A signed-off Fit-to-Standard workshop does not mean you're ready for S/4HANA.
It means you've completed an important design milestone. Readiness goes further. Your data is fit to migrate, your integrations are understood, your business SMEs are available to make decisions, and the organisation can absorb the change alongside everything else it's delivering.
I see teams reach the end of Fit-to-Standard with a clear view of the target design, only to discover that some of the harder delivery questions remain unresolved.
S/4HANA readiness means being able to execute the transformation you've designed.
I look at four areas in particular: organisational readiness, data, integration and change capacity. They are connected, and weakness in one tends to put pressure on the others.
You need business SMEs with enough capacity to make decisions, data ready to migrate, and a clear understanding of your integration dependencies.
Fit-to-Standard gives you an agreed view of the target processes and the decisions required. From there, you need to establish whether the business has the people, data and delivery capacity to execute that design.
I wouldn't judge this by whether every milestone on the plan is still green. I'd look at whether the work needed for the next phase is mature enough to start.
Three red flags to watch out for:
Data cleansing hasn't properly started. If you're approaching build or testing while ownership, quality issues and cleansing activity are still being resolved, the plan is already carrying risk forward.
Business SMEs aren't available. SAP transformation needs decisions from the people who understand how the business actually operates. If they're expected to deliver the transformation alongside a full BAU workload, decisions slow down and issues accumulate.
Integration dependencies are still marked TBC. Interfaces are rarely isolated technical tasks. Each one can bring dependencies across systems, data, vendors, testing and business processes. If you don't understand those dependencies, confidence in the downstream plan is limited.
Named stakeholders need the authority, availability and accountability to make decisions.
Know who owns each decision and how much time they can realistically give the transformation.
If every important decision has to travel through several layers of governance, delivery slows quickly.
Mapped data isn't necessarily migration-ready data.
Ownership should be clear, quality assessed and cleansing underway, with validation built into the migration plan.
If these issues surface during testing, they consume time that was allocated to testing.
Map each interface beyond its technical connection.
You need to understand its dependencies, ownership, S/4HANA impact and testing requirements.
Legacy landscapes often contain years of integrations, workarounds and undocumented dependencies. You need to understand those before you can rely on the delivery plan.
Ask how much capacity the business has to absorb the transformation.
S/4HANA changes processes, roles, reporting and ways of working. The people responsible for adopting those changes are usually also responsible for keeping the business running.
The plan must account for that workload. Training and communications won't compensate for people having no time to participate.
I wouldn't look for a perfect score across every workstream. Very few SAP transformation programmes start with every issue resolved.
I'd look for clarity. You know where the gaps are. Each has an owner. Dependencies are understood. You've planned business capacity rather than assumed it. Your data and integration work is mature enough for the phase you're entering. Where specialist capability is missing, you've identified it early enough to act.
That's a much stronger definition of readiness than a completed workshop.
If you're preparing for S/4HANA, get in touch. I'll walk through where your gaps actually sit with you, before they start affecting the plan.