ARCONDIS UPDATE No. 02|2018: GxP Compliance to the point

14_GxP Compliance to the point 15
konfrontiert und noch kann aus dem potenziellen
Risiko eine Chance für nachhaltige
Erneuerung gemacht werden.
Erfolgreicher Umstieg auf SAP
S/4 HANA – Gründe aus der
Praxis
Auch für Nicht-SAP-Kunden kann ein Wechsel
der ERP-Landschaft hin zu S/4 HANA
Vorteile bieten, wie folgendes Praxisbeispiel
zeigt. In 2017 leitete ARCONDIS ein
ERP-Evaluationsprojekt bei einem mittelständischen
Schweizer Biotech-Unternehmen. Es
galt, die Kombination aus Eigenentwicklung
und KMU-Lösung durch ein modernes, das
Wachstum des Unternehmens begleitendes
ERP zu ersetzen.
Durch die Spezialisierung auf die Life
Sciences Industrie und das damit verbundene
Know-how wurde ARCONDIS neben
der Verantwortung für den Auswahlprozess
auch mit der Business-Analyse und dem
Anforderungsmanagement betraut. Nach
Abschluss der Evaluation entschied sich der
Kunde auf Basis der transparenten Entscheidungsmatrix
für SAP S/4 HANA in Kombination
mit weiteren SAP-Komponenten,
wie beispielsweise SuccessFactors für das
Human Capital Management und SAP Cloud
Platform Integration für die Einbindung von
Cloud- und On-Premise-Applikationen.
Ausschlaggebend waren insbesondere:
Hoher Grad funktionaler Abdeckung, speziell
im Bereich länderspezifische Anforderungen,
Architektur basierend auf innovativer
In-Memory-Technologie,
Zukunftsorientierung der Gesamtlösung
im Hinblick auf Digitalisierung, Vernetzung
und Mobilität,
Benutzerfreundlichkeit durch Fiori-Apps
und
Embedded Reporting und Analysefunktionalitäten.
Das Projekt befindet sich nun, unter weiterer
Beteiligung von ARCONDIS, in der erfolgreichen
Umsetzungsphase und wird Herbst
2018 abgeschlossen.
Wann beginnen Sie mit den Vorbereitungen
für einen erfolgreichen Umstieg? Sprechen
Sie uns gerne an, wir beraten neutral und
SAP-unabhängig, damit Ihre Reise ein Erfolg
wird und Sie langfristig von den Ergebnissen
der Umstellung profitieren. Andreas Jung
English
E_As the global market leader of ERP
software and with a wide range of software
components for companies in virtually
every industry, SAP is currently in
a process of transformation. This change
not only affects the company’s strategic
alignment, but nearly its entire product
portfolio – not without drastic effects for
existing and future customers.
Set to take several years, the transformation
process is primarily based on two main
elements:
The evolution of SAP SE into a comprehensive
cloud solution provider and
the transformation, fundamental overhaul
and porting of the entire SAP solution
portfolio to the SAP HANA in-memory
database technology.
Many SAP customers will have to address
their own IT application landscapes – the life
cycle for SAP’s main product, ERP platform
SAP ECC 6.0 (Enterprise Core Component
6.0) ends with the year 2025.
Besides the challenges entailed by a major
project such as ERP migration, this also
offers customers the opportunity to prepare
important IT applications for the future.
For the customer’s sake, it is important to
ask the following key questions and prepare
appropriate answers.
What should the planned target IT architecture,
IT landscape and the operating
model look like in the future?
What business functions should be supported
by which IT applications?
What drivers and effects does SAP transformation
have, especially in terms of the
end of the SAP ECC 6.0 lifecycle in 2025?
What does the IT roadmap for implementing
the target IT architecture look like?
What implementation approach is the
right one?
What are the budget, resource, time
requirements etc. for the years to come?
For many companies, finding valid answers
to these questions requires them to deal
with very specific and in some cases complex
topics. The following starting points
and effects will show the importance of
planning ahead and beginning on time in
order to highlight the need for action for SAP
customers.
