Breathing New Life into SAP Brownfield+: 5 Challenges and 5 Steps with BTP, UX, and Innovation Trifecta

Brownfield projects+, while offering a tempting shortcut to expansion, come with their own set of hurdles. Despite the acknowledged limitations of brownfield+ upgrades compared to greenfield projects, many customers are drawn to this approach due to the significant risks and costs associated with greenfield implementations.

The Challenge and The Step

1. Integrated Legacy Systems: The Weight of the Past

Outdated integrated systems is a common obstacle in brownfield projects. Integrating new systems with legacy infrastructure can lead to compatibility issues, data silos, and security vulnerabilities and may also need clients to rewire the integrations to the new system.

Consolidation of Integrations: . We should begin by ranking each integration based on its business criticality and the potential positive business impact of modernisation. We still need to rewire all the old integrations to the new SAP Brownfield + systems and test them to ensure that data is flowing through correctly and processes are working as expected. This may be right time for us to assess whether rewiring or upgrading middleware or redesigning interfaces using new BTP technologies is the right thing to do based on risk vs reward vs cost.

Conquer Integration Chaos

1. Minimise Integration Debt: Identify and eliminate unnecessary integrations, focusing on those that deliver clear business value.

2. Prioritise Integration Journeys: Define and prioritise key integration journeys that directly impact business efficiencies and outcomes.

3. Establish Integration Standards: Implement clear standards and best practices for future integrations to ensure consistency, maintainability, and scalability.

2. Data Inconsistencies: Unearthing Hidden Treasures

Brownfield+ projects often inherit messy data landscapes. Inconsistent formats, duplicate entries, and poor data quality hinder decision-making and operational efficiency.

Unearthing Hidden Treasures : Now is the ideal time to uncover valuable data assets and establish robust data governance. We should identify business processes where analytic insights and improving poor data quality can yield significant business benefits. Then, we can define and implement appropriate data policies and governance mechanisms to ensure data accuracy, consistency, and reliability in these areas.

3 data gold mine tips, link process and data and analytics KPI's together !

1. Fill Data Holes : Leverage process mining tools to identify data holes that are causing process inefficiencies
2. Magnify : Assess and rank both business processes and data objects based on their potential business value and impact on desired outcomes.
3. Build Process and Data Telescope : Prioritize process analytic insights and attributes that helps to see your business and processes in different dimensions and re-think analytic journey and get data quality right.

3. Spice up the Brownfield+ User Adoption: Use the UX as a cornerstone

Don't let UX become an afterthought in brownfield+ projects, this can be crucial factor to sell your S4 HANA brownfield + business case to business! Prioritise customer and business user experience by identifying key customer and business persona journeys that would benefit from a refresh. Leverage the power of generative AI, Web4, and 5G technologies to seamlessly embed modern and engaging UX elements into these end to end journeys.

Don't think SAP, think journeys end to end to identify areas of highest business impact!

1. Engage UX and Business Experts : Conduct a poll to identify customer and business journeys that can be improved
2. Heart the high impact UX journeys : Map user journeys to business KPI's and get businesses to heart/like the UX journeys that will be be very useful to business
3. Magic Business UX Value Formulae : Use Gen AI to map UX journeys to value case and develop UX Journeys cost vs value case

4. Grease the Wheels and Prune the Code

While achieving a pristine core codebase might seem like a distant dream in brownfield+ projects with extensive legacy code, remember that even seemingly insurmountable challenges can be overcome with bold vision and determined action. If Elon Musk can revolutionize the automotive and aerospace industries, surely we can find innovative ways to streamline SAP codebase. Let's not be daunted by the scale of the task, but instead, approach it with the same spirit of innovation and ambition that drives groundbreaking achievements.

May not be fully clean but easier to scale in future

1. Trimming the Fat : Time for some code spring cleaning! Let's hunt down those unused custom objects and code, then hit delete and free up some space in our system
2. Polish Your Custom Crown Jewels : Let's sharpen our competitive edge! We'll leverage cutting-edge BTP,AI and cloud technologies to revamp and supercharge the custom objects that set us apart in the market.
3. No More Code Clutter: Time for a Fresh Future: Let's create a sunset plan for currently, moderately used, outdated code. We'll map out how to redesign or retire this existing code, set clear expiration dates, and establish guidelines to ensure all new custom code is future-proof and aligned with our long-term goals.

5. Create a Landscape That Bends, Not Breaks

ERP and legacy modernisation projects often become overly complex and costly due to a perfect storm of challenges: inadequate documentation, lack of automated testing for continuous improvement, a poor understanding of existing data and processes, and insufficient availability of crucial business resources. Brownfield+ projects offer a prime opportunity to nip these recurring project nightmares in the bud.

DevOps: The Conductor of Operational Symphony

1. Instant Process Mapping where Gen AI Meets Signavio : Leverage new Gen AI and Signavio tools to augment your process flows and generate documentations for critical end to end process scenarios.
2. Shift Gears for Continuous Automated Testing : Don't let those end-to-end brownfield test scripts gather dust! Automate them, document them, and turn them into a valuable asset for future testing and maintenance of your brownfield project.
3. The Change Express for delivering value non-stop : Reuse change management training and enable continuous release mechanisms where possible to deploy applications quicker where possible using new GIT frameworks. Let's inject some fun into change management! Imagine a Gen AI bot as your guide, helping you create engaging podcasts, interactive diagrams, and other creative content to communicate process changes in a fun and memorable way.

By embracing a strategic blend of BTP, UX design, and a forward-thinking mindset, we can transform brownfield projects into catalysts for innovation and growth.

Now go forth and conquer those brownfield challenges! We have the power to transform brownfield limitations into strategic advantages.

Don't shy away from bold goals. Even seemingly daunting legacy systems can be modernized and optimized for a brighter future.        

Prioritize user experience. A seamless and intuitive UX can make all the difference in driving user adoption and maximizing the value of your brownfield investment.        

Embrace automation and continuous improvement. From code optimization to testing and deployment, automation is key to unlocking efficiency and agility.        

Make it fun! Change management doesn't have to be dry and tedious. Inject creativity and engagement into the process to inspire your team and stakeholders.