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  • Client: A leading European HVAC manufacturer
  • Industry: HVAC Manufacturing
  • Region: France/Europe
  • Partner: Gauri Ltd

Exec Summary

For three decades, enterprise transformation followed a predictable pattern: Big 4 firms owned assessment, partners executed delivery, and intelligence was sold as labour. FUTUROOT helped Gauri Ltd, to shift that, delivering in 8 weeks what the likes of IBM typically take 12–16 – more precise, and with immediate operational gains.

The client faced a €multi-million SAP S/4HANA migration decision with a critical constraint: greenfield implementation was prohibitively expensive, while brownfield risked carrying forward 25 years of technical debt. Using FUTUROOT, Gauri delivered forensic clarity in 8 weeks that enabled the client to pursue a hybrid strategy – brownfield where viable, targeted greenfield where essential. The data revealed 90% of custom objects had never executed, over half of sales order types were obsolete, and Classic GL optimization opportunities that could deliver immediate value and secured two immediate follow-on projects for Gauri. The assessment prevented millions of euros of misallocated migration spend by eliminating inactive scope before a single line of SAP S/4HANA code was touched.

At a Glance: What Changed Because of This Assessment

  • 8 weeks: Assessment delivery vs 12-16 weeks Big 4 standard
  • 2,000+ custom objects: 90% identified as inactive through execution log analysis → Prevented unnecessary remediation of 1,800 objects
  • 12 → 5 sales order types: 7 legacy types eliminated, 95% of revenue flows through 5
  • 2 immediate projects: Data cleansing + Unicode conversion secured
  • Classic GL migration opportunity identified for the interim

 

The Challenge

The client’s SAP ECC was 25-year-old. Leadership knew SAP S/4HANA migration was inevitable but faced a strategic dilemma: greenfield would be prohibitively expensive, while brownfield risked carrying forward inefficiencies and technical debt – both irreversible once migration began. The decision hinged on understanding what actually existed – which custom code was needed, which processes required redesign, what could be retired.

Traditional Big 4 assessments deliver maturity ratings over 3-4 months with potentially generic rankings following traditional assessment methodology. Without forensic clarity, the client couldn’t determine if brownfield was viable or selective greenfield necessary.

Gauri, as implementing partner, faced a familiar constraint: in the traditional model, assessments are loss-leaders priced to win implementation, rewarding complexity over clarity. They set out to invert it – selling intelligence, not hours; generating pre-implementation revenue while strengthening their strategic advisory position.

Both organizations needed objective truth before committing millions to migration.

The FUTUROOT Solution 

FUTUROOT analyzed 100% of the client’s transaction data over 24 months, across Finance, Procure-to-Pay, and Order-to-Cash areas. Multiple discoveries reshaped both the migration approach and revealed immediate optimization opportunities:

Custom Code Analysis

  • 2,000+ custom objects analyzed through 12-month execution logs
  • Finding: 90% had never executed
  • Outcome: Migration scope reduced to ~200 active objects requiring Unicode compliance
  • Immediate value: the client could begin decommissioning unused programs in current ECC, reducing system complexity before migration
  • Net effect: migration effort reduced by an order of magnitude before scoping began
Sales Order Rationalization
  • 12 configured sales order types analyzed by transaction volume
  • Finding: 95% of revenue flowed through 5 types; 7 were legacy from acquisition
  • Outcome: 58% reduction in O2C migration scope
  • Immediate value: Opportunity to simplify current-state processes, improving order entry efficiency
  • Net effect: simpler operations today and materially lower test, conversion, and regression risk during migration.

Process Variation Analysis: Procure-to-pay Variations Discover
  • Procure-to-Pay process maps revealed significant variation in purchasing flows, with a material proportion of cases terminating at the Purchase Requisition stage instead of progressing through the ideal PR → PO → Goods Receipt → Invoice path.
  • Finding: This pointed to breakdowns in approval flows, potential sourcing delays, duplicate or abandoned requisitions, and potential maverick buying behaviour.
  • Value: A considerable eye opener for the business, this was identified as a strong candidate for pre-implementation remediation as well as a post-migration continuous improvement opportunity.
Classic GL Optimization Opportunity
  • Technical analysis flagged the client was still operating Classic General Ledger (not New GL)
  • Finding: Recommendation: Implement New GL (offering parallel accounting, ledger flexibility, faster financial closing) in current ECC before SAP S/4HANA migration
  • Immediate value: Estimated 20-40% faster financial closing through improved FI-CO reconciliation, while de-risking eventual SAP S/4HANA conversion (avoiding double transformation: Classic → New GL → Universal Journal)
  • Net effect: avoided double transformation and unlocked value before SAP S/4HANA.
Master Data Quality Issues
  • Analysis revealed multiple legacy company codes with minimal usage (<100 transactions), duplicate customer/vendor records, material master inconsistencies
  • Finding: SAP S/4HANA’s Business Partner model requires customer-vendor deduplication before migration
  • Recommendation: Data cleansing with 66% reduction potential (proven at comparable Agro industry client)
  • Immediate value: Pre-implementation revenue opportunity for Gauri; better reporting accuracy for the client
Warehouse Management Incompatibility (Identified through broader assessment)
  • Assessment workshops and technical analysis identified WM solution allowed negative stock in physical bins
  • Finding: Negative stock (inventory below zero) is forbidden in SAP S/4HANA kernel architecture
  • Outcome: Brownfield WM migration proved technically impossible; greenfield EWM required

Business Impact

For The Client

Traditional brownfield would have meant remediating all 2,000 custom objects, migrating 12 sales order types, and attempting WM conversion. FUTUROOT and the comprehensive assessment enabled selective strategy:

  • Finance, P2P, O2C: Brownfield migration (minimal changes)
  • Warehouse Management: Greenfield EWM (technical incompatibility identified)
  • Custom code: Focus on 200 active objects only
  • Order types: Eliminate 7 obsolete configurations
Immediate operational improvements identified:
  • Classic GL migration delivering 20-40% faster financial closing before SAP S/4HANA work begins
  • Process variation corrections addressing lost revenue
  • Master data cleansing improving current reporting accuracy
  • Order type rationalization simplifying current operations

Capital redirected from remediating 1,800 inactive objects funded strategic EWM implementation. The client achieved hybrid approach: brownfield where technically viable, targeted greenfield where essential, zero investment in obsolete functionality.

