Moving from SAP ERP HCM to SAP SuccessFactors: The Latest from SAP

[00:00:00] Hey everyone, welcome to podcast and thanks for tuning in. Joining me today is actually one of my favorite colleagues, Duncan Scott Duncan's worked on our move to the cloud program for years. He really is a true expert, he's a super

[00:00:15] humble guy so he might not tell you that but I'll tell you. So he spends his days figuring out ways to make it easier for our customers to move from on premise to the cloud. Hey Duncan, thanks for coming.

[00:00:27] And Brown, it's a pleasure to be here in my friend. Yeah, he's a great guy. He has a questionable choice in sports teams a little bit but would be a Boston fan. I'm just kidding. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a,

[00:00:40] you're leaving myself the exat of this. Yeah, I know you guys just beat us in the playoffs, maybe you know, I'll spend so you know, a little, you know, heart, not all right. Now, I know you've done a lot of work with customers

[00:00:52] and it helped them move the cloud more recently. I think it's come up a lot about making a business case and moving the cloud, right? I think we saw that a lot in 2023. You know,

[00:01:03] I think it's more customers are looking for an ROI and needing just a vacation for this type of project where in past years, that wasn't necessarily always the case. Of course,

[00:01:13] it helps when you can, you know, justify your spend. So I know you're doing some work to help build and expand on work we've done in terms of like a report and even up to like a ROI calculator.

[00:01:24] So tell me about that, you know, what's going on with that? We might be available. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. No, and thanks for that. And again, thanks for having the on-man. Now, so the,

[00:01:35] the ROI calculator is really kind of a byproduct of some of the work that we've done earlier in the year partnering with a company called ESG or the enterprise strategy group that really focuses on looking at the value of moving from on-prem to the cloud and specifically looking

[00:01:51] at things like, how does that impact the cost of implementation or the overall annual costs to run HR operations? And what starting to pull some of those inputs together, ultimately yields is an ROI calculation that lets our customers know broadly what the overall impact financially

[00:02:10] would be for adopting success factors after moving from their on-prem ATM system. The white paper itself was really well received to the point that our team, including our very own M-Routes, the G1 and Arturo Award earlier this year from TechTarget Congratulations, man.

[00:02:31] Yeah. I mean, I will say like that report when you look at it, it really did get into the specific detail. That's what I really liked about it is it wasn't some high-level analysis,

[00:02:44] but it was a detailed report and it got into the specifics of where you can actually get value right? And then quantifying that because you know some of it is, yeah, you can talk about a better

[00:02:56] experience for your employees, but what does that actually mean? Where does it save money? It saves money in training costs to actually break that down, make some assumptions putting a number around it. How your operations is actually increased, right? How your business can do things faster

[00:03:14] and then actually one of the things that I'd recommend anyone that's seriously looking at this go look at that report. But it also talks about the things that SAP is uniquely going to

[00:03:24] help our customers because I think that is unique we know both sides of success factors and SAP on-prem, and I think that gives us some advantages there. Not just us, but even our partners.

[00:03:38] So, you know, I'm excited about that ROI calculator too. Yeah, no, and your spot on. I mean, the analysis in the white papers specifically where we were able to look at things like

[00:03:49] paying if we're able to remove, you know, responding to HR support tickets with the same kind of capacity that we do today or documenting HR policy. You know, just all of the mundane or strategic

[00:04:03] things that can be made more efficient through the move. I think the analysis provided in that white paper was really eye-opening and the intent of the upcoming calculator which we should have available by the start of Q1. Really, yeah, enables us to take a really unique customer inputs

[00:04:30] leveraging the same kind of analysis and logic structure that was used in the white paper to start to input things like number of employees and you will come to your right. Right. That's a new perspective. So they're a high level understanding of what it means.

