The Road to

Go-Live Handbook
Running a Data-Driven
System Migration
 Why transforming systems is
so damn hard
Introduction: Have you ever tried to stream music on a cassette player?
Why transforming systems Doesn’t really work, right? The same goes for today’s business execution.
is so damn hard
Trying to run 2020s business initiatives on outdated infrastructure, companies see
Pre-migration: their most valuable resources — time and money — disappear into productivity
Optimize early, optimize often black holes. But these rigid and fragmented IT systems don’t only slow things down,
they create new (often hidden) problems in your processes. Think of things like late
Process mapping: payments affecting working capital, unnecessary credit blocks holding off
Understand the status quo deliveries, or order changes creating havoc.

You’re already painfully aware that your legacy systems won’t do the job. Otherwise,
Fit-gap Analysis:
you wouldn’t consider a system migration in the first place. But whether you’re
Mind the gaps
upgrading, consolidating, harmonizing, or switching vendors, these initiatives come
at a cost — not only the price tag of the migration itself but also the risks to your
Change Management & Hypercare:
business.
Winning hearts and minds

Beyond migration: of ERP migrations are perceived

Transform your entire business 60% as having failed because they’ve
compromised the business1

Why?
Because they lack data, process intelligence, and strategic action to support
system migrations from start to finish.

Sticky notes and anecdotes can’t recreate real-life process complexities.

Politics and emotions won’t reveal the inefficiencies bludgeoning your outcomes.
User logins alone don’t tell if people really adopt new systems and workflows.

1 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

1 Gartner, Strategic Roadmap for Postmodern ERP, 2019
 In a nutshell
These old-school methods are unscalable, unsustainable, and inefficient —
and tend to add new layers of subjectivity. And before you know it, you’re back
Introduction: at square one creating old process problems in new systems.
Why transforming systems
is so damn hard Thankfully, there’s a new way to mitigate risks and costs across the system migration
lifecycle. An Execution Management System — or EMS — like the one from Celonis
Pre-migration: provides solutions across the migration timeline from optimizing processes pre-mi-
Optimize early, optimize often gration, to automating process documentation, accelerating fit-gap analysis, and
smoothing the path to user adoption. In this e-book, we’ll be talking through some
Process mapping: of the major challenges experienced by IT leaders and program managers and how
Understand the status quo Celonis can help.

Fit-gap Analysis: The Celonis EMS has three core capabilities to support every step of the
Mind the gaps migration process:

1. Real-time - Integrate and enrich data from any system, data lakes, desktops,
Change Management & Hypercare:
documents, and event streams in real time.
Winning hearts and minds
2. Process Intelligence - Get a living, breathing end-to-end X-ray of your processes
Beyond migration: that identifies gaps and makes intelligent suggestions leveraging machine
Transform your entire business learning, industry benchmarks and experience from over 2,500 customer
deployments.

3. Strategic Action - Take intelligent action in a number of ways by automating

fixes within systems, orchestrating your other technologies (RPA, Low-code,
BI, etc.), and deploying the right people to do the right things.

2 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

1 Gartner, Strategic Roadmap for Postmodern ERP, 2019
 It’s never too early to start
preparing for your migration
Introduction: Think about your upcoming migration like planning a big house move.
Why transforming systems
is so damn hard Before you hire movers or pack anything in boxes, you assess all of the furniture,
appliances, clothing, and decoration in your old house.
Pre-migration:
You throw out items that are broken, old, or unused.
Optimize early, optimize often
Why would you want to pay more to move them and clutter your beautiful
new house?
Process mapping:
Understand the status quo Similarly, the first step before migrating systems is to do an inventory. If you
streamline and optimize your processes ahead of time, you can save valuable
Fit-gap Analysis: resources and focus on the most important processes during your migration.
Mind the gaps For large migrations, this process of “cleaning house” should begin a year or
more before you kick off your migration.
Change Management & Hypercare:
Winning hearts and minds

Beyond migration:
Transform your entire business

“If you streamline and optimize your processes ahead of time, you can save valuable
resources and focus on the most important processesduring your migration.”

