In the classic hero’s journey, the hero sets out to achieve a goal. However, all kinds of obstacles and trials await him along the way. He must overcome these through personal growth and the support of helpers and mentors in order to finally reach his goal. Heroes achieve what seems impossible to others.

“Our project team is also currently in the middle of a hero’s journey,” says Carola Koss, who is the project’s “feel-good manager”. “Together, we have set out to use S/4HANA to free our IT application landscape from historical complexity and dependencies and prepare it for the future.”

The path to SAP standard

Like all heroes, the team members have to face many challenges along the way. These include previous VTG business processes that need to be critically reconsidered, the adaptation of important internal systems such as WAMOS! and HERMES, but also typical project-specific problems: technological complexity, scarcity of resources, delays.

But why did the HANA-HEROS, as Carola calls the almost 200-strong team led by project manager Sven Mißfeldt, embark on this journey? The aim of the switch to the S/4HANA system is to map VTG business processes in the SAP standard. Processes, for example in finance, controlling or VTG materials management, should become faster, simpler and more transparent as a result.

Reacting to new things

“We have a very complicated and diverse system landscape,” says Marina Pupa, Head of Business Accounting (FFO). “We currently work with SAP R3, which is characterized by many in-house developments,” she explains. In the past, these were necessary in order to implement VTG processes.

What has worked for a long time is now reaching its limits: “Our current system ties up a lot of capacity and makes it difficult for us to react flexibly to new circumstances in the current transformation process,” says Marina. “S/4HANA as a cloud solution, on the other hand, offers numerous standard options for mapping our processes – and gives us the opportunity to react more quickly to changing requirements.”

“Thanks to S/4HANA, we are certain that we will not only be faster in the future, but also more standardized.” This is important in order to be able to work more efficiently across companies. “The simpler but more structured we work, the more other specialist departments will benefit from our data and vice versa,” explains Marina. At the same time, improved data quality makes VTG more competitive.

Support for the HANA-HEROS

“By switching to S/4HANA, we are replacing a central component of our IT application landscape,” says Sven Missfeldt, explaining the importance of the new system for VTG. “Precisely because the task is such a big one, I am delighted with our great, committed team,” says the project manager. “But also about the full support that the Executive Board has given us on our journey.”

For example, the project management meets with the steering committee on a weekly basis and CEO Alberto Nobis sometimes visits the project team in person to thank them for their hard work and to offer support – most recently at the S/4HANA Townhall Meeting at the VTG Center in Hamburg.

There will also be training courses for S/4HANA users before the go-live date. It is clear to everyone that there will still be challenges along the way or that things will not go as planned, says Carola.

But that is precisely what makes our colleagues the heroes of this project: “With their daily commitment, they make possible what seems impossible due to the complexity that still exists: more simplicity, connection and growth in our elementary processes. And we can only thank them for their commitment!”