{"id":6144,"date":"2025-03-06T14:49:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T14:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/?p=6144"},"modified":"2025-03-06T14:49:20","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T14:49:20","slug":"merging-a-successful-rpa-program-with-an-sap-s-4-hana-implementation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peeriosity.com\/shared-services\/articles\/2025\/03\/merging-a-successful-rpa-program-with-an-sap-s-4-hana-implementation\/","title":{"rendered":"Merging a Successful RPA Program with an SAP S\/4 HANA Implementation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Merging a Successful RPA Program with an SAP S\/4 HANA Implementation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

The global implementation of SAP S4\/HANA is a monumental effort, requiring the close coordination of process experts and technology teams across all geographies. \u00a0Because of the nature of the upgrade that includes real-time processing and many enhanced capabilities, it requires a detailed review of all Intelligent Automation efforts.\u00a0\u00a0 Successfully merging completed RPA projects with an S\/4 HANA rollout, and establishing processes for new RPA projects, takes close coordination the S\/4 HANA project team.<\/p>\n

Company Experiences<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Peercast featured a global company with $12B in annual revenue discussing their approach to merging a successful RPA program with their SAP S\/4 HANA implementation.\u00a0 This merging included turning off RPA functionality that was now integrated into S\/4 HANA, updating existing RPA projects to integrate with the new systems environment, and new automations performed after the systems implementation was completed.<\/p>\n

The journey for process automation at the company started in 2016 using Blue Prism, the RPA solution selected and currently in place.\u00a0 The first projects were live in 2017, with the scope of the projects shifting to include the total enterprise with an emphasis on supply chain and finance related projects.\u00a0 RPA project team are part of a Center of Excellence that is part of Global Business Services, reporting up through the Information Systems organization.\u00a0 The team works closely with Invoke, a 3rd<\/sup> party support and development company, in addition to having six full-time automation developers, a business analyst, and an Intelligent Automation manager who are company employees.<\/p>\n

The discussion included a walk-through of the operating model for S4 and Business Process Automation, including a Discovery phase where the S4 and RPA team collaborates to validate and identify requirements; a Build phase that includes design & test and implementation; and a Govern phase that includes hyper-care support to monitor processes for a period of time followed by normal support efforts to maintain processes and evaluate them for ongoing improvement opportunities.<\/p>\n

Polling Results Review<\/strong><\/p>\n

Peeriosity-100 Polling was used to understand the most important factors for implementing Intelligent Automation\/RPA projects at member companies. \u00a0The most important factors cited by half of responding companies were top level management support (25%) and partnership with IT (25%).\u00a0 An additional 26% were evenly split between adequate funding (13%) and culture of continuous improvement (13%).\u00a0 Here are the details:<\/p>\n

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The second poll question used the same response options to better understand which factors have been the biggest challenge.\u00a0 For 31% of responding companies, the biggest challenge was having dedicated, trained resources.\u00a0 While no company cited top level management support as the biggest challenge, 19% cited partnership with IT, and 13% cited having a culture of continuous improvement.<\/p>\n

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Here are some comments from responding companies:<\/p>\n