Smooth switch to SAP S/4HANA at WDP thanks to best practices

Thanks to a strong business case, smart planning and close cooperation, WDP and Ctac succeeded in successfully switching to SAP S/4HANA and migrating to the Azure cloud in just seven months. This strategic move resulted in more efficient processes, good system integration and a future-proof IT environment.

‘This was a real team effort,’ says Katleen De Groot, Business Analyst at WDP. ’Without the commitment of our colleagues and the flexibility of Ctac, this would not have been possible.’

WDP, a listed real estate company and market leader in logistics real estate in the Benelux and Romania, develops and leases warehouses in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany and Romania. A high-performance ERP system is essential for the smooth management of these activities.

Until recently, WDP worked with SAP ECC, a system that will no longer be supported from 2027. Switching to S/4HANA was therefore a logical next step. WDP decided to migrate in good time so that the new system could contribute to more efficient processes.

Strong business case as a starting point

‘As a small IT team, we needed the right partner,’ says Katleen De Groot, Business Analyst at WDP and project manager during the transition. Together with her colleague Veerle Steppé, also a Business Analyst, she drew up a detailed business case with clear advantages of the switch.

‘We mapped out our processes and identified areas where we could work more efficiently,’ explains Katleen. ’This enabled us to convince management of the added value of SAP S/4HANA.’

With the business case in hand, WDP chose Ctac, which had been their hosting partner for many years. ‘We were very satisfied with the collaboration and their technical expertise,’ says Veerle. ‘We were confident that Ctac would guide us smoothly through the switch.’

Simultaneous conversion and cloud migration

It was decided to combine the switch to S/4HANA with the migration of the data centre to Microsoft Azure. According to Ctac account manager Augusto Brito, this saved time and duplicate testing. ‘It did make the project more complex,’ admits Katleen, ‘but thanks to Ctac’s flexibility, we still managed to pull it off.’

Ctac put together a multidisciplinary team with knowledge of Azure, SAP modules, development and project management. A major advantage was that WDP’s ERP system was largely standard, with little customisation. ‘This was the least modified system we have ever migrated,’ says Augusto. ‘That made everything go very smoothly.’

From the outset, there was a strong focus on testing and change management. ‘All processes were carefully tested after the conversion,’ says Veerle. ‘We prepared our teams well and motivated them to go through everything thoroughly.’

The integrations with systems such as SharePoint and the MyWDP customer portal had to continue to work, of course. ‘Fortunately, that went almost without a hitch,’ says Katleen. ‘Thanks to the Boomi integration platform, we were able to easily check that all the links were working.’