3 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

 Example:
Process mapping
Understand the status quo Workshops
per Team
8
Workshops

Introduction: Before you start any migration, you need to understand

Why transforming systems what your process and system landscape actually look like.
is so damn hard Whether this is to document the scope of your migration Hours per 4
or to gather requirements for a net-new implementation, Workshop Hours
Pre-migration: you need to understand what you’re dealing with. To go
Optimize early, optimize often back to our moving house analogy, before you buy a fancy
new microwave for your new house, maybe you want to
Process mapping: evaluate whether you actually use your old microwave. 6
SMEs* &
Understand the status quo Consultants SMEs

However, per
Workshop
3
Fit-gap Analysis: Consultants
Mind the gaps manual business process mapping exercises are time-
consuming and resource-intensive — especially when
Change Management & Hypercare: you’re leading a global migration with multiple functions, $50/hr
Winning hearts and minds processes, and regions, all of which may have distinct per SMEs,
Cost per
processes and system landscapes. Hour
$150/hr per
Beyond migration: Consultant
Transform your entire business
Think about the number of workshops it would take to fully
map the processes for one team within your organization.
Add to that the time out of each subject matter expert’s Teams
day and the cost of external resources to run these affected 30
by Teams
workshops. Then multiply it by all the affected teams in
migration
your organization.

of ERP transformations fail to

75% stay on schedule or budget2
$720,000 and
~1000 hrs on
process mapping

4 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

2 McKinsey 2019, Agile in enterprise resource planning: A myth no more *SME: Subject Matter Expert
 Furthermore ...
… even if you do invest the time and resources into diligently mapping every process
in the organization, typical methods of process mapping like workshops, surveys,
Introduction: time studies, and KPI reporting are far from infallible. Ultimately, your IT team and
Why transforming systems external consultants aren’t experts on your business processes, and your business
is so damn hard
users and SMEs don’t understand everything about your system landscape. This
leaves you trying to stitch together the pieces from subjective and incomplete
Pre-migration: sources, plaguing this crucial phase of the migration with bias, feelings, and politics.
Optimize early, optimize often
Even worse, process mapping is outdated as soon as it’s completed.

Process mapping: What if there was a better way?

Understand the status quo A way to instantly map all processes running through your organization using
objective data rather than subjective anecdotes and assumptions? A way that
Fit-gap Analysis: maps your exact process in real time. Celonis automates the process mapping
Mind the gaps phase and provides not just visibility but insights into your as-is process to drive
efficiency and create value throughout your migration.
Change Management & Hypercare:
Winning hearts and minds Let’s see how easy it is.
Beyond migration:
Transform your entire business

“Typical methods of process mapping like workshops, surveys,

time studies, and KPI reporting are far from infallible.”

5 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

2 McKinsey 2019, Agile in enterprise resource planning: A myth no more
 Connect to your entire system
landscape
Celonis connects to your source
systems either through 80+
pre-built connections to major
systems like SAP, Oracle, and
Introduction: Salesforce or to your homegrown
Why transforming systems and legacy systems. The EMS
is so damn hard automatically combines all this
data into a unified model of your
end-to-end process complete
Pre-migration:
with contextual information.
Optimize early, optimize often

Process mapping:
Understand the status quo
See your process truly as-is
Visualize and explore every
Fit-gap Analysis:
variant of your process as it
Mind the gaps
is actually executed in your IT
systems. This saves all of the time
Change Management & Hypercare: and energy traditionally put into
Winning hearts and minds documentation workshops, and is
100% objective.
Beyond migration:
Transform your entire business

6 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

 Drill down on best practices
Explore your processes and
evaluate objectively which
variants are driving business
results, which are most frequently
used, and which are efficient
Introduction: or low cost.
Why transforming systems Celonis also brings in technical
is so damn hard information about how process
steps are executed within IT
Pre-migration: systems like which user types,
Optimize early, optimize often documents, and applications are
being used when.
Identify business improvement
Process mapping:
goals and barriers to goal
Understand the status quo
achievement for each process
that you map — this will serve
Fit-gap Analysis: as your guide for future design
Mind the gaps and keep your efforts focused
on business outcomes.
Use our process mapping
Change Management & Hypercare:
template to map these
Winning hearts and minds
requirements for your processes.