[00:04:46] But I think where it's maybe even more impactful for a business case is there are ways for advanced settings and kind of very specific ways to tune. So you can look at things like,

[00:04:58] hey, what percent of your HR's teams day is working on things like support tickets or on creating HR reports and being able to think about how if we were to move from operational to strategic kind

[00:05:11] of practice what that might yield as part of that ROI efficiency and being able to think about. What that means for the business is a whole. And so I'm really excited about the calculator,

[00:05:23] kind of standing on the giants or shoulders like your work from before, being able to take that kind of stuff and turn it into something that will be self-service for our customers that are interested

[00:05:35] in kind of getting a quantitative view of what the migration could mean for them. So it's really cool stuff, man. Yeah. And you know I think the one thing that I appreciated the most about that

[00:05:45] report too is that it was driven from the feedback of customers. Right. There were multiple customer interviews that took place. They heard about the actual stories, good and bad where they saw

[00:05:57] value, you know, where they kind of actually got the value. They put some numbers from the customer side on it. So I think that part was really cool. That's right. Yeah. And I think it was something like

[00:06:09] almost 500 customers were interviewed overall. So you're right. Yeah, it's not kind of finger on the wind stuff. It was a voice of customer being able to see where where this moved to success factors

[00:06:19] really makes an impact for their business. So it was definitely next level stuff and congratulations again, man. Thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing more of that. But now I think after making the

[00:06:31] business case, let's say you make the business case, you get the funding. I think the one of the first thing customers kind of get scared about is they've been in their existing system for such a long

[00:06:40] time. And in many cases, they weren't even involved in the implementation anymore. Right. Even if I've been at a customer for seven to eight, ten years, that doesn't mean I was there for the implementation

[00:06:52] of the SAP HCM environment. Right. So a lot of customers, I mean let's be honest, you're your scared to touch it. Right. And there's you don't know all the things that are kind of going on

[00:07:02] there because you weren't involved and plus it's been changed in the hands over the years. So I know we also have a readiness check tool which is relatively new. I think it's been out

[00:07:13] more than a year now to help customers, I guess, get that x-ray of their existing system. So tell me a little bit more about that. What are some of the things that are surfaced in that? And

[00:07:22] you know, we've gotten some customer responses from the people that have used that. That's awesome. Yeah. No, I think the readiness check has been really a success story since its introduction about a year ago. You're right. I think the it's been used by, I think roughly 250 unique

[00:07:38] organizations at this point and the intent like you said is to get that transparency into what they're on from HCM deployment really looks like today because you're right. There can be so many

[00:07:51] customizations that might have happened just unique info types that are being used in a different way than the one there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so this really provides the opportunity to

[00:08:06] export all of the data. So we have a clear GDPR compliant way to get an understanding of what the overall data set that you're using today looks like. We're able to put that up into a

[00:08:19] easy to understand dashboard that's broken into kind of four key components. We're able to look at things like employee insights, which has to look at things like the overall structure of the business

[00:08:30] and and the size and volume of number of employees and different regions or market units and overall cost centers. And so being able to just have that kind of pivotable way to to see how and where people sit across the business. There's org structure analysis. There's something called

[00:08:48] important HXM data that lets us look at things like payroll calendars and frequency. And then custom code analysis, which is where we can start to understand where things might have gone off the

[00:09:01] beaten path so that we can understand what the level of complexity and effort might be to facilitate and advantageous migration. And so you know, I think the questions that folks really come into this asking themselves could be really simple like what kind of functionality are we actually

[00:09:18] using in our own prep systems today or it can be more helping to understand where can we start to sanitize our data as we consider a migration going forward and being able to to consider what

[00:09:33] best practices for measurement of different segments of our population might be being able to think about just what the overall best practice, overall structure might be as we consider a move to EC or

[00:09:48] ECP going forward. And so it's a really good way to just kind of get that all encompassing view of what's being used. We should have explained text where you can click in and get some guidance

[00:10:01] around what the information is showing on the screen actually means. And you can share it with SAP services and partners. You can drill into it to see the nitty gritty and an excel right behind

[00:10:14] all of it. So it's intended to be used and I think it's good all Excel, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's better. Don't get me started. Yeah, no, Excel is the best.

[00:10:26] Yeah, I know. I like it much as an expert in that. So yeah, that's to me that's a unique advantage right because you get to understand your system as is and help prepare for a move. I think that

[00:10:41] you know, we've heard some direct feedback of this help me get started significantly faster or a big jumpstart on your requirements gathering once you're starting that project. And if I compare that to completely starting from scratch and not having that, I mean, that reduces the risk quite

[00:10:59] a bit from my standpoint. Yeah, you're right. I think in a practical sense it removes several weeks of upfront analysis. It means that as you're kicking off an implementation, that both sides, either services or partners and our customers are all starting at the exact same point and

[00:11:18] of the same understanding of what's deployed today and can go forward with that confidently as opposed to going through a long questionnaire of trying to figure out how many people sit in this

[00:11:30] location and what are you using for, you know, what info type of using to capture this certain data. We get that pulled right away and it's a process that takes about 24 hours tops

[00:11:42] and really can help to support customers that are on any level of either ECC or S4. So yeah, it's it's ready to go and I think is a major game changer for us.

