A successful collaboration with DEGES

In SAP S/4 HANA, the SAP business partner is the central master data object for all natural and legal persons who have a business relationship with a company, such as customers, suppliers or employees. DEGES plans to switch to the SAP business partner in ERP in 2023 in order to qualify for an S/4 HANA conversion. For this conversion, not only will the SAP business partner be introduced as a new master data object, but Customer Vendor Integration (CVI) will also be set up to keep the business partner tables synchronized with the customer and vendor tables. The business partner is an additional object, while the other master data tables remain unchanged, even under S/4 HANA.

Together with DEGES, we developed and analyzed the upcoming challenges resulting from the introduction of the business partner. To this end, an initial workshop was held in 2022 with Arvato Systems and the specialist contacts at DEGES. At this workshop, SAP's approach and the various steps for switching to business partners were presented. It was suggested that a harmonized approach should be used in which master data is cleansed. Number assignment, account groups and groupings were cited as examples of such harmonization.

The heart of a successful GP conversion in an existing ERP system is a well-founded concept. Important steps here are the development of a concept document for customizing, the planning of the procedure with the business partners, the synchronization, the provision of a findings list and a review by the DEGES project team.