Skip to main content

Insights from the SAP Community: Process Automation Strategies for 2025

Chris Hall
Precisely

With the 2027 deadline for SAP S/4HANA migrations fast approaching, organizations are accelerating their transition plans. According to recent research, 50% of organizations were planning to have migrated or started the migration to S/4HANA by the end of 2024, while an additional 30% plan to make the change in the next two years.

For organizations that intend to remain on SAP ECC in the near-term, the focus has shifted to improving operational efficiencies and meeting demands for faster cycle times. These efforts are essential to maintaining competitiveness while preparing for eventual modernization.

No matter where an organization is in its SAP journey, one theme is clear: The automation of SAP processes is crucial. In order to maintain agility, accelerate the speed of business, and build data integrity, organizations require robust process automation, fueled by accurate, consistent, and contextual data, to drive successful outcomes. Emerging best practices and challenges related to SAP automation will reveal key strategies companies are adopting to optimize their operations.

SAP S/4HANA Migrations Gain Momentum, Despite Ongoing Challenges

In less than three years, the S/4HANA deadline will have arrived and as a result, many organizations are moving forward with plans to start their migration journeys now, if they haven't done so already.

Transitioning from legacy SAP ERP systems to S/4HANA is a notoriously complex process. Oftentimes it requires both legacy and new systems to work in tandem and presents significant data management challenges along the way. The companies getting it right are relying on process automation to accelerate complex SAP business processes.

Process automation solutions are pivotal in expediting SAP migrations by streamlining data transformation and integration tasks. Automated processes enable organizations to create new master data and transaction data in SAP systems, update mass amounts of data throughout the SAP landscape using Excel and perform data migrations from existing systems to S/4HANA. As businesses start with pre-migration assessment and implementation plans, incorporating automation allows for the adoption of a more holistic approach to process redesign, leading to optimized business processes and a smoother transition to S/4HANA.

However, due to data, process, and organizational complexities, the move from legacy SAP ERP systems is often a multi-year process that requires detailed planning and analyses of its impact on business operations. As a result, businesses frequently operate both legacy and new systems in parallel as they work to avoid disruptions during the transition, but this approach can oftentimes compound the complexity of the migration to S/4HANA. While the transition may be difficult at times, the business benefits of this transition — including cloud deployment options, real-time reporting in SAP and a modern user interface — far outweigh the migration challenges

Rise in Automation Adoption Comes with Challenges

Automation is a critical component of any digital transformation strategy, but the implementation of automated solutions hasn't always been quickly adopted. This is particularly true when it comes to complex, and data intensive, SAP-centric business processes which create barriers to success. However, as more organizations realize the benefits of automation, adoption is increasing. In fact, research shows a 15% increase in the use of automation for migrations and digital transformation projects — from 43% in 2023 to 58% in 2024 — indicating that companies considering automation today are likely to begin adopting it soon.

Over the past year, there has been growth in companies maturing their levels of automation adoption, leveraging a mix of manual and automated processes to streamline operations, reduce reliance on manual intervention, and effectively manage high volumes of data. However, a high level of automation adoption remains difficult to achieve. This is due to three factors currently influencing the market:

  • First, the impact of companies migrating to S/4HANA may slow improvements in automation growth and maturity. As organizations complete the migration process, they rationalize the potential impacts of this move on business processes.
  • Next, digital transformation teams recognize that many simple or infrequent processes are more efficiently managed when done manually.
  • Finally, growing recognition that success metrics based on business outcome value for an automation activity or process will vary from use case to use case from an organizational standpoint.

Barriers such as large data volumes and the intricacies of business processes take time to overcome. Many companies continue to cite integration with existing business processes as the biggest challenge when implementing process automation. These challenges are often exacerbated when companies take a case-by-case approach to automation, as this can increase overall complexity.

Scaling Automation Through Citizen Developers and Trusted Data

To navigate these complexities and fully realize the benefits, companies must recognize the value of citizen developers. They play a crucial role in the automation initiative process, leveraging the growing adoption of no-code/low-code platforms that assist business users at every level. Citizen developers also expand the pool of experts who can deploy automation within a company, and a majority of companies believe that these individuals are a crucial part of their organizations. As the use of low-code/no-code platforms grows, citizen developers will continue to drive the evolution of automation.

Despite its challenges, prioritizing best practices in SAP process automation ensures that a company's data is utilized to its full potential, improving business agility and accelerating the organization overall. To achieve this, companies must place automation at the core of their data integrity efforts. Data integrity is key — accurate, consistent, and contextualized data significantly ensures a smooth automation process. For example, ensuring customer records and data are error-free builds trust in the data, enabling the organization to make sound business decisions across all departments.

Automation is becoming a necessity for companies as they embrace digital transformation and the tools required to achieve it. SAP process automation is central to streamlining operational efficiencies. To ensure success, companies must effectively integrate data integrity solutions, as automation cannot succeed without trusted data. The inclusion of no-code/low-code automation tools also supports this goal by enabling broader impacts across the organization. While the automation process is complex, its outcomes — enhanced efficiencies, agility, and greater ROI — are invaluable for driving long-term success.