[00:11:55] For sure. So, you know, if you look at it, you know, we're working on trying to help customers make a business case to get the funding and then we're able to kind of get a view or an

[00:12:06] x-ray or glimpse of the existing system to help reduce some of that risk and get the early requirements gathering conversations, you know, expedited a little bit there. What are some additional ways that, you know, we can reduce the risk from, you know, that requirements gathering from and taking

[00:12:22] that analysis that they have from the readiness check tool and, you know, getting started. I know, you talked about getting that data out and making available for, you know, you're either your partner or SAP services but what are some other ways that that can be valuable?

[00:12:38] No, I love that question and you're right, you know, if the readiness check is kind of that x-ray but without having someone to interpret it, yeah, yeah, that's something a doctor, you know, it would be

[00:12:48] yeah, hard to know what to do with it and so, you know, I think there are a couple of different avenues that folks can go to to get a better understanding of what the readiness check practically means

[00:13:01] to them in their business. I think the first would be what we call our customer evolution workshop or our evo kit workshop which comes out of an organization that's relatively new at SAP called the

[00:13:13] customer evolution program that's intended to help all of our on-prem customers move to the cloud across each of the solution areas. So ERP, HXM, you know, BBT, you know, essentially all of it

[00:13:30] we're helping our customers find the way to move best to the cloud. We have workshops through that program that, yeah, that helped to leverage the findings from the readiness check but also pair that with things like overall product mapping and prioritization and building a business case.

[00:13:53] We have our customers run the readiness check and provide a digital questionnaire to kick that off. The workshop is really really kind of focused on helping organizations that haven't made that first

[00:14:06] step into the success factors world first and so it's for companies that are figuring out whether or not it's the right move for them. And what we've seen is that these kind of workshops can be done

[00:14:19] either in a silo just for an HXM migration but we're seeing with increasing frequency is adding the HXM content as part of a broader S4 digital transformation. And so I think increasingly we're looking

[00:14:35] at the organizations that are looking to move in a holistic way saying if we're moving to S4, let's think about what the move to HXM could mean and that capacity too. And the building a three

[00:14:46] to four-day workshop that takes into account those business cases, the readiness check interpretation. And so that at the end of those three or four days our customers have in hand a really clear

[00:14:59] understanding of the level of effort and complexity for a migration generally as well as the value that they can expect to glean once they do make the move. And so I think that's the first one

[00:15:12] that I think is again relatively new but we're seeing it get adopted with increasing success and regularity. The second one is a new advisory service that really carve out the interpretation

[00:15:26] of the readiness check data, check and really the goal there is to have just a one or two day engagement by which we're able to dig into the nitty gritty of the results of that and provide a

[00:15:40] readout that shows what what value we would expect a customer would be able to get by moving based on their current deployment today but then getting into a little bit more of the actual

[00:15:51] migration path, things that might need to change with the way that the data is captured today for things to move most slowly or move least slowly going forward. And so that's a new advisory service that is we've tried to keep relatively inexpensive so that it's again really well.

[00:16:10] My question. Yeah yeah no. So that first workshop is free. This advisory service at the carve out is what I would consider inexpensive. I think it's something like four or five thousand dollars

[00:16:23] American. I think it's maybe 3500 euros but it's something that we see a lot of organizations are are leaning towards if they already have some of the context and business case built but want to get a better understanding of what what the data sitting in their current deployment

[00:16:40] means for what migration could look like going forward. I mean I like a couple things that you said right. You talked about the questionnaire, so that actually gets some things, takes the analysis,

[00:16:51] puts some more context around it and then I do like the whole thought about doing this with S4 because what you don't want to do is have it siloed to the point where you're doing this

[00:17:03] big global S4 project and then HR is kind of standalone and after where you're like oh well what about HR? What are we going to do and what is going to look like and really kind of doing that

[00:17:13] together because in the on-premise world there was HR and ERP were always kind of bundled together and that was a good thing in many ways and you know with the move to success factor

