HOW TO CHOOSE THE BEST PLATFORM FOR YOUR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

It is time for a hardware refresh and the available options can seem wide and bewildering. You can find yourself asking yourself these questions:

• “Do we stay with our current vendor or evaluate new vendors?”
• “Should we move to the cloud? Which cloud provider is best for us?”
• “Does it make sense to continue with on premise? Or would a co-location or cloud strategy be better for us?”

Before you do anything, consider 6 of the following things to make the most out of your hardware refresh:

The reputation of each vendor and their platform

Speaking to colleagues about their choice of infrastructure is an important insight to use in your decision-making process. If there is no one available to give their opinion, use Gartner to find what platforms are working best for your industry.

Previous relationships with each vendor (was this a positive experience?

If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. If you’ve been happy with your provider over the years, continuing service with them seems like the right route to go.

Additional hidden costs such as training

There may be costs that aren’t necessarily on the price tag. Consider that conversion costs, network costs and subscription costs may also add to the price. Make sure your budget is large enough to tackle these. Also, be aware that there may be a cost to exit the contract.

Does it make sense to tie in a S/4HANA migration?

Make two decisions with your upgrade. The deadline for the migration to SAP HANA is quickly approaching. Consider adding this to your scope of work. Ask your team whether a greenfield or brownfield approach would be better for you.

Are there cost savings with moving from proprietary systems such as AIX to Linux?

Ask yourself what the ROI with moving systems is. It is important to build a business case to prove that this move will be beneficial financially.

Cost

The most important point on everyone’s mind is the cost of moving systems. Migrating platforms requires a lot of moving parts. You may expect consulting, hardware, and software licensing costs. Be sure to also include training your team on SAP, Linux, HANA, etc.  Another important cost consideration is data archiving. If you plan to move to HANA while upgrading your platform, you will want to archive your data prior. HANA licenses are based on how much data you are consuming, be sure to archive any data that isn’t used in your day-to-day processes.

The next thing to do is make a list of potential vendors. As easy as this step may seem, you need to watch out, it is easy for your list to get to the 100’s with every hardware vendor, co-location vendor, and cloud provider that would like to be part of the project. Remember, if you invite them all to bid, you will have to read and evaluate each bid. This process is slow, leaving the project to wait on the sidelines until each bid has been evaluated and ranked.

This is where REALTECH comes in. REALTECH will work with you to find out what is important to you when upgrading or transitioning to a new platform. By providing REALTECH with an overview of your SAP system landscape and hardware configuration, we can help to recommend certain improvements. We’ll help you conduct research to find out what 10 vendors are the most compatible with your SAP initiatives and then invite them on site to present (~10 vendors will be able to present in only one work week).

At the end of this platform consultation, REALTECH will present you with our ScoreCard, which will rank each individual vendor in 13 separate categories. After receiving this, you will be able to make an educated and well-informed decision on what vendors align with your SAP initiatives and goals.

A platform move is an important step in keeping your business ahead of the curve. Consider all areas before making the choice.

For more information on how REALTECH can help you choose your ideal platform through our ScoreCard solution, please feel free to read more about the solution here. Also, please do not hesitate to contact us for more information regarding our RFP services!