Why reimplement Payroll when moving to SAP SuccessFactors? Selectively migrate with PRISM.

Human Resources (HR) focuses on your most valuable asset in the organisation: your people. SAP is at the heart of many companies’ HR practices; it’s important to have a solution that can facilitate best practices, from recruitment and hiring, to compensation and benefits, performance management and Payroll.

HR is constantly evolving, and at some point, your SAP HCM lifecycle will go through a dynamic transformation. This could be due to large-scale technological changes, such as moving to the Cloud, and the AI revolution; or business reasons such as internal business changes, or company mergers and acquisitions.

I reflected on how many monumental changes I’ve seen in my career. Over the past 42 years, we’ve helped our clients through many of those changes. I'd like to share some developments from our history, and a few highlights from my own experience.

Test data copying like it’s the 1990s

My own journey started with EPI-USE back in the early 2000s. Before I joined EPI-USE, a group worked with SAP to develop the South African Country Payroll version. Out of this project, Data Sync Manager (DSM) was born to accelerate projects with proper test data. Today, Data Sync Manager is a trusted enterprise-grade solution for copying Production system data to non-production systems for testing, training and support in HCM and beyond.

During the initial use case, the team looked at options to refresh non-production SAP systems without needing to make a complete copy of the SAP client or system. The first solution focused on selective copying of employee data from the Production system to a non-production system, ensuring proper testing of the data. This sped up these projects significantly, and meant that clients went live on time.

The concept behind it was so good that we invested more resources into it, and eventually created our software business to focus on development add-on solutions for SAP.

Our clients started to embrace Data Sync Manager, and continued to use it themselves to help with their business-as-usual SAP test data processes. Over the years, the solution has evolved considerably, and although it’s still called Data Sync Manager, and focuses on creating test data for SAP clients, that's where the similarities with the early version end.

The code base has been updated multiple times. It now supports five main components, allowing it to not only copy subsets of data, but also to create the system shell, scramble data for privacy, and work with testing automation tools like Worksoft and Tricentis. Today, we have over 850 clients around the world who use Data Sync Manager every day.

In the UK, I worked with a client who implemented Data Sync Manager 26 years ago. The best part of the story is that they still use it today. Why? It’s become indispensable; they use DSM daily because they need it to manage their data.

Little did we know the impact that Data Sync Manager was going to have on selective HCM data migrations going forward.

The big HCM transformation watershed moment

In 2003, I received a phone call from an existing Data Sync Manager client based in Southern England, asking a very peculiar question. The company was running an ECC system on 4.5B, and they had just outsourced their IT department to a systems integrator. The client’s contract stipulated a migration of the existing HR and Payroll system to the brand-spanking-new SAP R/3 Enterprise 4.7 version. (The SAP versions shows how old I am!)

The question was: could they use Data Sync Manager to undertake a selective HCM migration from the existing system to the new instance? It sounded to me like open-heart surgery, as Data Sync Manager naturally prevents clients from copying directly into a Production system, for pretty obvious reasons; but the solution had built-in functionality to copy data between lower and higher versions of SAP in test systems. Hence, it sounded viable. I phoned up a couple of colleagues in our Development team for verification, and the answer was yes, it was technically possible – with the right support from EPI-USE Labs.

We finished this successful project in three months.

This client was pleased, but also smart; they had figured out what the Data Sync Manager technology could do before we did.

We started a similar project shortly after, and this time we successfully merged two 4.6C systems into a single corporate HCM system.

Responding to the SAP HR business process change – and expanding into M&A

Our next compelling event came as a result of the SAP HR business process change. Clients wanted to decouple the SAP HCM system from their main ECC system to maintain stability. This was attributed to compliance, and ring-fencing sensitive employee and Payroll data. But the reality was that HR teams were getting frustrated with the rest of the business because they couldn’t agree on a window to apply support packages, which were vital to maintain system legislation.