For Gauri: Partner Ecosystem Validation

The assessment strengthened Gauri’s position as trusted advisor, creating immediate revenue while establishing foundation for long-term implementation partnership.

Three Structural Advantages:

FUTUROOT’s platform delivered capabilities that differentiated Gauri’s engagement from traditional approaches:

  • Unified (ERP + Process Mining) expertise & FUTUROOT’s ERP Native Experience:  When Gauri engaged FUTUROOT, they received a team comprising both process mining experts and ERP specialists deeply familiar with SAP S/4HANA migrations. This eliminated the 1.5-2 month delay typical when Big 4 firms deploy separate BPM and ERP teams requiring methodology alignment. SAP-native connectors and pre-built P2P/O2C templates enabled immediate deployment without specialist onboarding.
  • Flexible economics enabling competitive pricing: FUTUROOT’s subscription model gave Gauri pricing flexibility unavailable to competitors whose economics require billing hours. Whether analyzing 2,000 or 20,000 custom objects, Gauri’s cost remained fixed – enabling competitive client pricing while maintaining margins. This structural advantage proved decisive in winning the assessment engagement.
  • Enterprise-grade precision at mid-market economics: The client received analytical sophistication typically reserved for Big 4 engagements – execution log analysis identifying exactly 200 of 2,000 active objects, volume flows revealing 95% revenue concentration in 5 of 12 order types – at mid-market pricing. This precision positioned Gauri as first-mover for the eventual migration tender.

This engagement demonstrates how mid-tier partners can compete with Big 4 firms on intelligence, without changing their delivery DNA.

Engagement Outcomes:
  • Technical authority through data: 100% transaction coverage analyzing 2 years of production data provided irrefutable findings; Classic GL discovery revealed optimization opportunity the client didn’t know existed. Technical evidence drove decisions, not consultant opinions.
  • Fixed-price confidence through scope precision: Exactly 200 active objects requiring Unicode compliance – not “approximately 2,000 requiring review.” This specificity eliminated delivery risk and enabled accurate fixed-price proposals for follow-on work.
  • Channel-ready white-label deployment: Gauri operated FUTUROOT under their own brand, maintaining client relationship control while leveraging proven expertise. This model enabled mid-tier partners to compete on intelligence, not just cost.
  • Pre-implementation revenue generation: The assessment itself was revenue-generating (consultant savings of up to 2 FTEs), immediately creating expansion opportunities. Four optimization opportunities identified (data cleansing + Unicode conversion + Classic GL migration + process optimization), of which two projects commissioned (data cleansing + Unicode conversion). Each follow-up project strengthens Gauri’s position for the eventual migration tender, transforming assessment from loss-leader into profitable strategic entry point.
Results:
  • 4 immediate optimization opportunities identified
  • 2 pre-implementation projects secured (data cleansing + Unicode conversion)
  • Prototyping timeline reduced from months to weeks (2,000 → 200 objects)
  • Long-term implementation partnership through 2027
  • Competitive advantage vs competitors

Client Perspective

“The day we saw the process maps, we were blown away. The variations and insights were invisible in our standard reporting – things buried in the tables that you would never see without analyzing 100% of transactions. When we discovered issues in our order-to-cash flow and learned we were still on Classic GL, those were current operational improvements we could pursue immediately. We had a data-driven hybrid strategy we could defend at board level, with both near-term wins and long-term migration clarity.”

– IT Leadership, Client Company

Partner Perspective

“Percipere’s ERP heritage made the difference. They brought 500+ implementations worth of knowledge baked into FUTUROOT – SAP-native connectors, pre-built P2P and O2C templates, execution log analysis that’s invisible to generic process mining tools. When we engaged them, we got ERP experts who operate the platform, not separate BPM specialists requiring weeks to align with our SAP team. The assessment delivered decisions our client could act on immediately – exactly which 200 of 2,000 objects were active, opportunities like Classic GL migration they didn’t know existed. That precision gave us fixed-price confidence for follow-on work and positioned us as strategic advisors to the client.”

– Anand Swamy, Co Founder, Gauri Ltd.

About the Organizations

The Client is a leading European HVAC manufacturer with 25+ years of SAP ECC operations and multi-site complexity across Finance, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing.

Gauri Ltd is a UK-based SAP and CRM consultancy specializing in SAP S/4HANA transformations and Salesforce implementations for mid-market enterprises. Since 2023, Gauri has maintained a successful collaborative partnership with Percipere, resulting in multiple client deliverables across ERP assessment and implementation projects. This was the 2nd FUTUROOT engagement for Gauri after a successful engagement with a leading UK commercial lighting manufacturer.

FUTUROOT is an enterprise process intelligence platform developed by Percipere, a SAP Gold Partner with 500+ ERP implementations globally. Purpose-built by ERP implementers with a mission to democratize process mining, the platform features SAP-native connectors and pre-built process templates that enable business users to operate it without data science teams. FUTUROOT is deployed direct-to-enterprise and through white-label partner channels.