If you work in IT, you likely report to a variety of individuals in the C-suite from time to time. That being said, just because you report to them doesn’t mean that they’ll always listen to you. You may have done a lot of research about a specific software solution and its benefits, only to have the CEO of your company decide to go in a different direction because of pricing alone. As such, it’s important to find ways to provide senior managers with as much information as possible about any given IT decision so that they don’t view it as only a question of time, money, and resources.
Also Read: 5 Free Android Apps for Creating Slide Shows
SAP migration is one such important conversation to have with your senior managers. After all, if you’re currently running the SAP R3 ERP suite, support for this platform will end in just under seven years. While that may sound like a lot of time to managers, in the world of IT, where migration needs to be handled properly in order to ensure a smooth transition, it’s best to start having conversations about SAP migration now. Being proactive about SAP migration will ensure that when the time comes, money and time are allocated to the task at hand. Here are a few tips for pitching SAP migration tools to senior management.
Establish the problem clearly
One important thing to keep in mind whenever you’re talking with senior managers is that they’re not in the trenches with you and so they likely don’t understand the day-to-day minutiae of your job or the repercussions of certain decisions. They’re big picture thinkers, and so it’s important that you find a clear way to walk them through how smaller decisions add up to create certain larger problems or solutions for their business.
Laying the foundation for how you currently operate, what SAP tools are even used for, and the pros and cons of a migration project are all crucial if you’re planning on getting support when it comes to upgrading your SAP system.
Offer a variety of migration tools and avenues for success
When it comes to data migration, especially, it’s important that you have a few different strategies to present to your senior managers. This is because legacy data needs to be kept intact, even if you want to migrate away from a legacy system.
The last thing you want to do is lose important documents during your SAP system data migration, even if it’s just losing access to these documents during a period of downtime. At the same time, any migration project can run into different problems, and it’s important that you clearly disclose things to senior managers such as required downtime and other aspects of your data migration from one SAP system to a new 4hana system.
Also Read: How to Use Kodi: An Essential Guide
One benefit of migrating your SAP data services is that it opens up the opportunity for changing certain business processes. This concept of digital transformation is a great way to get senior staff members on board with data migration since it means that you’ll be able to implement new best practices in analytics and potentially even increase your revenue by accessing new revenue streams. All of this could make the data migration process worth it if explained well.
Presentation Matters
It’s not likely that the people you’re talking to will know what terms like “migration object modeler,” “target structure,” or “SAP ERP” are. That being said, if you find a way to present the key terms and concepts to them in an easily digestible way, it may be easier to get them on board with switching to a 4hana system sooner.
Consider creating custom presentation folders to accompany any slideshow you plan on presenting, so that they have an easily referenceable guide while you speak. Filling your presentation folders with key terms, timelines, and definitions can help them refer to something during your presentation and increase their understanding of the benefits of transferring to a new system.
