📌 A Common Mistake When Implementing S/4HANA

Picture this. You approve a major project to upgrade your company’s ERP system to SAP S/4HANA. The budget is signed off. The consultants are on board. The IT team is ready. Everything seems set for a smooth transition.

Then, reality hits.

Six months in, no one can agree on the project’s direction. The IT team wants to rebuild the old system in the new one. The finance team expects automation, but they still see manual workarounds. The warehouse staff struggle with new screens that slow them down instead of speeding things up. Meetings turn into battles over priorities. Delays mount. Costs rise.

What went wrong?

You didn’t have a clear vision.

A Costly Mistake

Many companies assume S/4HANA is just an IT upgrade. They treat it like replacing old plumbing. Swap out the pipes, connect everything, and the water should flow as before.

But S/4HANA is not just new pipes. It changes how your business runs. It affects finance, sales, logistics, procurement, customer service, and reporting. It introduces real-time analytics, automation, and new user interfaces.

If you don’t set a clear vision at the start, people will default to what they know—replicating old processes in a new system. You’ll spend millions and end up with the same inefficiencies you had before.

Without a vision, S/4HANA becomes an expensive way to stand still.

The Power of a Clear Vision

A strong vision does three things:

1️⃣ It aligns everyone. IT, finance, sales, and operations must move in the same direction. The project is not just about technology—it’s about making work better for everyone.

2️⃣ It avoids costly mistakes. Without a vision, teams waste time debating every decision. With one, they follow a common goal, reducing delays and confusion.

3️⃣ It drives business success. S/4HANA should make processes faster, easier, and smarter. A vision ensures the project focuses on real business benefits, not just IT changes.

Three Critical Questions

Before your S/4HANA project moves forward, ask yourself:

1️⃣ Why do so many companies fail to define a proper vision for their S/4HANA transformation?
2️⃣ What makes a vision statement effective, and how does it prevent project failure?
3️⃣ How can executives ensure that their vision aligns with both business strategy and operational reality?

These questions separate success from failure. If you don’t know the answers, your project is already at risk.

Let’s explore them together.

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🛑 The Common and Costly Omission

No Clear Vision Statement

Thousands of companies worldwide are upgrading to SAP S/4HANA, a system designed to make businesses run faster, smarter, and more efficiently. But many of these projects struggle or fail—not because of technical issues, but because they lack one crucial element: a clear vision statement.

A vision statement sets the direction for the project. It defines why the business is making the change, what it hopes to achieve, and how success will be measured. Without it, people default to what they know, turning a transformation project into just another IT upgrade.

The research is clear—most S/4HANA projects do not start with a proper vision statement.

📉 A Common Problem: No Vision, No Direction

Many executives assume that because S/4HANA is an ERP system, the project can run itself as long as the IT team does its job. This is a dangerous mistake.

Here’s what happens when a company does not define a vision statement at the start:

• The project lacks direction. People don’t know what success looks like. IT teams focus on technical tasks. Business teams expect better results but don’t define what “better” means.
• Departments work against each other. Finance, sales, and supply chain all have different goals. Without a unifying vision, decisions get stuck in endless debates.
• Executives get frustrated. Costs rise, deadlines slip, and the business sees little improvement. Leaders start asking, “Why did we spend all this money if nothing has changed?”

The result? A missed opportunity to transform the business.

🔬 The Research Proves It: Most Companies Skip the Vision Statement

We reviewed case studies, industry research, and expert insights. The pattern is clear—S/4HANA implementations often lack a proper vision statement, leading to wasted time, misalignment, and higher costs.

• A Gartner study found that poor project visioning leads to misalignment and increased risk. The lack of upfront planning forces businesses into reactive decision-making, leading to scope creep and delays.
• Companies struggle with business transformation because they treat S/4HANA as a system upgrade instead of a strategic shift.
• Executives cite ‘lack of clear objectives’ as one of the top reasons for S/4HANA project delays and cost overruns.

