fully cease. The Change Management team can often support to ensure that people are aware of the interim processes and are equipped with the knowledge and ability to perform tasks during this period.

Blackout periods can range between one or two days to three or four weeks of downtime. The expected blackout duration often determines the level of involvement of the Change Management team. Nevertheless, involving them is crucial to ensure communications throughout this cutover phase are managed and all stakeholders are kept up-to-date on the progress and readiness for go-live.

Related Articles

Sustainability should be part of the change management strategy to build internal change capability throughout the project.

The project artifacts and documentation should always be prepared with longevity and future in mind, including learning materials, documentation and communication tool kits.

Related Articles

Success depends on the vision, mission and scope of the project. Some projects may target a technical upgrade without implementing features to improve the user experience and functionality, whereas others may seek to fully re-engineer and try to simplify or automate processes to improve efficiency.

Is success the ‘go-live’ being achieved? From a technical perspective, it likely is. If, however, success means adoption – that the organization has embraced and embedded new ways of thinking and working – then the people aspects of change must be addressed with the same weight as process, technology and data.

SAP S/4HANA is a significant investment and its success depends on the organization’s readiness and commitment to adopt and embed new ways of thinking and working.

It is therefore important to define your organization’s specific success criteria before embarking on your journey.

This will depend on a number of factors.

  • The volume, magnitude and complexity of the change (use your change impact assessment to clarify this)
  • The number of people impacted by the change
  • The internal support from your business (e.g. sponsors, subject matter experts, super users, change network)

There is no one size fits all approach, and each organization and project is unique.

Related Articles

The SAP solution will be based on end-to-end business processes. The focus of training should be on what is changing within the business process or within the supporting ERP systems.

Often, an SAP S/4HANA project is an opportunity to refresh training and improve the skills and efficiency of the organization.

There is also an opportunity to develop sustainable materials that can be used for future re-training of existing employees and for onboarding new joiners. Performance management tools can be deployed to support the training activities and to tailor the training strategy to the individual needs of user groups, e.g. classroom training, web-based learning, etc.

Related Articles

Having a comprehensive business change strategy and plan is a key success factor for any technology project. Change management should be given sufficient importance to ensure successful adoption of solutions that essentially form the backbone of an organization.

Onboarding a business change partner to support the SAP S/4HANA journey will contribute towards a successful rollout, adoption, benefit realization and return on investment, and will allow your integration partner to focus solely on the technology, where they can add the most value.

Related Articles

It’s never too early to think about change and onboard a change partner; the earlier the better. During the pre-implementation phase, setting up the correct governance, sponsorship and process ownership is essential. In addition, preparing the business for what’s to come will help pave the path to success, and manage the expectations of what is needed from the business teams to secure the success of the project.

A change partner is essential towards the end of the detailed design phase. They will help to perform a change impact assessment on the major changes and gaps identified in the project. A seemingly trivial system change may have a significant organizational or functional process change that needs to be considered holistically. Having a strong change partner in place will help to ensure that by the end of the design phase there is a clear understanding of what is changing, why it is changing and how it will impact on the people, processes and technology

Related Articles

At Afiniti, business change is all we do: we don’t have any other agenda, and we thrive on helping clients shape change, be ready for change, make change happen and ultimately make change stick.

We really are all about people; it’s people that will drive change and make the new way of working the norm.  Our holistic blend of change management services is part of an integrated approach to the people agenda of change. Using a tailored mix of our services to suit your SAP S/4HANA project, we will help you accelerate and embed change, driving your business forward to its potential future state.

Contact us today to find out how we can help make your change stick.

Related Articles

We’re on our journey

Is your SAP S/4HANA journey already underway? Whether you’re on track or not, get the answers you need here.

An inflight project describes a project which is already in progress.

Related Articles

When tackling resistance to change, it is important to provide an overview of why the change is required. Explaining the vision of the project with the endorsement and sponsorship of senior stakeholders will help to provide the justification for change. Focusing on the benefits / dis-benefits (or regressions) will help to answer many questions and help stakeholder understand the ‘what’s in it for me’. Explaining the change management strategy and the various steps through the project will help to reassure people that they will be supported through the transition.

Communication supports adoption throughout the full change lifecycle, allowing you to take people on the journey via the communication plan through Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. If communication is missed at any stage, then it has an impact on the effectiveness of the overall messaging and achievement of subsequent stages, including adoption. Training and learning are also included in the communication plan, and it is important to lay some foundations so that trainees attend with a baseline level of awareness of the project, its importance and any key changes.

