Building your SAP S/4HANA Cloud business case

The world as we know it has changed immeasurably since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even as countries move into the ‘recovery’ phase, one thing is clear - the way we live and the way we do business will be very different.Organisations the world over spent several months addressing critical immediate issues such as loss of revenue, managing working capital, paying debtors, collecting from creditors and keeping afloat. For many these challenges continue, but increasingly organisations are turning focus towards how they recover from this pandemic.

COVID-19 has been a disruptor of operations but also a driver for digital transformation. Having seen their business transform in recent months, business leaders are now starting to question things that in the past would have been considered ‘too hard’. At Deloitte, we are increasingly seeing organisations challenge the future direction of their ERP – where even for pro-transformation companies this would have been considered affixed in times past.

The likely post-COVID-19 environment will reinforce the importance of agility: geo-political uncertainty, local changes in policy, high debt, slow spend and changing consumer behaviours. The aftermath will reinforce the need for enterprises to shorten ERP investment cycles, accelerate time to value, embed agility and flexibility within the digital core, and create an open framework for growth.

The value of S/4HANA Cloud to organisations of all sizes and industries has never been higher, and this is only likely to grow. SAP’s recent investment in simplifying and harmonising its various cloud offerings into the “One S/4HANA Cloud” banner has created a compelling value proposition for customers. At Deloitte we believe strongly in the power of Cloud in achieving critical business outcomes, and have seen first-hand the tangible value that S/4HANA Cloud can deliver for organisations. Our recent experiences of implementing S/4HANA Cloud for customers and our own business have given us some valuable lessons, but none more so than the importance of a business case in the transformation journey.

In this paper we share our views on why a business case is critical to S/4HANA Cloud investments, how to go about developing a good business case and where the value could be coming from. We share experiences from our implementations and call out challenges to avoid along the way.

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Author's note

The focus of the paper is on the practical steps an organisation can take to build a detailed, robust business case that will stand up to scrutiny. Whilst this isn’t a one size fits all solution for all situations, we hope this paper will provoke thought and encourage a new way of approach ERP investments. Please download the guide to read through our viewpoint, and feel free to reach out to discuss either the content in the paper or your specific situation.