These findings confirm what many consultants already know—without a clear vision, businesses waste time, money, and resources.

🚧 The High Cost of Getting It Wrong

When a project lacks a well-defined vision, the consequences are severe:

📌 “Lift and Shift” Instead of Transformation

• Teams copy old processes into the new system instead of improving them.
• Custom code from the old system gets rebuilt, even when S/4HANA has a better standard solution.
• The company loses the chance to modernise and streamline operations.

📌 Misalignment Between IT and Business

• The IT team focuses on technical success—system stability, integrations, and performance.
• The business expects automation, real-time insights, and better decision-making.
• Without a shared vision, neither side gets what they need.

📌 Change Resistance Grows

• Employees see no real benefit in switching to the new system.
• They fight against new processes because “the old way worked fine.”
• Adoption rates drop, and the project fails to deliver expected business value.

📌 Costs Keep Rising

• Poor planning forces rework as teams realise they missed key business needs.
• Delays increase consulting costs as projects drag on longer than expected.
• Executives lose confidence, and budgets get cut before the system is fully deployed.

🚀 A Vision Statement is NOT Optional

A strong vision statement avoids all these problems. It defines why the company is making this change and what it wants to achieve.

A good vision statement ensures that:

✅ The entire company is aligned on the purpose of the project.
✅ Departments work together instead of pulling in different directions.
✅ Success is clearly defined, so teams know what to prioritise.
✅ The company gets real business value, not just a new system that works like the old one.

Many S/4HANA projects fail not because of technology, but because they lack clear leadership and strategic vision.

If your company is starting an S/4HANA transformation, ask yourself: Do we have a clear vision, or are we just hoping for the best?

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🔑 What a Strong Vision Statement Needs

Most S/4HANA projects fail not because of technology, but because there is no clear vision. A vision statement sets the direction and ensures everyone works towards the same goal. Without one, teams make decisions in silos, the project loses focus, and transformation efforts stall.

A strong vision statement is not just a generic promise of efficiency or cost savings. It must define what the business will achieve, who it benefits, and how success is measured.

If your company is about to start an S/4HANA project, make sure your vision statement includes these four key elements:

1️⃣ A Clear Business Transformation Goal

S/4HANA is not just an IT upgrade. It is a business transformation. Your vision statement must answer why the company is making this change and what it expects to gain.

A weak vision statement:

“We are moving to S/4HANA to modernise our systems and improve efficiency.”

A strong vision statement:

“We will eliminate manual financial reconciliations, enable real-time stock tracking, and cut order processing times by 50%.”

The difference? The second statement sets a clear business goal. It describes specific improvements that will drive measurable impact.

💡 Case Study: InHouse Secure
InHouse Secure defined clear business goals in their S/4HANA vision statement. They focused on:
✅ Real-time financial reporting instead of batch processing.
✅ Automated inventory management to reduce stock shortages.
✅ Faster decision-making with live dashboards.

Their vision ensured that every department worked towards the same business outcomes.

📌 Ask yourself: What are the three most important business improvements we expect from S/4HANA? If your vision statement doesn’t name them, it’s too vague.

2️⃣ Alignment with SAP Activate & a Clean Core Strategy

A good vision statement must set the technical direction. It must answer:

• Will we minimise customisations and use SAP’s best practices?
• Will we replace old Z-programs with standard SAP solutions?
• How will we ensure easy upgrades in the future?

If your team doesn’t set clear rules early on, developers will default to rebuilding your old system inside S/4HANA. That leads to higher costs, longer timelines, and limited flexibility.

A weak vision statement:

“We aim to maintain all critical business processes in the new system.”

A strong vision statement:

“We will follow a Clean Core approach, replacing custom developments with SAP standard solutions where possible.”

💡 Case Study: InHouse Secure
InHouse Secure made Clean Core a core part of their vision:
✅ 80% of custom code retired in favour of SAP standard solutions.
✅ Fiori UX adoption to replace outdated SAP GUI screens.
✅ Automated finance processes to reduce manual work.