Beyond migration:
Transform your entire business
Organize and manage all
your process models
Celonis converts mining process
models into standard BPMN and
allows you to store, edit, version,
and manage these models in
a native process repository.
This way it’s easy to keep track
of all the processes you’ve
mapped and make tweaks and
adjustments as needed.

7 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

 How Sysmex streamlined their
S/4HANA migration with Celonis
Introduction: Sysmex, a global leader in designing and producing diagnostic solutions for medical
Why transforming systems laboratories, initially brought in Celonis to gain better visibility into their requirements
is so damn hard for S/4HANA. “Customer satisfaction is the most important thing for us and that was
one risk we did not know how to mitigate,” said Kris Cherukuri, Director of Enterprise
Pre-migration: Systems at Sysmex America.
Optimize early, optimize often
Celonis was the ideal complement to their migration efforts with a third-party
Process mapping: consultant — the process explorer could shed light on any opportunities or
Understand the status quo requirements they might be missing. “Initially, we were thinking of Celonis as an
insurance policy, but we’ve already identified process variants that didn’t come
Fit-gap Analysis: up in the discovery workshops with the consulting team.”
Mind the gaps
Through root cause analysis, the EMS also enables them to identify the process
Change Management & Hypercare: variations that were having the biggest impact on their outcomes, making it easy
Winning hearts and minds to prioritize initiatives — and quantify their effects. Armed with accurate, up-to-date
knowledge of how their processes actually work, Sysmex can move forward with
Beyond migration: their next phase more confidently: “Celonis will help us focus on the test cases and
Transform your entire business scenarios that are critical for us as an organization.”

Read the full story

“Initially, we were thinking of Celonis as an insurancepolicy, but we’ve already

identified process variants that didn’t come up in the discovery workshops
with the consulting team.”

- Kris Cherukuri, Director of Enterprise Systems at

Sysmex America

8 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

 Fit-Gap Analysis: Mind the gaps
With all process variants documented, existing best practices captured and
optimization opportunities cataloged, it’s time to figure out what the to-be
Introduction: solution should look like.
Why transforming systems
is so damn hard
Typically ...
Pre-migration:
Optimize early, optimize often ... you’d achieve this through a series of workshops, which start from a standard
model or an internal best practice model — which serves as a blueprint of what
Process mapping: your to-be solution will look like. The proposed solution is then demonstrated to
Understand the status quo key stakeholders from across the organization who validate its overall viability
for their areas of responsibility and expertise. For example, if the new solution
Fit-gap Analysis: primarily impacts Procurement and Accounts Payable, you would show a demo
Mind the gaps of the solution to a selection of AP managers and category managers to get their
feedback. Could this solution work for their team? Are there areas or processes that
Change Management & Hypercare: are not supported?
Winning hearts and minds
Next, you’d hold additional workshops to identify specific deltas — gaps in
Beyond migration: the blueprint — that impact the solution from the perspective of the included
Transform your entire business stakeholders. A delta could be as small as a custom field or activity that’s missing in
the new system or as large as a custom application that needs to be built to bolster
out-of-box functionality.

Then, you organize your gaps into a backlog, which is prioritized based on input from
stakeholders — if people in the organization believe that a specific customization is
a requirement, it will be prioritized in the backlog. Solutions for the prioritized gaps
are then designed and more workshops are scheduled to validate the solution to the
gap and identify further gaps. This iterative process continues until stakeholders are
satisfied with the solution.

9 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

 Ultimately, fit-gap is an iterative process
in which you are trying to answer five key
questions
Introduction:
Why transforming systems
is so damn hard 1. Is the standard viable for us?
2. What are the gaps that might make it not work for us?
Pre-migration: 3. Which gaps are the most important to fill?
Optimize early, optimize often
4. How can we fill a particular gap?