SAP S/4 HANA and future
prospects
SAP ECC 6.0 will be discontinued by SAP
SE at the end of 2025. For customers, this
means it can still be used, but only on an
individual contract basis, and no longer
with a set maintenance fee. In some areas,
development was stopped/reduced drastically
years ago. This SAP product can no
longer be recommended as an ERP platform
for new projects or long-term use. Affected
companies are forced to give thought to the
main elements of their IT landscape and
switch to other products in the future.
The question is not whether a migration is
necessary, but “how?” and “when?”.
SAP offers a successor product – SAP S/4
HANA. S/4 HANA is based on SAP’s HANA
in-memory database, and when finished it
will present an all-new ERP solution. Besides
the mentioned database technology, these
are just some of the major advantages and
properties offered by S/4 HANA:
Less complex data models to simplify and
speed up business processes (already implemented
in many areas, but not entirely
for all business processes and functions
at the current point in time)
All-new user interface with SAP FIORI
apps for simplified operation, totally new
look and feel
Embedded analytics for comprehensive
analyses and evaluations
Various operating models and solutions
(on-premise, private or public cloud solutions)
New technological base architecture for
innovations such as artificial intelligence
(e.g. to clear incoming payments)
The new technological HANA basis also enables
integration with SAP solution platform
Leonardo, laying the foundation for digitalization
(for example for blockchain, the Internet
of Things, etc.).
S/4 HANA is being continuously developed
and, as of the second quarter of 2018, it has
reached a good degree of maturity, reflected
in the number of customer installations
already implemented in many industries and
countries. In individual cases, an analysis is
required, investigating whether all important
and relevant business processes with
specific requirements, such as integration
with other IT applications for HR, customer
management, and industry-specific requirements
such as integration with lab software,
clinical trials management systems (CTMS)
or manufacturing execution systems (MES)
are covered. This also makes it necessary to
take a look at the entire IT application landscape
with all the required IT applications:
What business functions have to be supported
for the individual customer situation with
what IT applications? In the target architecture,
S/4 HANA represents the core that has
to be integrated with other components in
order to achieve optimal process coverage,
especially for the specific processes in the
life sciences industry.
SAP operating models and GxP
When pondering an architecture, it also
makes sense to consider possible operating
models, as the trend is clearly heading towards
cloud solutions. More and more often,
public clouds are coming into use, as can be
seen in the area of human capital management.
Public clouds offer many advantages,
such as fast rollout times, best practice
approaches and a higher degree of standardization
just to name a few. However, they
also have major quirks that should be looked
at with a critical eye for the life sciences
industry in particular, including mandatory
release changes each year and the associated
testing. For this reason, use of the public
cloud to support GxP-relevant processes in
the SAP environment is difficult to imagine.
To achieve a validated status, releases would
at least have to be documented via regression
testing within the few weeks that SAP
gives between the release announcement
and upload to the public cloud. This model is
hardly practical in everyday operations.
From practice, we are familiar with the first
GxP-relevant SAP S/4 HANA implementation
in the private cloud, for example in the
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. High testing
and documentation requirements can be
expected due to the necessary validation activities.
In addition to validation, the following
questions are also relevant for using “GxP in
the cloud”:
How is data availability ensured?
Is there sufficient protection against
manipulation?
Who is responsible for the data under
which circumstances?
These points should be addressed during
contract negotiations with the provider,
including in the private cloud.
The trend towards growing mobility should
also be considered in the GxP environment,
regardless of the operating model selected.
Companies that provide their users with SAP
apps and dashboards on mobile devices,
for example, should keep in mind that they
have to be qualified in the same way as the
infrastructure when processing or storing
GxP-relevant data. A mobile device policy
simplifies this.
Tackling migration
To migrate to SAP S/4 HANA, there are
various approaches: The “Brownfield”
approach migrates from SAP ECC 6.0 to
S/4 HANA maintaining as much customizing,
development, data, permissions and
functional coverage as possible. In contrast,
the Greenfield approach involves a fully new
implementation. Planning in phases enables
companies to manage potential project risks.
An exact plan has to be developed specific
to the customer.
Fortsetzung
Continuation