Joanneum Research: From ERP to SAP S/4HANA in just six months

Fast, efficient, successful.

When ERP becomes SAP S/4HANA in just six months.

JOANNEUM RESEARCH migrates to a future-proof platform in record time with SRB expertise.

JOANNEUM RESEARCH, headquartered in Graz, stands for top-level research at an international level and offers technologies and innovative solutions in the areas of digital and green transformation, health and care, mobility, production and manufacturing, security and defence, space, and economic and social policy. The company's IT must also be 'top-notch', as it handles many sensitive customer data. SRB has ensured that this is secured today and in the future, supporting JOANNEUM RESEARCH in migrating its SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA in an external data centre. In record time and highly efficiently.

It has been a long time - around 30 years to be precise. Back then, JOANNEUM RESEARCH was one of the first companies in Austria to adopt SAP R/3, thus implementing a modern IT-supported process and data management for its time. SAP ERP followed - and now the next step into the future was due, as Reinhard Brantner, IT strategist at JOANNEUM RESEARCH, explains: “ERP is the backbone of many of our processes. It is therefore crucial for us to keep the platform current and future-proof. And today, that means migrating to SAP S/4HANA.”

The importance of this is evident from the bare numbers: since the founding of the research company in 1986, JOANNEUM RESEARCH has developed into one of the most important research institutions and 'innovation hubs' for applied research in Southeast Austria, with around 500 employees at six locations and an annual research output of around 50 million euros. The company, owned by the states of Styria, Carinthia, and Burgenland, supports customers from all over Europe and worldwide in around 800 projects per year on their path to innovative solutions, thereby strengthening economic power.

SRB expertise convinces. Accordingly ambitious, JOANNEUM RESEARCH set to work. At the end of 2022, the project kicked off - and in just six months, the new SAP S/4HANA instance for five clients went live. The rapid implementation of the migration was also due to the IT partner, named SRB.

In a tender, the Vienna-based SAP expert prevailed against well-known local competitors, particularly scoring points with its conversion experience even with smaller, lean IT infrastructures. A decision that Brantner does not regret: “Our timeline for the brownfield migration was quite challenging - and SRB adhered to it,” summarises the IT strategist. What usually takes around a year for projects of comparable scope was implemented in half the time - and also 'under budget', meaning with less effort than initially assumed.

Good collaboration is half the battle. The successful conversion was largely due to the pragmatic and collegial approach, as Martin Kasper from SRB points out: “By focusing on the necessary and most important adjustments and having everyone contribute unbureaucratically to problems, every issue could be resolved without causing significant delays.”

Martin Kasper cites examples: There were interruptions during the upgrade of the 3rd party add-ons and also errors that neither the pre-check nor the custom code analysis had indicated. Solutions had to be found relatively quickly to avoid jeopardising the tight timeline. Of course, there were also preliminary projects and activities that we had to consider. Thus, the business partner conversion, custom code cleansing, and cleaning up obsolete company codes were carried out as part of the project. And this was done 'agile and lean' and always in close coordination with the project team and the key users from the very beginning.

A three-stage process was then implemented. First, sandboxing was done, followed by test migration, before the entire system went into production. During the implementations, SRB and the JOANNEUM RESEARCH team always kept the auditors in mind. The migration was documented to withstand later scrutiny.

What was also considered from the outset: SAP Human Capital Management, or HCM. The SAP solution for personnel management, accounting, and HR is completely revamped by SAP with a simplified data model available on SAP S/4HANA on-premise (H4S4). However, as part of the project, the existing solution was migrated in the compatibility scope and the path for the transition to SAP H4S4 was prepared.

Successful strategic shift. What many companies in Austria still face, namely the transition to SAP S/4HANA, has now been realised by JOANNEUM RESEARCH - while simultaneously executing a strategic shift: during the migration, the SAP system was transferred from its own data centre to the on-premise infrastructure of an external outsourcing partner. There were no security concerns: “Even if the data is not physically with us, we have full control over it,” Brantner remains calm.

Thanks to the conversion with SRB's support, new opportunities are now opening up for JOANNEUM RESEARCH on the modernised ERP platform. “SRB met our expectations in the project and contributed to our seamless migration to the current release of our SAP system. Thus, we can now focus on new projects that will further simplify our processes,” says the IT strategist of JOANNEUM RESEARCH.

About Joanneum Research

JOANNEUM RESEARCH, headquartered in Graz, is an innovation and technology provider in the field of applied research. As a research company of the states and regions, we shape the development of our modern society and economy sustainably and human-centred with our research competencies. As a multidisciplinary team in flexible, innovation-friendly structures, we uphold the highest societal and scientific standards. More about JOANNEUM RESEARCH at www.joanneum.at.

ABOUT SRB Consulting Team GmbH. SRB is one of Austria's leading consulting firms for the digitalisation of complex processes in the SAP sector. Founded in Vienna in 1997, the now over 50-strong SRB expert team accompanies companies from various industries on their path to digital transformation and designs and optimises their internal processes with comprehensive IT services of all kinds. More about SRB at www.srb.at.

• Conversion from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA for 5 clients
• Tight timeframe
• Legacy system with extensive additional developments
• Transfer of systems from the own data centre to an outsourcing partner
• Solution SAP S/4HANA migration with various add-ons in a brownfield approach
• Implementation of the migration in just six months
• Implementation of the migration 'under budget'