Process mapping: 5. Are the solutions to our gaps viable?

Understand the status quo

Fit-gap Analysis:
Mind the gaps

Sounds easy — until reality kicks in.

Change Management & Hypercare:
Winning hearts and minds

Beyond migration:
Transform your entire business 1. Politics and biases complicate everything.

The problem is that your fit-gap analysis depends entirely on who is included in these
workshops — which functions are represented, how knowledgeable SMEs are about
day-to-day operations, how outspoken they are about potential issues, and the social
dynamics of the workshop itself. In fact, research shows that group decision-making is
subject to many biases (i.e. groupthink, group polarization, etc) that could negatively
impact which opinions are voiced and what decisions are ultimately made.

“It’s difficult to keep politics, feelings and biases out of the equation,
data-driven decisions are crucial in this phase.”
10 Built-In Security Features of the EMS
 2. Customizations create new complexity

Remember what we said earlier about the danger of creating new complexity in
new systems? That’s exactly what tends to happen in fit-gap analysis workshops.
If your Accounts Receivable team is adamant about keeping their customized
collections workflows, you might be inclined to go with it. But if you want to reduce
Introduction:
Why transforming systems system complexity and streamline business operations, staying as close to the
is so damn hard “out-of-the-box” blueprint should be your number one priority. And as long as
you don’t have a data-driven method to quantify the business impact of moving
Pre-migration: a customization across, you’re simply flying blind.
Optimize early, optimize often

Process mapping:
Understand the status quo
Don’t get us wrong:
Fit-gap Analysis:
Mind the gaps

Input from your subject matter experts across the company is

Change Management & Hypercare:
still an important source of validation during this cycle. But wouldn’t it be better
Winning hearts and minds
(and faster) to show up to a validation meeting knowing objectively that what you
are presenting works for the majority of the business needs? You could then use
Beyond migration:
that face time much more efficiently to confirm what the data told you and
Transform your entire business
incorporate qualitative feedback into your design. This is exactly what Celonis
allows teams to do.

The EMS can automatically compare as-is and to-be processes, highlighting
deltas and revealing their root causes. It also tracks which customizations are
actually being used, and the concrete business value they’re adding. It then
provides the ability to simulate closing those deltas using machine learning,
to ensure that no new bottlenecks or gaps will be created from the proposed
solution.
This not only helps IT leaders accelerate this process and include more objective
sources of information into their designs, but also enables them to quantify the
impact of potential process changes on future performance.

11 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

 QUESTION CHALLENGE SOLUTION

Is the standard Viability is based on Celonis enables

viable for us? conference room teams to measure
demos to SMEs, who quantitatively how well
determine fit based on a proposed solution fits
Introduction:
their experience and the way users actually
Why transforming systems
perception. work.
is so damn hard

What are the gaps that Rely on people catching Celonis automatically
Pre-migration:
might make it not work small details live in a generates a ranked list
Optimize early, optimize often
for us? workshop. of deltas based on how
the business actually
Process mapping: uses the system.
Understand the status quo

Which gaps are the Based on perception Celonis reveals the

Fit-gap Analysis: most important to fill? and discussions of relationship between
Mind the gaps importance not data deltas and KPIs that
about frequency or your business users
Change Management & Hypercare:
outcomes. care about.
Winning hearts and minds
How can we fill a No objective root Celonis automatically
Beyond migration: particular gap? cause analysis. performs root cause
Transform your entire business
analysis, revealing
where a gap is
occurring and how it
could be addressed.

Are the solutions to Adds additional layers New or amended

our gaps themselves of subjective designs can be analyzed
viable? information. to identify further gaps
and iterate on solutions.

How customized are No end-to-end visibility A 360-degree view

my systems? of processes across of processes across
systems systems to understand
the impact of changes.

