SAP MDG might be a worthwhile detour when switching to SAP S/4HANA

SAP S/4HANA: THE course setting technology from SAP. Essential requirement for any digitization strategy. Pivotal point for any simplification or innovation approaches. But how do you approach this salvation? It is clear that there are many roads leading to Rome. Switching your entire IT landscape at once on SAP S/4HANA is an immense challenge and only few will choose this route. In this blog, you learn why a detour via SAP Master Data Governance (MDG) is worthwhile for an SAP S/4HANA implementation.

Migrating to HANA requires converting to business partner approach

A migration to SAP S/4HANA requires various system specifications in order to guarantee the smoothest possible operation. What you need to do can be found here. But there are two main points:

1. You need SAP ERP at least version 6.0. Only on this basis can the latest enhancement packages be used.

2. You must switch to the business partner approach pursued with HANA.

Why did SAP change to BuPa

Traditional ERP systems with the classic vendor/customer approach generate redundant object models. If a customer also acts as a supplier, he or she is duplicated with his/her data − in the vendor master as well as in the customer master.

This is where SAP Business Partner (BuPa) approach begins: It integrates the customer and vendor master and thus enables a central administration of all customer, supplier and business partner data. This means that BuPa is the only entry point to create, edit and display master data for business partners, customers and suppliers − catchword "Golden Record".

Thanks to this approach, you can achieve a maximum data distribution: when a supplier is also a customer, he does not have to be created and maintained twice as the master data is the same. An integrated role concept provides for a clean distinction and allows data to be maintained or made available on a role-specific basis. Reuse of the data also leads to faster data consolidation.

Find more details on the business partner approach on this blog and a tutorial about how to switch here.

With SAP S/4HANA, the business partner, as a leading object, is then assigned embedded and new future-oriented features, which create new processes and optimize existing processes.

4 Reasons why a detour via SAP MDG is worthwhile

1. When implementing SAP Master Data Governance (MDG) you also have to switch to the business partner approach. This is how you move this task before the actual HANA implementation and thus reduces the complexity of such a project.

2. The introduction of SAP MDG gives you an excellent opportunity to approach the subject of SAP S/4HANA in a controlled manner. Within the scope of a manageable project, you will be able to gain valuable experience for the subsequent switch to SAP S/4HANA. Thanks to an expected good user acceptance, you can reduce inhibitions and increase the willingness to implement SAP S/4HANA.

3. You increase your data quality and establish strong governance processes, which lead to a sustained master data quality (also) after a HANA introduction.

4. You benefit from the innovations in SAP S/4HANA 1610, such as e.g. the business partner book or the tax book for incoming and outgoing invoices.

Find compact know-how about SAP MDG on our IBacademy website.