Digital transformation roadmap ?

[Ahmed_Yahya]

How can we prevent digital transformation projects from being just another ERP upgrade ?

what is the magic formula ? is there an SAP roadmap to guide the organizations through digital transformation journeys ?

I mean not just a list of software and tools which are advertised as a magic wound for digital conversion. I have seen many companies start their transformation journey with enthusiasm and wishing to see some positive impact on their strategic goals but instead ended up spending a lot of money in systems, tools & apps that they don't actually need nor properly use !

[sanilbhandari]

Hello hobbyist

I fully concur with you that Digital Transformation is not about some fancy tools and systems, which are implemented and not used any more. There are huge capital investments made in such transformations and they fail many times due to a lack of clarity. There is unfortunately, no magic wand which can say that do x or y or z to achieve the digital transformation.

The digital transformation should in fact be driven by customer's business requirements more than any thing else and this should determine, what exact tools and technology should be used.

In my more than sixteen years of consulting life, i have seen many transformations fail, since there was no clarity on the objectives of the transformation and fancy tools and systems were implemented with huge costs of millions of dollars. However, at the same time, i have also seen hugely successful transformations as well and the companies are today's market leaders in their business segments.

I would like to provide some of the examples of the transformations and why one was successful and other was not successful. Let us start with the ones where the strategy was wrong.

I have been part of transformation at one of the biggest shipping companies in APAC. This company had a legacy of an US Company and were also in the logisitcs industry. A new module was being introduced by the ERP Companies (Not SAP) and they started to implement the full logistics integration and shipping companies. There was no clear objective defined for the transformation. The only goal was to bring everything online and with systems controls. It started with a mandate for controls and fancy reports. Millions of dollars were also spent into the transformation. The business users gave multiple custom requirements with dazzling colored reports, which can be accessible on Tabs and Phones at the Port and with fleet members. However, there was no end to end integration defined before the transformation and though the ERP had best practices, custom developments were over whelming and it led to lot of on going developments by years and with no end. The system integrator failed miserably to drive the so called digital transformation.

At the same time, i was also involved with one of the biggest chocolates and CPG company in the world. The company is one of the world leader and had been growing inorganically through acquisitions. They had multiple systems in various market units and growing. There was no common practice and financial reporting was all over the place in large macro based excels put on shared drive. The organization was very clear on the objectives for the transformation:

1) They needed a system which can provide common financials across all the markets

2) They needed a system where they can integrate at least the financials of a new acquisition quickly

3) They needed a transformation to bring all the manufacturing activities in one system and wanted similar to have a group wide view of their COGS /COGM

4) The management wanted the AR and AP processes centralized to specific locations and tax reporting smooth.

With these objectives in mind, we started setting up the digital transformation journey for the customer over a period of time. The key milestones were sent out clearly over a period of time. Based on the business requirements for transformation, the required technologies were selected like Central Finance to start with and adding all the market units on S/4HANA with Finance and logistics in a global template. There were clear objectives and outcomes required for the transformation.

So in a nutshell every business must know what it wants to achieve as an outcome and technology and solution will fill in automatically. There is no one common solution for a customer across industries or also in the same industry, that's my view point

Thanks & Regards

Sanil Bhandari

[Ahmed_Yahya]

thanks for sharing this great knowledge and experience. really appreciate your time and effort.