12 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

 How a Global Aerospace and Defense
leader infused data into Fit-Gap
Introduction: During their migration to S/4HANA, the customer used the Celonis EMS to measure
Why transforming systems how well SAP best practices fit their needs and as-is process. They were able to
is so damn hard identify specific activities that presented risks to the overall rollout and opportunities
to increase process standardization. With these quantitative insights, they were able
Pre-migration: to proactively mitigate these risks prior to rollout and capture additional optimi-
Optimize early, optimize often zation opportunities.

Process mapping: Deploying Celonis opened up many opportunities for process improvement. The
Understand the status quo solution really fits with every aspect of the customer’s business process portfolio –
from purchasing to operations to finance and human resources. The EMS helped
Fit-gap Analysis: them identify value realization potential and accelerated their preparation phase
Mind the gaps for S/4HANA.

Change Management & Hypercare:

Winning hearts and minds

Beyond migration:
Transform your entire business

“Celonis provides an effective way for manufacturing to capture several critical

relationships between production order cycle times (days/months) and our
production order processes.”

13 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

 Change Management & Hypercare:
Winning hearts and minds
Introduction: There’s nothing worse than getting to the end of a long
Why transforming systems implementation project only to struggle with user adoption.
is so damn hard
If users are employing workarounds, covertly using legacy tools, or just struggling to
Pre-migration: follow processes in an unfamiliar system, there’s little to no chance your investment
Optimize early, optimize often will generate ROI.

Process mapping:
of ERP transformations don’t
Understand the status quo
66% achieve ROI3
Fit-gap Analysis:
Mind the gaps
However, research shows that a properly managed hypercare and go-live can
accelerate value realization by 70%4.
Change Management & Hypercare:
Winning hearts and minds
Many leaders think about adoption as whether or not the new system is being used.
During change management and hypercare, this means tracking metrics such as
Beyond migration: how many users log in every day or what percentage of orders are entered in the
Transform your entire business
new system.

The problem is that system adoption is only half of the story — traditional adoption
monitoring doesn’t help you understand how processes are performing, not to
mention the drivers behind low or high adoption. Additionally, if you are able to
identify a block to adoption, it’s difficult to take actions that impact user behavior
besides sending angry emails and offering additional training resources.

“A properly managed hypercare and go-live can

accelerate value realization by 70%.”

14 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

3 McKinsey 2019, Agile in enterprise resource planning: A myth no more
4 Gartner, Strategic Roadmap for Postmodern ERP, 2019
 Celonis enables leaders to understand
and steer user adoption in a new way
and answer critical questions about user
Introduction:
Why transforming systems behavior.
is so damn hard

Pre-migration: Conformance: How often are users conforming to the intended process
Optimize early, optimize often models? What deviations are still occurring? And what impact do they
have on business outcomes?
Process mapping:
Understand the status quo Benchmarking: Which business units and teams across regions are
laggers in adoption? Which best practices have your best-performing
teams have implemented that others can learn from?
Fit-gap Analysis:
Mind the gaps
Workarounds: How often are users skipping critical steps in a process?
For instance, creating POs without first creating a PR.
Change Management & Hypercare:
Winning hearts and minds Rework: How often are users performing the same steps
multiple times in a process?
Beyond migration:
Transform your entire business Lag time: Are there long gaps between steps that
should normally be performed in quick succession?

User satisfaction: Are there activities, subprocesses, or variants

that are highly correlated with low user satisfaction scores?

15 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

 Celonis can easily answer these
questions and track them over time.
Introduction: More importantly, it uses AI to unveil the root causes behind low adoption and
Why transforming systems satisfaction. Leveraging industry benchmarks and experience from over 2,500
is so damn hard customer deployments, the EMS can either trigger automated actions across
systems or alert the right people to act at the right time.
Pre-migration:
Optimize early, optimize often
Alerts: Send alerts to IT or management when priority
Process mapping: or systemic adoption issues occur
Understand the status quo
User reinforcement: When users make mistakes (i.e. expense report
created in the legacy tool) automatically send users reminder emails
Fit-gap Analysis:
Mind the gaps about the new process

Recommended next-best actions: Let AI guide users through new

Change Management & Hypercare: processes and ways of working with recommended actions supported by
Winning hearts and minds
one-click automations

Beyond migration: Automation: Automatically course correct user actions

Transform your entire business with full backend automations to any major source system

And while all of this user support is being dished out, the team running the
migration can continuously track the change management progress.
This allows for a data-driven conversation with the teams that are being
asked to make the changes.