Their approach ensured future upgrades would be smooth, and they avoided expensive workarounds.

📌 Ask yourself: Are we just migrating old custom code into a new system, or are we truly transforming how we work?

3️⃣ Defined Stakeholder Priorities

A strong vision statement must answer:

• Who benefits from this project?
• What problems will S/4HANA solve for them?
• How do we ensure they adopt the system?

A weak vision statement:

“S/4HANA will help the business become more efficient.”

A strong vision statement:

“Finance will close books in hours, not weeks. Warehouse teams will track stock in real time. Sales will promise delivery dates with confidence.”

💡 Case Study: InHouse Secure
They built their vision statement around key roles in the company:

👨‍💼 CEO: Faster, real-time decision-making.
💰 CFO: Month-end close in hours, not weeks.
🚚 Warehouse: Live stock tracking and automatic reordering.
💳 Sales: Instant access to stock availability for better customer service.

By focusing on who benefits, their vision made the project relevant to all departments.

📌 Ask yourself: Can each department in your company see how this project helps them? If not, your vision is too broad.

4️⃣ Success Metrics

A strong vision statement must define how success will be measured. Without numbers, teams have no clear target to hit.

A weak vision statement:

“S/4HANA will improve efficiency across the business.”

A strong vision statement:

“Success means:
✅ 90% of processes running on SAP standard solutions.
✅ Order processing time reduced from 3 days to 1 hour.
✅ System adoption rate above 90%.“

💡 Case Study: InHouse Secure
They set clear success metrics in their vision statement:
✅ Real-time analytics replacing manual reports.
✅ Automated finance postings reducing errors by 90%.
✅ Warehouse stock updates in real time, not overnight.

This ensured that everyone understood what success looked like—and had a way to measure progress.

📌 Ask yourself: If someone asks, “How will we know if S/4HANA was successful?”—can you answer with clear numbers?

🚀 The Final Test: Does Your Vision Statement Pass?

Before you finalise your vision statement, ask these four questions:

✅ Does it set clear business goals? (Not just “improve efficiency,” but specific outcomes.)
✅ Does it commit to Clean Core and SAP Best Practices? (Or will it just copy the old system?)
✅ Does it define stakeholder priorities? (Can every department see how it helps them?)
✅ Does it include success metrics? (Can progress be measured?)

If your vision statement fails any of these tests, go back and fix it.

A strong vision statement keeps S/4HANA projects on track. It ensures that everyone—executives, project managers, and consultants—works towards the same goal.

If you don’t define the destination, your project will wander aimlessly.

Write a vision that leads to success.

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🛠 How to Ensure Your Vision Drives Success

Writing a strong vision statement is just the start. To make it work, you must ensure it drives action. A vision that sits in a document and gathers dust is useless. It must guide decision-making, communication, and execution throughout the S/4HANA project.

Many companies struggle because they fail to reinforce the vision as the project moves forward. Executives approve it at the start, but teams lose sight of it once technical work begins. Soon, old habits return, and the transformation effort drifts off course.

Here’s how to ensure your vision leads to real business success.

👨‍💼 Actions for C-Suite Executives

1️⃣ Appoint a Business Sponsor Who Owns the Vision

Every successful project needs a leader who champions the vision. This cannot be just an IT-led project. It must have strong backing from business leadership.

The business sponsor’s role:
✅ Reinforce the vision in every major meeting.
✅ Ensure decisions align with business goals.
✅ Push teams to avoid copying old processes into S/4HANA.

Without this leadership, technical decisions will dominate. The project will focus on system performance instead of business transformation.

📌 Test your project: Can every team member name the business sponsor? If not, you have a problem.

2️⃣ Hold a Vision Statement Workshop at Project Kickoff

Do not assume everyone understands the vision. Most people will be focused on their own tasks and may not see the bigger picture.

