As a user experience enthusiast, I tend to focus on observing, asking questions, and seeing situations from the eyes of our users. So, during a recent vacation to Morocco, I found myself thinking about my experiences in this amazing country through this lens. In this blogpost I will share what colorful doors, system implementations of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, and user centricity have in common.
The red city and the blue system
When I mentioned that my next vacation will be to Marrakesh, I was either told to try a fresh orange juice (I was promised that this will be the best orange juice of my life!), congratulated on the cuisine I will be able to try or received half serious orders for dates. The common denominator was food - and rightfully so. We went to a different restaurant every night so we could try all types of tajines and each time, we were impressed with the unique spices and the amazing taste.
Besides the cuisine, I noticed something else about the „red city“. Each door was unique and created with so much care and excellent craft, I quickly found myself stopping to look at doors of mosques, riads, restaurants or simple corner stores. Doors have a very special meaning in Morocco because it is the first thing your visitor notices. It is so common to invite guests into your home and welcome them with hospitality and you guessed it, a lot of food.
That got me thinking. What are the doors that SAP’s cloud customers are walking through? What is the first thing they notice and see? Especially for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition customers that are typically small to medium sized enterprises with a smaller user base, I found that the first touchpoints with SAP set the tone for their entire product experience.
Implementations form impressions
The implementation is such a crucial step for a successful move to an SAP S/4HANA system because it requires a lot of resources – you need trust, deep functional expertise in the form of key users and a partner as well as time. Once the provisioning of SAP S/4HANA Cloud is finalized, the implementation projects begin. With the help of an implementation partner, the customer and partner closely collaborate to do the scoping via Fit-to-Standard workshops, configure their systems, migrate data and enable users to work with their new SAP S/4HANA system.
At the end of the implementation awaits the Go-Live, which some customers host parties for. I learned that Go-Live parties are a real thing, did you know that? But before celebrations and parties comes the very crucial step of onboarding the customers and their users to their new SAP system. The user enablement is an important milestone as an SAP system with all its great functionality and capabilities is not easy to learn for a first time user. I can imagine that it is quite intimidating to take the first actions, understand how to fill in fields or decide on global settings.
An implementation project can take several months depending on the scope, the availability of the customer and the knowledge of the partner. SAP delivers a wealth of tools that can support customers and partners during the implementation and even frameworks to help guide consultants and users from one phase to the next one.
Key Users know scope items
I was especially interested to learn more about the mindset of a key user during the implementation of SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Key users, and sometimes even business users, are fully involved and relied upon during the scoping of a new SAP S/4HANA system. As they are the most knowledgeable person with deep business knowledge of their respective business area, they are a key resource during this important phase.
It is fair to say that moving to a new system – whether that’s SAP or not – means that the users have to do extra tasks on top of their day job, which means a higher workload. Additionally, they can’t assess the amount of tasks they will be handling as this is most likely their first SAP implementation project and they have no comparable previous experience. All this leads to a rather difficult start when it comes to accepting or dare I say enjoying their new SAP S/4HANA system. Top that off with a wealth of SAP acronyms and SAP specific language that they are not familiar with and you will understand that the journey of an SAP S/4HANA user can be quite emotional.
Once the customers and users have their foot in the door, meaning they have successfully implemented SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition, they are ready to take a significant step forward. They can now run and experience their SAP S/4HANA system in its full power. And after the go live, the business users will hopefully enter and find themselves in front of a colorful door. A door that’s modern, yet substantial. A door that’s easy to navigate and intuitive, and perhaps welcomes you with the words “Home”.
My vacation in Morocco has made a lasting impression on me: aside from now being a fan of the Moroccan cuisine, finally speaking French again and having visited my 22nd country, I was reminded of a simple yet crucial lesson: first impressions really do matter. We need to keep in mind how the entry way sets the tone for how our users experience their S/4 system from the very first touchpoint to their day-to-day interactions.
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