With the right insights and the right tools to support your users, change
management finally becomes data-driven. And that is, after all, the main
driver of value realization and ROI.

16 Built-In Security Features of the EMS

 Beyond migration
Transform your entire business
Introduction: System migrations are an opportunity to gain new operational agility and visibility
Why transforming systems into your operations. But migrating to a new system shouldn’t be the end
is so damn hard game of your transformation efforts.

Pre-migration:
It’s rather the beginning of a new era of optimization and intelligent execution
Optimize early, optimize often management. This is what an Execution Management System does. It acts as
an intelligent layer on top of your underlying systems, leveraging real-time data,
Process mapping:
process intelligence, and strategic action at every process step, every time.
Understand the status quo
For example, the EMS might identify early payments as one of your biggest
inefficiencies in your Accounts Payable process, impacting your working capital.
Fit-gap Analysis:
Celonis might reveal that this process gap has its root cause further upstream
Mind the gaps
in Procurement, whenever vendors delivered goods early. Celonis can then
automatically update the invoice when this occurs — every time it happens.
Change Management & Hypercare:
Winning hearts and minds This is how you drive immediate, long-lasting impact on your Days Payable
Outstanding and working capital, and ultimately perform at your full potential.
Beyond migration: To understand how Celonis helps maximize business performance across all kinds
Transform your entire business of use cases, watch our demo or read the Big Book of EMS Use Cases.

“Celonis can support a SAP S/4HANA migration in all phases - in preparation, during
the rollout and with continuous improvement in operation. The use of the technology
enables bottlenecks to be identified in advance and optimal use of internal and
external resources. This reduces the risk of the project. Process mining also helps us
to recognize and realize business value.”

- Michael Huemer, Head of the Business Analytics &

Operational Excellence Competence Center, BDO
17 Built-In Security Features of the EMS
 Business breakthroughs across
industries and processes
Introduction:
Why transforming systems Manufacturing Telecommunications
is so damn hard
10M $70M+
Pre-migration: Manual steps Saved across
Learn more Learn more
Optimize early, optimize often removed Procure-to-Pay

Process mapping:
Understand the status quo

Fit-gap Analysis:
Technology Transportation
Mind the gaps
$1B $12M
Cash flow potential across Savings in Customer
Change Management & Hypercare: Learn more Learn more
enterprise wide processes Service
Winning hearts and minds

Beyond migration:
Transform your entire business
Healthcare & Life Sciences Chemicals

20% 27%
Improved manufacturing Higher on-time-delivery
lead time Learn more Learn more
in 4 months

Financial Services CPG

$68M+ 8x
Efficiency gains by Increase in
re-engineering 40 processes Touchless Orders
18 Built-In Security Features of the EMS
 Turn your system migration into
an enterprise transformation
Introduction: We get it: System migrations are nerve-wracking initiatives for any IT leader — the
Why transforming systems risks, costs, and efforts are high and the pay-off may be uncertain. But, done right,
is so damn hard they are also huge opportunities for IT to drive the business forward, to facilitate
game-changing innovation, and to demonstrate their value as a strategic force in
Pre-migration: the enterprise. If they’re understood not only as a technical upgrade, but as a way to
Optimize early, optimize often truly transform your entire process and system landscape.

Process mapping:
Understand the status quo

Fit-gap Analysis:
Mind the gaps

Change Management & Hypercare:

Winning hearts and minds

Beyond migration:
Transform your entire business

The good news

is that Celonis
can help you
along every step
of the journey.

Want to learn more? Dig in!

19 Built-In Security Features of the EMS
celonis.com

Celonis helps businesses everywhere run a data-driven system

transformation — see how an Execution Management System can
help you too at every step of the way.

For more information,

visit our resource page.