Related Articles

It is important to ensure that the correct skillsets exist within the change management team or can be leveraged from existing internal resources/departments. If in-house skills don’t exist then a company like Afiniti can support the project and also build the internal capability to sustain activities/projects.

The communication throughout the project can often determine long-term success, buy-in and business engagement, so having a strong communications lead is often a key enabling factor in SAP S/4HANA projects.

Related Articles

A change impact assessment describes the current (as-is) and future (to-be) ways of working and the impact moving to the new way of working will have on people, process, systems and data. Understanding this will define the volume and magnitude of change expected and allow the correct mitigations to be planned.

During the design phase it is typical to implement Gap Board or Design Board Governance to manage any significant gaps (improvement requests / evolutions) in the solution design and ensure there is robust governance in place to manage scope, budget, and schedule. A change impact assessment can often help during the gap analysis to ensure that the gap is not just arbitrated based on the system development effort, but instead considers all organizational, roles and responsibilities and process implications.

Related Articles

A change impact assessment defines the volume and magnitude of change. The information uncovered during the change impact assessment will help shape the change strategy and plan to support people through the change journey.

Change impact assessments can be used as an input into the testing cycles, data migration activities and end user training.

Related Articles

Too often projects are focused on the technical solution and delivery. Ensuring that the correct change management representation is included at the steering committee level will ensure that there is a focus on people and the impact change will have on them. Ideally, there would be a workstream for change management with the lead attending any steering committee meetings.

In many projects, business readiness is more likely to be a bigger factor in delaying or derailing the project deployment than the technical solution readiness.

Additionally, representation of the Change Management team at gap boards can be useful to capture the impact of the change in the decision making; change management and data migration elements are often not considered in solution design decision making.

Related Articles

Yes, the Change Management team should be involved in the role mapping activities.

There are usually two kinds of role mapping. There are technical activities to assign SAP transaction codes to authorization roles within SAP. The Change Management team would have an interest in this mapping to drive learning preparation and execution.

There is also an organizational focused activity to assign people to the correct authorization roles in SAP. This business task is supported by the Change Management team and is critical to ensure people are assigned to the correct training courses and have the required skills and abilities to perform their role in the business.

Related Articles

Project success depends on active and visible sponsorship from executive level stakeholders. Executive sponsorship will ensure the correct messages are communicated from the correct people within the organization, positioning the program for success (in alignment with other business priorities). Strong leadership and sponsorship is critical in helping teams understand the need for change, which for some might feel like a retrograde step. Mitigating resistance and consistently conveying key messages through active and visible leadership is vital. The ‘bigger picture’ benefits should be consistently and continually voiced by the sponsors.

The Change Management team should support coordinated and active sponsorship by bringing clarity and capability to the role of the sponsor through regular meetings, coaching and activities.

Research suggests programs with active and visible executive level sponsorship will be 90% more successful than programs without this level of support.

Underpinning the change strategy is the Change Agent Network (CAN) who, as a collective, are pivotal to the successful adoption of the project. This network should be equipped and supported by the project change team and will reflect a cross section of those impacted by the change from all impacted departments or locations.

Ensuring the CAN are sequencing activities in support of project changes is important because this group will own and promote the change from within their communities, actively driving adoption over the longer term.

The SAP solution will be based on end-to-end business processes. The focus of training should be on what is changing within the business process or within the supporting ERP systems.

Often, a SAP S/4HANA project is an opportunity to refresh training and improve the skills and efficiency of the organization.

There is also an opportunity to develop sustainable materials that can be used for future re-training of existing employees and for onboarding new joiners. Performance management tools can be deployed to support the training activities and to tailor the training strategy to the individual needs of user groups, e.g. classroom training, web-based learning, etc.

Related Articles

Preparations for the blackout period, including communication, procedures, offline templates and escalations, are vitally important as there will be no system available for a time, yet business activities will not fully cease. The Change Management team can often support to ensure that people are aware of the interim processes and are equipped with the knowledge and ability to perform tasks during this period.

Blackout periods can range between one or two days to three or four weeks of downtime. The expected blackout duration often determines the level of involvement of the Change Management team. Nevertheless, involving them is crucial to ensure communications throughout this cutover phase are managed and all stakeholders are kept up-to-date on the progress and readiness for go-live.

Related Articles

The vision and mission of a project underpin its goals and objectives and help to communicate its strategic importance for all stakeholders. Executive sponsorship will help to reinforce the key messages while emphasizing the commitment of management to execute and deliver.

