Why Digital Discovery Assessment?
Deciding on the right operating model for SAP S/4HANA is one of the hardest decisions companies currently have to make.
Do I stay on-premise, move to Private Cloud Edition, or go to a highly standardized Public Cloud Edition?
Many customers find it particularly difficult to decide between the public and private cloud editions. The criteria in the choice are diverse and highly interrelated.
Some of the criteria to consider when making a choice are, for example, extensibility, cost, infrastructure and, above all, the range of functions.
In order to cleanly analyze the functional scope - especially when comparing public and private cloud editions - SAP provides the Digital Discovery Assessment Tool (DDA).
With the help of this tool, companies can work together with a partner to take an in-depth look at the topics of scope, the integration of applications and the localization of scope items.
The DDA follows 4 simple steps to simplify the analysis.
The 4 steps of the Digital Discovery Assessment
The starting point of the "Supply Chain of Selling" begins with the entry of some customer-specific information (such as industry or similar). In this first overview, the further course of the assessment is later secured and displayed. Here, companies can find all aspects of the assessment in one central location.
STEP 1: Selection of IT solutions
As soon as the company's central information is stored in the tool, the participants can begin with the assessment. In a first step, they select the required solutions they want to look at.
The standard products shown in Figure 2 can easily be considered in the scoping process. However, additional IT products - especially from third-party providers - can also be entered.
This provides a good overview of the company's possible target architecture at the start.
STEP 2: Preselection packages
Since far more than 650 scope items are available for the Public Cloud Edition, SAP provides corresponding preselection packages for selecting the scope items.
A distinction is made here between 4 different areas. These areas are:
1. Baseline
The Baseline package contains important end-to-end processes for companies, especially for the areas of finance, sales and procurement. For example, SAP already delivers the end-to-end processes "Invoice to Cash", "Order to Fulfill", "Record to Report" and "Procure to Receipt" with this package.
2. Finance Led ERP
The Finance Led ERP package includes the most important standard processes for enterprise financial management - preconfigured best practices that help companies run an administrative SAP S/4HANA system. It also includes some procurement and sales functions.
3. Service Centric ERP
With the third Preselection Package, SAP puts a focus on service. The package thus includes central SAP best practices for financial management and thus for the operation of an administrative ERP system, but also, above all, project-, service- and some industry-related functions.
4. Product Centric ERP
The product-centric package - also called Produce and Sell Standard Products (PSSP) - offers a very product-oriented selection of SAP Best Practices. This solution contains all the key functions for manufacturing companies and the sale of produced goods from stock.
Depending on which of these four areas best suits the customer's needs and specific requirements, a large number of scope items are pre-selected by activating the package.
It is important to note here that companies can also select multiple packages.
If none of the packages fit the company's specific needs, this step can also be skipped.
STEP 3: Localization and Availability of Best Practices
In principle, SAP Best Practices in SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud Edition are available in 43 country versions. It is important to note that this does not apply to all Best Practices, however, and that some Best Practices are not available in some countries.
To take this into account in the analysis, companies can link the respective entities of the company to the countries in the DDA.
Once this is done, a list is obtained with the information on which of the selected scope items is available in which country.
STEP 4: Scope Definition
In the next step, companies select the actual scope items of the respective Line of Business (LoB) of SAP S/4HANA.
To do this, they can choose from 16 different LoBs and simply select the relevant scope items in each case to add them to your scope.
For each scope item there is a short information, a direct jump to the Best Practice Explorer and the possibility to directly select a priority and a phase (for the planning of the later implementation project).
It is also possible to make specific notes on the scope items.
Additional requirements
A key task is to identify and note prioritized gaps at this early stage of decision making. This is because the gaps identified in this phase can have a massive influence on which deployment model is subsequently selected.
For example, each additional requirement can already be a reason for ultimately opting for the SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud Edition - and not the standardized public cloud.
Detailed qualification processes
The final step in the Digital Discovery Assessment to decide between the public cloud and the private cloud edition is the detailed qualification of the processes.
It is performed based on various questions about the marked scope items.
Each question once again contains dedicated information indicating why this question is relevant for the decision.
Once the company has answered all the questions, it can submit the DDA to SAP. There, the entire assessment is reviewed.
Based on the findings of the Digital Discovery Assessment, SAP makes a recommendation regarding the deployment model.
Final report
Regardless of SAP's recommendation, the company can look at its Final Report in the DDA and check its content, having previously gone through all the steps mentioned above.
In the Final Report, the parties involved can now once again find all relevant solutions, scope items, packages and the questions and answers that were asked about the scope items.
The decision - Private Cloud Edition vs. Public Cloud Edition In the end, based on the information gathered and checked in the DDA, a well-founded decision can be made regarding the central criterion of "scope of services" as to which deployment option is the right one for the company.
I hope you enjoyed the blog post and I was able to give you some interesting insights on the Digital Discovery Assessment.
If you have any questions about the DDA, please feel free to contact me.
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