imec SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA

Highlights

Brownfield migration from ECC to S/4HANA
Switch from on-premise hardware to cloud
Switch from on-premise Open Text to cloud

Brownfield solution

Imec, the renowned technology research centre, ran the same SAP implementation for twenty years. Over time, the company made significant investments to keep this software up to date and implement the necessary adjustments. But in order to optimise their business processes sustainably, a migration to SAP S/4HANA was the only futureproof solution.

Imec opted for a brownfield migration in which the ERP system is upgraded without abandoning existing structures. Brownfield has the advantage of complying with the latest SAP systems quickly at a relatively low cost. Moreover, there is a lot less change management involved.

Sandbox migrations

The scope of imec’s migration project required extensive preparations. We initially performed a sandbox migration (migration in a test environment, copy of production) to identify and resolve gaps. This also gave imec the opportunity to evaluate and test existing processes and revealed twenty gaps that needed to be addressed.

Together with imec, we decided to start a second sandbox migration to eliminate as many of the gaps as possible. In doing so, we also looked at whether alternatives were available, such as integrating existing SAP applications or implementing change management. Thanks to a pragmatic approach with transparent communication, we managed to achieve a successful conversion in no time.