Migrating to SAP S/4HANA is more than a system upgrade—it’s a strategic opportunity to reset how your organisation runs. For many businesses, this transformation unlocks new efficiencies, real-time insights, and the agility to innovate faster. But there’s a catch: if you carry legacy complexity, outdated processes, and unnecessary customisations into your new system, you risk bringing yesterday’s problems into tomorrow’s ERP.
A traditional “lift and shift” may seem faster, but it often drags along technical debt that slows innovation, complicates upgrades, and drives up costs. That’s why a Clean Core approach is essential. By streamlining your SAP environment and minimising custom code, you can fully leverage S/4HANA’s power while protecting your investment for the future.
What Clean Core Means in the SAP World
Clean Core is a strategic approach to modernising your SAP S/4HANA environment. By keeping the core ERP system standard and minimising customisations, your business can reduce technical debt, maintain system stability, and stay agile for future innovation.
Key benefits:
- Future-Ready: Ensures your SAP environment can evolve with new technologies, keeping your operations sustainable and adaptable.
- Reduced Technical Debt: Minimises complex custom code, preventing costly bottlenecks in upgrades and maintenance.
- Enhanced Agility: Speeds up adoption of new features and integrations, helping your business stay competitive.
- Improved Performance: Standard, optimised SAP solutions run more efficiently than heavily customised systems.
- Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): Streamlined systems and easier enhancements reduce long-term costs.
- Innovation Enablement: Provides a stable foundation for innovation, allowing you to differentiate your processes and leverage emerging technologies like AI and ML (Machine Learning).
How to Transition to a Clean Core ERP System
Moving to a clean core doesn’t happen overnight; it requires a clear strategy. Here’s how to start your transition:
- Assess your current customisations
Audit your ERP system to identify which customisations are essential and which can be replaced with standard functionality or cloud extensions.
- Prioritise standardisation
Whenever possible, adopt industry best practices and use out-of-the-box ERP features instead of building custom solutions.
- Leverage side-by-side extensibility
Rather than modifying the ERP core, use SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) to create custom applications and integrations that sit alongside the core system.
- Adopt an agile mindset
A clean core is an ongoing commitment, not a one-time project. Taking an agile approach - focused on flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement - helps maximise long-term benefits.
You Can't Modernise What You Can't See
A Clean Core journey doesn’t exist in isolation — it’s guided by a clear framework that ensures your SAP landscape remains stable, upgradeable, and ready for continuous innovation.
SAP defines five guiding principles for Clean Core: Processes, Extensibility, Data, Integrations, and Operations. Together, these principles form the foundation of a modern, future-ready ERP system:
- Processes – Streamline end-to-end workflows to increase efficiency and stay as close to standard software as possible.
Goal: Reduce complexity and maintain competitiveness by avoiding unnecessary customisations.
- Extensibility – Decouple extensions from the core system using the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) to meet unique business needs without altering standard software.
Goal: Leverage the best available extensibility options and standardised APIs and events.
- Data – Establish and enforce strong data governance to ensure information is complete, correct, compliant, and well-managed.
Goal: Maintain data integrity and ownership for accurate reporting and confident decision-making.
- Integrations – Build secure, scalable integrations that connect systems using standardised technologies.
Goal: Enable a flexible and connected landscape by automating processes with APIs and events.
- Operations – Embed best practices in governance, monitoring, and system management.
Goal: Support agile IT transformation and continuous improvement while keeping operations stable and efficient.
While Clean Core spans all five areas, this blog focuses specifically on the first principle — Processes. It explores how simplifying and standardising your business workflows creates the foundation for Clean Core, and how SAP Signavio Process Insights helps make that visibility possible. Let’s explore how process excellence becomes the foundation — and how SAP Signavio Process Insights helps you get there.
Optimising Business Processes with SAP Signavio Process Insights
SAP Signavio Process Insights offers a breakthrough approach to process discovery, supporting Clean Core initiatives. It quickly baselines performance, uncovers improvement opportunities, and recommends remediation before migrating to SAP S/4HANA.
By connecting to SAP systems, it delivers comprehensive analysis within hours, essential for businesses with tight timelines needing thorough preparation.
Why Process Insights is Perfect for Clean Core Preparation
- Rapid Implementation: Deploy and generate same-day actionable insights in days or weeks.
- SAP-Native Integration: Understands SAP data structures for more accurate, actionable insights.
- Precise Issue Identification: Quickly identify where your process issues are and drill down to the single document level.
- Stakeholder Collaboration: Share insights with stakeholders on key performance metrics through intuitive, user-friendly applications.
- Immediate Improvements: Discover opportunities to improve right away with step-by-step recommendations.
- Clean Core Alignment: Identifies standardisation opportunities and quantifies the business case for simplification.
- Evidence-Based Momentum: It provides low-risk, data-driven support for broader transformation and stakeholder buy-in.
The Proven Three-Step POC
Based on our extensive experience with Clean Core implementations, a structured Proof of Concept approach has emerged as the most effective way to demonstrate the value of process insights whilst building organisational capability for broader transformation. This three-step methodology provides a framework for systematic discovery, analysis, and action planning.
Step 1: Prepare & Extract – One-Time Pull of ECC Data
A successful Clean Core initiative begins with comprehensive data extraction from your current SAP environment, covering key processes like Order-to-Cash, Procure-to-Pay, and Record-to-Report.
- Technical Preparation: Coordinate with IT to secure data access and comply with governance. Tools like SAP Signavio Process Insights simplify this with pre-built connectors and automated extraction.
- Scope Definition: Focus on specific processes to manage data volumes, generate clear insights, and deliver tangible business value.
Step 2: Analyse & Engage – Collaborative KPI Review per LoB
The analysis phase turns raw process data into actionable insights through workshops with Line of Business stakeholders, linking process performance to operational and strategic outcomes.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Review sessions highlight variations, bottlenecks, and improvement opportunities aligned with Clean Core principles.
- KPI Alignment: Insights connect directly to business metrics, showing the financial and operational impact of inefficiencies and building support for standardisation.
Step 3: Conclude & Act – Prioritised Roadmap to Improve and Clean Up
The final step turns insights into action with a prioritised Clean Core roadmap, balancing business impact, complexity, and strategic alignment for maximum ROI.
- Business Case Development: Evaluate opportunities based on impact, Clean Core alignment, and feasibility to prioritise initiatives.
- Implementation Sequencing: Define a logical sequence of improvements that complements S/4HANA migration timelines and dependencies.
Starting the Clean Core Journey
Clean Core is about more than technology; it’s a mindset shift in processes and efficiency. It's a rare chance to reset your ERP foundation. Adopting a Clean Core approach ensures you don’t carry decades of complexity into the future, but instead create a streamlined, agile system ready for innovation.
With SAP Signavio Process Insights, you gain the visibility and evidence you need to make smart decisions, eliminate technical debt, and build a clear roadmap for transformation. The three-step Proof of Concept provides a low-risk starting point, delivering actionable insights in weeks while building momentum for long-term change.
Don’t just position your business for a smoother migration, but for a future where your ERP continuously adapts, evolves, and drives competitive advantage.
Ready to learn more? Watch the on-demand recording of our webinar to uncover the value of SAP Signavion Process Insights and start your Clean Core Journey with a Discovery Call when you’re ready to take the next step.