[00:17:28] you still want to account for both those two. So I really like that. You're right you know what I think largely a lot of our customers kind of consider the two kind of a separate entities sometime

[00:17:43] yeah I mean it's much different CHRO versus CFO right different ownership whereas that always wasn't the case right so now when you see it like you have a CHRO that gets their own budget

[00:17:55] and makes their own decision and then you know CIO and CFO or you know a lot of times working on the more of the ERP side of things so that wasn't really the case as much 15 20 years ago I think

[00:18:08] you're you're spot on and and because of that you know what we're seeing is you're at there there are separate owners they sit in different parts of the business and so when folks are considering

[00:18:17] that move with their ERP system to S4 oftentimes it doesn't dawn on them that they have an HR system that also needs to move and with things like end-of-minsory maintenance coming up in 2025 and 2027 based on the ERP systems that they're leveraging you know there's I think it

[00:18:37] increasing just kind of a a burning need for these customers to realize that they should be intertwined that there is a real value to think of HR and the ERP together and so having a workshop

[00:18:51] that that shows that value case that shows how EC can be really the the the overall kind of center of a business process that that fuels ERP yeah I think for us is is just increasingly important

[00:19:07] and yeah and I think is the way that this is it's going to resonate most with our customers agreed so last last thing so you know if you look at this you want to look at the entire process

[00:19:17] of an implementation so you know helping make the business case was was step one helping look in at the existing system getting into the required going and actually analysis with some expertise and we covered those but now when a customer is actually ready to start their project

[00:19:35] and they're getting ready to set up their their system I know we have many things that both us and also some of our partners help with can tell me a little bit about that too yeah for sure

[00:19:45] no and so I think when when the rubber hits the road and we're ready to actually start migrating data into things like employee-centriller or the overall success factor suite we have a wonderful tool

[00:19:56] called info border that was built with the intent of looking at certain fields and you're existing on premade cm and being able to port those over to employees central based on underlying

[00:20:07] logic that's been built out over the last near decade now and so having that tool really as an expeditious way to help our customers move but to your point to mron we have an amazing ecosystem

[00:20:22] within our partners of folks like epi use and their prism offering with tik consultant and the nexus suite and folks like spin effects that all have tools that really help to facilitate

[00:20:35] that kind of data lift and migration into the cloud and a really expeditious way and so I think when we think about the nuts and bolts of that it's it's really critical that we have those

[00:20:47] kinds of tools to make that process seamless beyond that you know I think there are lots of ways in which we want to embed things like best practices for in case you're on this important

[00:20:59] yeah so things like oh you know implementation guidebooks that are really important but there's a specific I'd say offering from SAP that we call implementation design principles that are a series of both documentation kind of living breathing documents that are constantly updated based

[00:21:17] around scenarios and challenges that customers might have during implementation so we can have work around that are just really publicly shared it's been kind of an aggregation of data both from our SAP experts as well from our partner ego of bringing all of this information together

[00:21:35] which is great they have webinars that also help to dive into you know how you should best manage implementation and build in best practices and so I would say implementation design principles is one of those next level ways yeah do you have experience working with implementation design

[00:21:54] principles and wrong yeah definitely like look at them you know when I used to do more project work I mean the reality is those have a lot of real world expertise challenges that were actually

[00:22:09] faced by customers and you know like the solution for that was actually in that right as opposed to if you're starting from from scratch and you don't have that this does have real world knowledge

[00:22:22] in there and this is how you solve a business problem right so that's the thing I really like about those and you know I saw another thing and this I guess the last thing I'll say is our buddy

[00:22:33] Brandon Tunes creative video I think maybe a month or so talking about info for her and he labeled it this is just weapon for employee central migration and he actually you know goes in and talks about

[00:22:44] it so I'll share that in the you know the details here for that but now I think that's a big one to actually get that jumpstart of moving the data right having the pre-filled mapping doing it

[00:22:56] and then being able to get that best practices you know to me that's a huge win and really does help customers see more value for sure to spot on yeah huge accelerator and yeah shout out to

[00:23:08] Brendan Tunes for for that post too that's that's excellent stuff yeah all right well thanks a lot for joining me today don't appreciate all your insights I think a lot of people will find value in this

[00:23:18] I mean you know I probably wanted a couple things myself and I'm talking to you regularly so thanks for your feedback friend man it was a pleasure thanks for having me hope we can do it again sometime