Chris Hall is Chief Product Officer at Precisely

Hot Topics

The Latest

Open source dominance continues in observability, according to the Observability Survey from Grafana Labs.  A remarkable 75% of respondents are now using open source licensing for observability, with 70% reporting that their organizations use both Prometheus and OpenTelemetry in some capacity. Half of all organizations increased their investments in both technologies for the second year in a row ...

Significant improvements in operational resilience, more effective use of automation and faster time to market are driving optimism about IT spending in 2025, with a majority of leaders expecting their budgets to increase year-over-year, according to the 2025 State of Digital Operations Report from PagerDuty ...

Image
PagerDuty

Are they simply number crunchers confined to back-office support, or are they the strategic influencers shaping the future of your enterprise? The reality is that data analysts are far more the latter. In fact, 94% of analysts agree their role is pivotal to making high-level business decisions, proving that they are becoming indispensable partners in shaping strategy ...

Today's enterprises exist in rapidly growing, complex IT landscapes that can inadvertently create silos and lead to the accumulation of disparate tools. To successfully manage such growth, these organizations must realize the requisite shift in corporate culture and workflow management needed to build trust in new technologies. This is particularly true in cases where enterprises are turning to automation and autonomic IT to offload the burden from IT professionals. This interplay between technology and culture is crucial in guiding teams using AIOps and observability solutions to proactively manage operations and transition toward a machine-driven IT ecosystem ...

Gartner identified the top data and analytics (D&A) trends for 2025 that are driving the emergence of a wide range of challenges, including organizational and human issues ...

Traditional network monitoring, while valuable, often falls short in providing the context needed to truly understand network behavior. This is where observability shines. In this blog, we'll compare and contrast traditional network monitoring and observability — highlighting the benefits of this evolving approach ...

A recent Rocket Software and Foundry study found that just 28% of organizations fully leverage their mainframe data, a concerning statistic given its critical role in powering AI models, predictive analytics, and informed decision-making ...

What kind of ROI is your organization seeing on its technology investments? If your answer is "it's complicated," you're not alone. According to a recent study conducted by Apptio ... there is a disconnect between enterprise technology spending and organizations' ability to measure the results ...

In today’s data and AI driven world, enterprises across industries are utilizing AI to invent new business models, reimagine business and achieve efficiency in operations. However, enterprises may face challenges like flawed or biased AI decisions, sensitive data breaches and rising regulatory risks ...

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 12, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses purchasing new network observability solutions.... 

Insights from the SAP Community: Process Automation Strategies for 2025

Chris Hall
Precisely

With the 2027 deadline for SAP S/4HANA migrations fast approaching, organizations are accelerating their transition plans. According to recent research, 50% of organizations were planning to have migrated or started the migration to S/4HANA by the end of 2024, while an additional 30% plan to make the change in the next two years.

For organizations that intend to remain on SAP ECC in the near-term, the focus has shifted to improving operational efficiencies and meeting demands for faster cycle times. These efforts are essential to maintaining competitiveness while preparing for eventual modernization.

No matter where an organization is in its SAP journey, one theme is clear: The automation of SAP processes is crucial. In order to maintain agility, accelerate the speed of business, and build data integrity, organizations require robust process automation, fueled by accurate, consistent, and contextual data, to drive successful outcomes. Emerging best practices and challenges related to SAP automation will reveal key strategies companies are adopting to optimize their operations.

SAP S/4HANA Migrations Gain Momentum, Despite Ongoing Challenges

In less than three years, the S/4HANA deadline will have arrived and as a result, many organizations are moving forward with plans to start their migration journeys now, if they haven't done so already.

Transitioning from legacy SAP ERP systems to S/4HANA is a notoriously complex process. Oftentimes it requires both legacy and new systems to work in tandem and presents significant data management challenges along the way. The companies getting it right are relying on process automation to accelerate complex SAP business processes.

Process automation solutions are pivotal in expediting SAP migrations by streamlining data transformation and integration tasks. Automated processes enable organizations to create new master data and transaction data in SAP systems, update mass amounts of data throughout the SAP landscape using Excel and perform data migrations from existing systems to S/4HANA. As businesses start with pre-migration assessment and implementation plans, incorporating automation allows for the adoption of a more holistic approach to process redesign, leading to optimized business processes and a smoother transition to S/4HANA.

However, due to data, process, and organizational complexities, the move from legacy SAP ERP systems is often a multi-year process that requires detailed planning and analyses of its impact on business operations. As a result, businesses frequently operate both legacy and new systems in parallel as they work to avoid disruptions during the transition, but this approach can oftentimes compound the complexity of the migration to S/4HANA. While the transition may be difficult at times, the business benefits of this transition — including cloud deployment options, real-time reporting in SAP and a modern user interface — far outweigh the migration challenges

Rise in Automation Adoption Comes with Challenges

Automation is a critical component of any digital transformation strategy, but the implementation of automated solutions hasn't always been quickly adopted. This is particularly true when it comes to complex, and data intensive, SAP-centric business processes which create barriers to success. However, as more organizations realize the benefits of automation, adoption is increasing. In fact, research shows a 15% increase in the use of automation for migrations and digital transformation projects — from 43% in 2023 to 58% in 2024 — indicating that companies considering automation today are likely to begin adopting it soon.