A vision workshop ensures that all stakeholders align on the goals.

💡 What to include in the workshop:

• Explain why S/4HANA matters for the business.
• Walk through the vision statement and success metrics.
• Discuss what must change in business processes.
• Set clear rules on what will not be carried over from the old system.

Without this step, departments will interpret the project differently. IT may focus on technical success, while finance and operations expect business transformation.

📌 Test your project: Ask five random employees what the project is trying to achieve. If they all say different things, your vision is not clear enough.

3️⃣ Review the Vision Statement Every Quarter

Many companies write a vision at the start but never revisit it. This is a mistake. Projects change over time, and new challenges emerge.

Schedule a quarterly review where executives and project leads assess progress against the vision.

💡 What to ask in a vision review:
✅ Are we meeting our success metrics?
✅ Have we made compromises that weaken the vision?
✅ Are teams defaulting to old ways of working?
✅ Do we need to adjust priorities to stay on track?

A quarterly review ensures that business transformation stays the focus. Without it, teams can lose sight of the goal as daily project tasks take over.

📌 Test your project: If no one has talked about the vision statement in months, it is no longer guiding the project.

📊 Actions for Project Managers & Consultants

4️⃣ Interview Key Stakeholders Before Implementation Begins

A strong vision includes input from across the business. Before making major decisions, speak to the people who will use the system every day.

💡 Who to interview and what to ask:

👨‍💼 Executives:

• “What business outcomes must this project deliver?”
• “What decisions must we make early to ensure success?”

💰 Finance Team:

• “What reporting challenges do you face today?”
• “How can automation reduce your workload?”

🚚 Supply Chain & Warehouse:

• “What bottlenecks slow down order fulfilment?”
• “How do you track inventory today, and what could improve?”

📞 Customer Service:

• “What delays cause frustration for customers?”
• “What information do you wish you had in real time?”

By understanding business pain points early, you ensure the system is built to solve real problems.

📌 Test your project: If IT leads the project without talking to end-users, expect frustration and resistance.

5️⃣ Align Technical Implementation with Business Goals

IT teams often focus on system performance, integrations, and security. While important, these are not the reasons the business is making this change.

Every technical decision must connect back to the vision.

💡 How to align technical work with business goals:
✅ If a team wants to rebuild an old custom process, ask: “Can we replace it with a standard S/4HANA function?”
✅ If finance requests a custom report, ask: “Does this report exist in S/4HANA already?”
✅ If a department resists using Fiori, ask: “How will sticking with SAP GUI impact our success metrics?”

Small technical choices stack up over time. Without alignment, you risk building an expensive replica of the old system.

📌 Test your project: If technical teams cannot explain how their work supports business goals, they are working in isolation.

6️⃣ Use Persona-Driven Storytelling to Drive Engagement

People resist change when they do not see how it benefits them. A dry list of system improvements will not win support. Instead, make the vision personal.

💡 How to tell the transformation story:

👨‍💼 CEO: “With real-time reporting, I no longer wait days for financial insights. I make faster, better decisions.”

💰 CFO: “Month-end closing now takes hours, not weeks. My team can focus on strategy, not data clean-up.”

🚚 Warehouse Manager: “I no longer deal with stock mismatches. The system tracks everything in real time.”

📞 Customer Service: “I see live order status in one place. Customers get answers instantly, instead of waiting days.”

When employees see themselves in the vision, they are more likely to support and adopt the new system.

📌 Test your project: If employees only hear about technical features, engagement will drop. Frame the change around real benefits.

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🚀 The Final Checklist: Are You Driving Success?

Before moving forward, ask:

✅ Does the project have a business sponsor who reinforces the vision?
✅ Has every stakeholder attended a vision workshop?
✅ Are we reviewing the vision statement every quarter?
✅ Have we interviewed end-users to understand their challenges?
✅ Are technical teams aligning decisions with business goals?
✅ Are we telling a transformation story that engages employees?

