Interview: how will business benefit from the change from SAP ERP to S4/HANA?

Philipp Hüting is an SAP Consultant at bancon working across industries from banking to aerospace with a focus on the FI module. As the technology upgrade to S/4 HANA becomes increasingly more popular, Philipp tells us about some of the end benefits for clients he has seen as a result of some of the projects he’s been working on. 

Tell us about your background and what brought you to bancon?  

I studied Business Economics at university before completing my Masters in Business Informatics which is all about integrating socio-technical thinking and interdisciplinary expertise in business processes, systems, accounting and finance.

After my studies, I joined SMA Solar Technology AG which is a large German business, as a Sales Advisor which is where I first came in touch with SAP. I learnt so much working with their consultants and really liked what they were doing with the technology. I knew this was something I could apply my university education too so I sent out a few resumes and was lucky enough to join bancon. When I joined, I started on a few projects in the Financial Services division so my focus is on the FI module, but I’ve also worked within Banking, so have a broad spectrum of knowledge spanning the entire Financial Services Transformation suite.   

That’s really interesting. So, what are you working on at the moment?  

At the moment, I’m on a project for Premium Aerotech, which is part of Airbus, but I’ll soon be moving onto a project with Deutsche Bank. My role is about 70% development and 30% functional consultant. Creativity is encouraged at bancon so I’m getting to make a lot of stand-alone solutions, programs and reports that are needed to improve the project, but also applying the support for those too.  

I really enjoy the balance of working on the initial big picture thinking and coming up with the overarching strategy, with the more technical aspects of delivery. For example, in FI, starting with how many company codes should be created, defining which internal management reports are needed (and based on this, define profit centers, cost centers, segments, business areas). Also, it is important is to clarify which accounting principles are needed (IFRS, US GAAP or local ones). All of that is defined in close cooperation with the client, but once the migration has happened, I enjoy pinpointing where certain inconsistencies might be coming from and studying the code to try and understand step by step, what is happening and why.  

Are you able to share with us a bit about what you’ll be doing at Deutsche Bank?  

Sure. Deutsche Bank acquired Postbank back in 2010 and as a result, you have two different institutes and two system landscapes where all the data is stored. Both organisations have different products and usually when there are different products, very often there will be different IT solutions.  

We’re not responsible for bringing all the data to Deutsche Bank, for sure that is the plan, but our part at the moment is to migrate one part of the business data stored on the SAP system. Our job is to extract the data and load it onto the Deutsche Bank system so everything is available there. We’re using SAP Migration Workbench to make sure it’s all done with the upmost care. Just like in every migration, we have to make sure all data so, dates, amounts and balances are all consistent in both systems and working together. 

What do you love the most about your role at bancon? 

I really like all aspects of my job. I don’t have a fixed “day job”. Sure, there are set projects I’m working on for a fixed period of time, but there is so much variety in terms of client base, it never gets boring for me. Plus, the work I’m doing is really needed so it feels worthwhile and hugely rewarding. 99% of the time someone comes to me with a problem, I am able to solve it which is really satisfying.

As well as the work though, it’s also a pleasure working with the people at bancon. There is such a genuine team spirit across the whole world, even as we are expanding, it’s great that the sense of community is still central to everything we do.

That’s brilliant. So, what are some of the challenges in your role?  

There’s a lot of changes to the technology which requires us to upskill our knowledge base at the moment, but that’s not a bad thing. I’m enjoying being able to learn and stay on top of the advancements in the tech. The change from SAP ERP to S4/HANA which is an in-memory system means the code is changing and SAP have also updated the user interface with Fiori - which has a has different technology approach to the previous interface – so there is a lot to learn at the moment. Also, when we go to the FI module, there are some minor changes in the product which are across the complete architecture of the module so it’s just about making sure we keep on top of them all.  

With so much change going on, what do you see as being the main benefit to the end user/customer?  

For sure there are a lot of benefits. One of those is everything is really fast. If you are doing an analysis or driving big reports, previously if you wanted a deep report, it would take a really long time. You could do it quicker, but it would have a lot less information. Now you can have both, which is pretty cool. Another benefit is that you can have live key factors so you can track everything in real-time. For sure the whole system runs faster and with the new graphical interface SAP Fiori, it’s much more responsive, you can use across all devices, it’s consistent in terms of look and feel of the design. It’s really intuitive as well, everything is role based. So, if you have someone working in sales and someone working in purchasing, both of these people will have their own bespoke launchpads so it’s adapted for the work you are doing.

What would you say to someone who is thinking about bancon? 

Do it. The company is really nice. I have a great outlook on because I used to work for a really big company and in contrast to the behaviour here is very polite, you’re always made to feel good there is a flat hierarchy – we don’t have that many people, but those who are here all fitting together and work as a great team. For sure it’s always possible to get hold of our bosses as well and they really take an interest in our wellbeing despite obviously being really busy themselves, it’s never too much trouble for them. From the very start of your career at bancon you have freedom and the implicit trust of your bosses and colleagues to just get the job done, which is really cool because you don’t get that in every company. 

If you’re interested in joining bancon, visit our careers page for our latest job vacancies.