Simplifying Processes Before Digital Transformation
About this Project
- Client: A Diversified Agribusiness Enterprise
- Industry: Agriculture
- Focus Area: Pre-Migration Process Optimization
The Challenge
A leading agribusiness enterprise was preparing for a critical transformation: migrating from SAP ECC to SAP S/4HANA within 12 months.
The leadership team faced pressing questions:
- How closely do current ECC processes align with S/4HANA best practices?
- Which inefficiencies and redundancies risk being carried into the new system?
- What optimisations could reduce migration complexity and accelerate adoption?
A “lift and shift” approach was not an option. Without clarity, the company risked replicating old inefficiencies in a modern system—leading to ballooning costs, extended timelines, and major post-migration disruption.
Why FUTUROOT?
The leadership team wasn’t interested in another round of workshops or consultant slide decks. They had already lived with years of incremental fixes and workarounds in ECC. What they needed was clarity — an unfiltered view of how their processes actually ran, and the courage to decide which of those habits should carry forward into S/4HANA, and which should be left behind.
FUTUROOT provided exactly that. By plugging directly into ECC’s event logs, it replaced assumptions with facts and delivered a side-by-side reality check:
- Processes that had quietly drifted far from SAP best practice.
- Approval layers and manual steps that dragged down cycle times.
- Redundancies that added cost without adding value.
For the first time, the team had a shared fact base. Debates stopped revolving around opinions and started focusing on evidence. That shift in perspective became the anchor for their migration strategy — pragmatic, data-driven, and built on truth.
Our Approach:
Using FUTUROOT’s advanced toolset, the organization gained a clear, comparative view of their ECC environment against S/4HANA best practices.
Conformance Checking
Benchmarked ECC processes against S/4HANA reference models, flagging deviations, missing steps, and redundant activities.
KPI Analysis
ECC processes were benchmarked against S/4HANA reference models, revealing deviations, missing steps, and redundant activities.
Ideal Process Management
S/4HANA “ideal” process flows were applied as the target blueprint, enabling teams to actively prepare for new ways of working before migration.
Root Cause Diagnostics:
Delays were pinpointed to manual interventions, approvals, or outdated workflows. Redundancies that could be eliminated were also identified.
Business Outcomes Delivered
Using FUTUROOT’s advanced toolset, the organisation gained a clear, comparative view of their ECC environment against S/4HANA best practices.
Fewer Process Variants
Redundant process flows were eliminated early — reducing complexity from 120 to 45 P2P variants and simplifying the migration landscape.
Custom Code Reduction
Unnecessary Z-codes were retired ahead of migration, lowering technical debt and minimising rework during S/4HANA adoption.
Faster Cycle Times
Invoice approval durations dropped from 10 days to 7.5 days, reflecting more efficient, standardized workflows ready for the new system.
Lower Migration Effort
With inefficiencies resolved upfront, overall migration workload and testing scope were reduced — saving roughly two months of project time.
“FUTUROOT gave us the factual insights we needed to prepare for our S/4HANA migration. Instead of carrying old problems into a new system, we could streamline processes upfront—making the transition faster, smoother, and far more cost-effective.”
Leadership Team, Leading Agribusiness Enterprise