If the answer to any of these is no, you are at risk of losing direction.

A strong vision statement must live beyond a PowerPoint slide. It must shape daily decisions. It must guide leaders, project teams, and end-users.

If you want your S/4HANA transformation to succeed, keep your vision front and centre—from day one to go-live and beyond.

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📢 Recap: Answering the Critical Questions

We’ve covered a lot. Now, let’s bring it all together by answering the three key questions that define the success—or failure—of an SAP S/4HANA transformation.

1️⃣ Why do so many companies fail to define a proper vision for their S/4HANA transformation?

The biggest reason? They don’t realise they need one.

Many executives see S/4HANA as a technical upgrade. They assume that as long as IT handles the system migration, the business will automatically see improvements. That never happens.

Without a vision, companies default to recreating the old system. They focus on moving data, rebuilding reports, and replicating old processes instead of using S/4HANA’s built-in improvements.

Companies also fail to create a vision because:

• They don’t engage the right stakeholders early enough.
• They focus too much on technical goals and ignore business transformation.
• They assume everyone shares the same priorities, but each department has different needs.

📌 Reality Check: If your project doesn’t have a clear vision, it will drift. Costs will rise. The business will see little benefit. You don’t just need a vision—you need to make it a priority.

2️⃣ What makes a vision statement effective, and how does it prevent project failure?

A good vision statement is clear, specific, and measurable. It doesn’t talk in vague terms like “modernisation” or “efficiency.” It describes exactly what success looks like.

It must include these four things:

✅ A Clear Business Goal

• What problems are we solving?
• What improvements will the business see?
• How will employees work differently?

✅ Alignment with a Clean Core Strategy

• Will we minimise customisation and use SAP’s standard solutions?
• How do we ensure the system is upgrade-friendly?
• Are we committed to replacing outdated custom reports and manual processes?

✅ Defined Stakeholder Priorities

• How will S/4HANA benefit finance, supply chain, sales, and customer service?
• What does each department need to succeed?
• How do we align IT’s focus with business needs?

✅ Success Metrics

• How will we measure progress?
• What specific improvements must we see after go-live?
• How do we know if the project delivers business value?

A strong vision keeps teams focused. It guides decisions, ensures everyone is working toward the same outcome, and prevents costly mistakes.

📌 Reality Check: If your vision statement doesn’t describe specific business improvements, it’s not a vision—it’s just an IT project plan.

3️⃣ How can executives ensure that their vision aligns with both business strategy and operational reality?

A vision only works if it stays alive throughout the project.

Many companies write a vision at the start, then forget about it. The project shifts into technical mode, and business goals take a backseat. This is why so many S/4HANA projects fail to deliver real change.

To keep the vision on track, executives must:

✅ Appoint a business sponsor. Someone from leadership must own the vision and ensure teams don’t stray from it.

✅ Hold a vision workshop before implementation. Every key stakeholder must understand why this project matters.

✅ Review the vision every quarter. The vision should guide all major decisions—not just at the start, but throughout the project.

✅ Involve the right people. IT cannot define the vision alone. You must engage finance, supply chain, sales, and operations from day one.

✅ Tell the story of transformation. Employees resist change if they don’t see the benefit. Make the vision real by showing how S/4HANA will make their jobs easier.

📌 Reality Check: If your vision statement is only referenced at project kickoff, it will fail. It must guide decisions, shape discussions, and keep the project on track from start to finish.

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🚀 Final Thought: Hope is Not a Strategy

Many companies hope that their S/4HANA project will deliver value. But hope is not a strategy.

A strong vision:
✅ Aligns executives, IT, and business teams.
✅ Prevents old habits from creeping into the new system.
✅ Drives real business transformation, not just a technical upgrade.

If your company is starting an S/4HANA journey, ask yourself: Do we have a clear vision, or are we just hoping for the best?

Because without a vision, failure is just a matter of time.