SAP S/4HANA Migration: Accelerating Code Remediation and Achieving Clean Core with Diligent Global
As organisations accelerate their digital transformation journeys, migrating to SAP S/4HANA has become a strategic business priority. With SAP’s growing focus on cloud ERP, automation, AI, and continuous innovation, businesses must rethink how they approach their ERP transformation initiatives.
However, a successful SAP S/4HANA migration involves more than moving data and applications to a new platform. It requires addressing legacy customisations, remediating incompatible ABAP code, optimising business processes, and establishing a sustainable Clean Core architecture.
One of the biggest challenges organisations face is the volume of custom code accumulated over years of SAP ECC usage. Carrying forward this technical debt can increase migration complexity, affect performance, and restrict the adoption of future SAP innovations.
At Diligent Global, we understand these challenges and help organisations simplify their SAP transformation journeys through our expertise in SAP modernisation, automation-led code remediation, and Clean Core adoption.
With our Smart Custom Code Migration Tool, we enable organisations to streamline custom code analysis, remediation, testing, and documentation, helping accelerate their transition to SAP S/4HANA while building a future-ready digital core.
1. SAP S/4HANA Migration: Key Developments
The SAP ecosystem continues to evolve, creating new opportunities for organisations to modernise their ERP environments.
Some of the key developments shaping SAP transformation include:
Cloud ERP Adoption: SAP’s RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP offerings provide different pathways for organisations to transition towards cloud ERP, depending on their business requirements, existing landscape, and transformation objectives.
Growing Focus on Clean Core: Organisations are moving away from heavily customised ERP environments towards standard SAP functionality, released APIs, and governed extensions. This helps reduce technical debt and simplifies future upgrades.
Automation and AI: Intelligent automation is increasingly supporting code analysis, remediation, testing, and documentation. These capabilities also create opportunities to improve business processes and operational efficiency.
Business Process Standardisation: S/4HANA migration provides an opportunity to eliminate redundant customisations and adopt standard SAP processes rather than simply replicating existing ECC environments.
At Diligent Global, we believe these developments make it essential for organisations to consider Clean Core and custom code remediation as integral parts of their SAP transformation strategy.
2. Why Custom Code Remediation Is Critical for S/4HANA Migration
Over the years, organisations have developed numerous custom ABAP reports, interfaces, enhancements, and modifications to meet specific business requirements.
While these developments may have worked in SAP ECC, some may become incompatible with S/4HANA due to changes in the underlying architecture, data models, and functionalities.
Common challenges include:
- Dependencies on obsolete tables, transactions, and function modules.
- Custom code incompatibilities with S/4HANA.
- Modifications to SAP standard objects.
- Inefficient database operations and performance bottlenecks.
- Redundant or unused custom developments.
- Limited documentation and difficulties maintaining legacy code.
Code remediation helps organisations address these challenges before and during migration.
Key remediation activities include:
- Custom Code Assessment: Identifying incompatible, obsolete, and redundant code using tools such as SAP ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC) and SAP Readiness Check.
- Code Optimisation: Modernising ABAP code, optimising SQL statements, and adopting supported development practices.
- Simplification Item Assessment: Addressing changes to SAP data models and functionalities, including the Universal Journal and Business Partner approach.
- Custom Code Rationalisation: Replacing unnecessary developments with standard SAP capabilities wherever possible.
At Diligent Global, our approach goes beyond making legacy code compatible with S/4HANA. We focus on helping customers create a cleaner, more efficient, and maintainable custom code landscape.
3. Clean Core: Building a Future-Ready SAP Landscape
Clean Core is an architectural and governance approach that encourages organisations to keep their SAP ERP core as standard as possible while enabling innovation through supported extensions and integration mechanisms.
A successful Clean Core strategy focuses on:
- Standardisation first: Prioritising standard SAP functionality over unnecessary custom development.
- Modern development practices: Adopting ABAP Cloud principles and released APIs where applicable.
- Extension management: Leveraging SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) for appropriate loosely coupled extensions.
- Custom Code Governance: Establishing guidelines to monitor code quality, modifications, and dependencies.
- Continuous Improvement: Regularly assessing and reducing technical debt.
Custom code remediation is a critical enabler of this strategy. It helps organisations identify developments that can be eliminated, modernised, or replaced with standard SAP functionality.
At Diligent Global, we view Clean Core as an ongoing transformation objective rather than a one-time migration milestone. Our focus is to help customers establish an upgrade-ready SAP environment that supports continuous innovation.
4. Accelerating Clean Core with Diligent Global's Smart Custom Code Migration Tool
Large-scale custom code remediation can be time-consuming and resource-intensive, particularly for organisations managing thousands of custom developments.
To address this challenge, we developed the Smart Custom Code Migration Tool, an automation-led solution designed to accelerate SAP ECC to S/4HANA custom code migration.
Our solution supports key stages of the remediation lifecycle, helping organisations streamline migration activities while aligning custom code modernisation with Clean Core principles.
Key Capabilities of Our Solution
- Automated Custom Code Analysis
Our solution analyses legacy custom code to identify S/4HANA incompatibilities and prioritises remediation issues based on SAP ATC compliance standards.
Clean Core benefit: Helps identify legacy technical debt and determine which custom developments need remediation or rationalisation. - Intelligent Code Remediation
The tool automates the applicable SAP-recommended quick fixes where applicable, reducing repetitive manual code correction efforts.
Clean Core benefit: Supports consistent code modernisation and improves maintainability. - Automated Unit Testing and Report Validation
Our solution automates testing to validate report functionality, data accuracy, and performance after remediation.
Clean Core benefit: Helps maintain code quality and minimise functional risks during migration. - Automated Documentation
The tool generates structured documentation of code changes, improving transparency and supporting audit readiness.
Clean Core benefit: Establishes better traceability and supports ongoing custom code governance. - Dual Maintenance of Code
Our solution supports code comparison, merging, and modernisation across environments during the transformation lifecycle.
Clean Core benefit: Helps manage parallel development changes and maintain consistency throughout migration.
But don't just take our word for it. Hear it from a customer who has experienced the journey firsthand.
To bring real-world perspectives to the SAP transformation conversation, we recently hosted the webinar “The CIO’s Guide to S/4HANA Transformation and Clean Core.”
The session featured Farhan Mubashir, Co-Founder & CEO of Diligent Global, and Rupesh Shivathare, Senior Manager – SAP Transformation on Cloud at Coca-Cola Bottlers Japan Inc., who shared insights from their SAP S/4HANA transformation journey.
The discussion explored the challenges of large-scale custom code migration, the importance of Clean Core adoption, and how Diligent Global’s Smart Code Migration Tool helped streamline remediation activities, reduce manual effort, and accelerate the migration process.
Missed the session? Watch the webinar recording to hear the customer experience and discover practical insights into SAP S/4HANA transformation and Clean Core.
Watch the webinar recording: The CIO’s Guide to S/4HANA Transformation and Clean Core
Planning your SAP S/4HANA transformation? Connect with Diligent Global to explore how our expertise and Smart Code Migration Tool can help accelerate your migration and Clean Core journey.