Over the past year, there has been growth in companies maturing their levels of automation adoption, leveraging a mix of manual and automated processes to streamline operations, reduce reliance on manual intervention, and effectively manage high volumes of data. However, a high level of automation adoption remains difficult to achieve. This is due to three factors currently influencing the market:

  • First, the impact of companies migrating to S/4HANA may slow improvements in automation growth and maturity. As organizations complete the migration process, they rationalize the potential impacts of this move on business processes.
  • Next, digital transformation teams recognize that many simple or infrequent processes are more efficiently managed when done manually.
  • Finally, growing recognition that success metrics based on business outcome value for an automation activity or process will vary from use case to use case from an organizational standpoint.

Barriers such as large data volumes and the intricacies of business processes take time to overcome. Many companies continue to cite integration with existing business processes as the biggest challenge when implementing process automation. These challenges are often exacerbated when companies take a case-by-case approach to automation, as this can increase overall complexity.

Scaling Automation Through Citizen Developers and Trusted Data

To navigate these complexities and fully realize the benefits, companies must recognize the value of citizen developers. They play a crucial role in the automation initiative process, leveraging the growing adoption of no-code/low-code platforms that assist business users at every level. Citizen developers also expand the pool of experts who can deploy automation within a company, and a majority of companies believe that these individuals are a crucial part of their organizations. As the use of low-code/no-code platforms grows, citizen developers will continue to drive the evolution of automation.

Despite its challenges, prioritizing best practices in SAP process automation ensures that a company's data is utilized to its full potential, improving business agility and accelerating the organization overall. To achieve this, companies must place automation at the core of their data integrity efforts. Data integrity is key — accurate, consistent, and contextualized data significantly ensures a smooth automation process. For example, ensuring customer records and data are error-free builds trust in the data, enabling the organization to make sound business decisions across all departments.

Automation is becoming a necessity for companies as they embrace digital transformation and the tools required to achieve it. SAP process automation is central to streamlining operational efficiencies. To ensure success, companies must effectively integrate data integrity solutions, as automation cannot succeed without trusted data. The inclusion of no-code/low-code automation tools also supports this goal by enabling broader impacts across the organization. While the automation process is complex, its outcomes — enhanced efficiencies, agility, and greater ROI — are invaluable for driving long-term success.

Chris Hall is Chief Product Officer at Precisely

Hot Topics

The Latest

Open source dominance continues in observability, according to the Observability Survey from Grafana Labs.  A remarkable 75% of respondents are now using open source licensing for observability, with 70% reporting that their organizations use both Prometheus and OpenTelemetry in some capacity. Half of all organizations increased their investments in both technologies for the second year in a row ...

Significant improvements in operational resilience, more effective use of automation and faster time to market are driving optimism about IT spending in 2025, with a majority of leaders expecting their budgets to increase year-over-year, according to the 2025 State of Digital Operations Report from PagerDuty ...

Image
PagerDuty

Are they simply number crunchers confined to back-office support, or are they the strategic influencers shaping the future of your enterprise? The reality is that data analysts are far more the latter. In fact, 94% of analysts agree their role is pivotal to making high-level business decisions, proving that they are becoming indispensable partners in shaping strategy ...

Today's enterprises exist in rapidly growing, complex IT landscapes that can inadvertently create silos and lead to the accumulation of disparate tools. To successfully manage such growth, these organizations must realize the requisite shift in corporate culture and workflow management needed to build trust in new technologies. This is particularly true in cases where enterprises are turning to automation and autonomic IT to offload the burden from IT professionals. This interplay between technology and culture is crucial in guiding teams using AIOps and observability solutions to proactively manage operations and transition toward a machine-driven IT ecosystem ...

Gartner identified the top data and analytics (D&A) trends for 2025 that are driving the emergence of a wide range of challenges, including organizational and human issues ...

Traditional network monitoring, while valuable, often falls short in providing the context needed to truly understand network behavior. This is where observability shines. In this blog, we'll compare and contrast traditional network monitoring and observability — highlighting the benefits of this evolving approach ...

A recent Rocket Software and Foundry study found that just 28% of organizations fully leverage their mainframe data, a concerning statistic given its critical role in powering AI models, predictive analytics, and informed decision-making ...

What kind of ROI is your organization seeing on its technology investments? If your answer is "it's complicated," you're not alone. According to a recent study conducted by Apptio ... there is a disconnect between enterprise technology spending and organizations' ability to measure the results ...

In today’s data and AI driven world, enterprises across industries are utilizing AI to invent new business models, reimagine business and achieve efficiency in operations. However, enterprises may face challenges like flawed or biased AI decisions, sensitive data breaches and rising regulatory risks ...

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 12, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses purchasing new network observability solutions....