The vision and mission can be adapted through the project to reflect changing circumstances and priorities, but they should not deviate too far from the initial vision commitments agreed with the project sponsorship group. Ideally, the key messages will tie in to the corporate values and mission statements where applicable.

Related Articles

Sustainability should be part of the change management strategy to build internal change capability throughout the project.

The project artifacts and documentation should always be prepared with longevity and future in mind, including learning materials, documentation and communication tool kits.

Related Articles

Having a comprehensive business change strategy and plan is a key success factor for any technology project. Change Management should be given sufficient importance to ensure successful adoption of solutions that essentially form the backbone of an organization.

Onboarding a business change partner to support the SAP S/4HANA journey will contribute towards a successful rollout, adoption, benefit realization and return on investment, and will allow your integration partner to focus solely on the technology, where they can add the most value.

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At Afiniti, business change is all we do: we don’t have any other agenda, and we thrive on helping clients shape change, be ready for change, make change happen and ultimately make change stick.

We really are all about people; it’s people that will drive change and make the new way of working the norm.  Our holistic blend of change management services is part of an integrated approach to the people agenda of change. Using a tailored mix of our services to suit your SAP S/4HANA project, we will help you accelerate and embed change, driving your business forward to its potential future state.

Contact us today to find out how we can help make your change stick.

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We’re live – what now?

Your implementation may be complete, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your transformation is. Find out what’s next for your transformation here.

Post-implementation describes the phase after the project is complete (e.g. hypercare is finished) and would typically include embedding and adoption activities. Focus at this stage of the project should be around stabilization and benefits realization.

Success depends on the vision, mission and scope of the project. Some projects may target a technical upgrade without implementing features to improve the user experience and functionality, whereas others may seek to fully re-engineer and try to simplify or automate processes to improve efficiency.

Is success the ‘go-live’ being achieved? From a technical perspective, it likely is. If, however, success means adoption – that the organization has embraced and embedded new ways of thinking and working – then the people aspects of change must be addressed with the same weight as process, technology and data.

SAP S/4HANA is a significant investment and its success depends on the organization’s readiness and commitment to adopt and embed new ways of thinking and working.

It is therefore important to define your organization’s specific success criteria before embarking on your journey.

The change network is an important part of embedding new ways of working. This group will help an organization to understand the attitude in the business towards the solution, support benefit realization and achieve post implementation KPIs.

The continuation of the change network can help to supplement the support organization and help with continuous improvement of the solutions/processes and how they are used. Activities may include user/ super user forums, drop-in sessions to support end users, training and onboarding of new resources.

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Communication supports adoption throughout the full change lifecycle, allowing you to take people on the journey via the communication plan through Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement. If communication is missed at any stage, then it has an impact on the effectiveness of the overall messaging and achievement of subsequent stages, including adoption. Training and learning are also included in the communication plan, and it is important to lay some foundations so that trainees attend with a baseline level of awareness of the project, its importance and any key changes.

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The SAP solution will be based on end-to-end business processes. The focus of training should be on what is changing within the business process or within the supporting ERP systems.

Often, a SAP S/4HANA project is an opportunity to refresh training and improve the skills and efficiency of the organization.

There is also an opportunity to develop sustainable materials that can be used for future re-training of existing employees and for onboarding new joiners. Performance management tools can be deployed to support the training activities and to tailor the training strategy to the individual needs of user groups, e.g. classroom training, web-based learning, etc.

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Sustainability should be part of the change management strategy to build internal change capability throughout the project.

The project artifacts and documentation should always be prepared with longevity and future in mind, including learning materials, documentation and communication tool kits.

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Having a comprehensive business change strategy and plan is a key success factor for any technology project. Change Management should be given sufficient importance to ensure successful adoption of solutions that essentially form the backbone of an organization.

Onboarding a business change partner to support the SAP S/4HANA journey will contribute towards a successful rollout, adoption, benefit realization and return on investment, and will allow your integration partner to focus solely on the technology, where they can add the most value.

Related Articles

At Afiniti, business change is all we do: we don’t have any other agenda, and we thrive on helping clients shape change, be ready for change, make change happen and ultimately make change stick.

We really are all about people; it’s people that will drive change and make the new way of working the norm.  Our holistic blend of change management services is part of an integrated approach to the people agenda of change. Using a tailored mix of our services to suit your SAP S/4HANA project, we will help you accelerate and embed change, driving your business forward to its potential future state.

Contact us today to find out how we can help make your change stick.

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