We decoupled large clients’ HCM systems by selectively copying data that was only relevant to their new system requirements, and removing the remaining data not needed.

In 2012, we expanded into the Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) sector. A client in the Netherlands contacted us because they had recently sold part of their business to a competitor and wanted to surgically migrate only the employees involved in that transaction. Standing up a complete system and then deleting employees was not an option, because of the compliance implications and the competitive nature of the buyer.

The effectiveness and capabilities of Data Sync Manager as a test data solution made it usable in these Production scenarios.

Migrating Payroll to SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll

In 2016 came the big technological SAP shift. We received a call from an existing client PostNL in the Netherlands, which had decided on a cloud-first strategy. They wanted EPI-USE Labs to selectively migrate the Payroll data from their ECC6 system to SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll.

This project had never been attempted before. The migration took five months to complete, including two additional dry runs for business assurance. There was now a clear and easier pathway to Employee Central Payroll, and naturally, many clients then followed PostNL’s footsteps to the cloud.

At this stage, we decided to make a substantial investment in a specialised transformation group of consultants with deep domain knowledge, and a focused transformation solution: now called PRISM for Payroll.

We know that SAP Payroll is one of the best, if not the best; it’s robust, works around the world, and – most importantly – it pays people on time. The biggest challenge in moving clients from ECC to SAP SuccessFactors is what to do with the existing Payroll. This has slowed down and stopped many HCM modernisation projects.

On the other hand, system integrators and SAP partners rub their hands with glee and urge clients to re-implement Payroll, under the guise of ‘corporate transformation’.

The reality is: why would you want to start all over again when your existing Payroll works perfectly?

A Payroll reimplementation typically equates to a 12-month project, where key people –including the Payroll manager – are taken out of the business to become stakeholders to oversee progress. In addition, a greenfield implementation can potentially cost organisations millions, as well as introducing disruption, risk, and operating inefficiencies. (It reminds me of a quote from the film Trainspotting: “Why would I want to sell my passport?”)

PRISM for Payroll today for HCM transformations

Our PRISM solution for SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll (ECP) is a leading-edge solution that helps clients to selectively migrate ECC Payroll systems. PRISM has proven to many global clients to be a fast, innovative, and surgical approach. Using a software-driven migration approach, leveraging EPI-USE Labs’ Data Sync Manager Suite means that the project can include both greenfield and brownfield elements. PRISM enables you to assess more flexible data migration options and to manage risks and avoid costs associated with a traditional conversion.

A typical PRISM migration from ECC6 to SuccessFactors Employee Central Payroll ranges from three to six months. The duration is dependent on system complexity.

PRISM is a standard migration service that encompasses both technical and functional requirements for the move to SuccessFactors. And if you want to embrace further modernisations on your SuccessFactors system, we work with various partners to complement this with additional HR consulting.

Clients' data is very well catered for before, during, and after the migration. We supplement the Payroll migration with some of our other solutions, like Archive Central for sunsetting superfluous employee data. One of the benefits our clients get post-go live is the continuous use of our HCM Productivity Suite, for BAU testing and HCM reporting needs.

The main point here is that using PRISM is substantially more cost-effective than a Payroll re-implementation or conversion. Our technology continues to evolve, and our thirst for innovation continues. This has given so many clients a positive experience, and encouraged them to maximise their investments with SAP and SuccessFactors.

I appreciate our clients for trusting us many years ago, and for continuing to work with us. This support has helped Data Sync Manager become a successful and reliable solution that meets daily test data needs, and addresses important events throughout their SAP lifecycle.

This brings me to today, where the end of SAP support for SAP ECC is just around the corner, and we have seen a surge of PRISM for Payroll projects. We are still investing in making these projects faster and more automated. But quality is very important to us; we want to make sure each project is delivered in the best way we can, so we invest the time and care to ensure success.

Let me leave you with a question: What is your SAP Payroll journey story?