Check out a step-by-step guide on how to start your GROW with SAP journey to successfully prepare your enterprise data for migration to the new environment.

Getting Started With GROW with SAP Journey: A Step-by-Step Guide

Mid-market businesses often need to modernize their ERP landscape quickly but lack the resources for long, multi-year programs. GROW with SAP is SAP's customer-journey program that accelerates time-to-value through prescriptive methodology, pre-configured content, and partner expertise. Customers purchase one of the new SAP Business Suite packages (e.g., SAP Finance Base), then expand by adding further lines of business.

This guide underlines the value of GROW with SAP for mid-market businesses and explains how the journey works, how to select the right package, and which technology pillars power a clean-core migration.

Choosing the Right SAP Business Suite Package

GROW with SAP allows mid-market businesses to streamline their ERP journey to SAP Business Suite implementation. It divides the ERP bundle into clear, modular SAP Business Suite packages that are easier for businesses to adopt. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, you begin with the area most critical to your business (such as Finance or Supply Chain) and grow from there.

Each package includes ready-to-run business processes, automation, and best practices specific to that function. This accelerates deployment and minimizes configuration.

Here's what you can choose, based on your business priorities and needs:

Add-ons: flexible extensions for deeper capabilities

Once you go live with your base package, you can add more functionality using Level 1 and/or Level 2 add-ons:

• Level 1 Add-ons include: Closing & Consolidation, Treasury & Banking, Planning, Manufacturing, and Assets & Service
• Level 2 Add-ons provide: industry-specific or region-specific enhancements (e.g., Public Sector, Automotive, Japan localization)

These add-ons are optional and modular, so you only pay for what you need, when you need it.

Practical selection advice

Here are some tips to add more value to your GROW with SAP journey:

• Start with the biggest pain point. If finance struggles with month-end closing, start with SAP Finance Base.
• Grow organically. Add procurement, supply chain, or HR once your core package is stable.
• Use pre-built best practices. Every package includes standardized workflows tested across industries, so you don’t start from scratch.
• Speed up deployment with SAP Activate. This methodology includes templates, project timelines, and best practices to ensure a smooth implementation.

Whether you're a growing business modernizing your first ERP or a large enterprise shifting from legacy systems, the SAP Business Suite packages give you a scalable way to start simple and evolve with your needs.

Technology Pillars To Power Your Transformation Journey

A successful GROW with SAP project relies on four complementary pillars, or products, that work together to support your business transformation.

SAP Cloud ERP

The SaaS foundation (marketing name for SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition) delivers quarterly innovations and a clean-core architecture. It allows organizations to adopt best practices with minimal IT effort.

SAP Business Technology Platform

SAP BTP provides five capability areas:

• Application Development — build apps without custom code
• Automation — create workflows and bots to reduce manual work
• Integration — connect SAP and non-SAP systems seamlessly
• Data & Analytics — access real-time dashboards and KPIs
• AI — embed intelligence into every business process

SAP Business Data Cloud

This turns data from SAP and external systems into governed data products that are trusted, reusable and ready for reporting, planning, and AI. Built on SAP Datasphere, it enables a consistent data fabric across the enterprise.

SAP Business AI

Business AI infuses generative AI into core apps. You get AI-driven insights, copilots like SAP Joule, and automation that boosts decision-making without coding.

GROW with SAP Migration Roadmap — What To Expect and When

Migrating to SAP Cloud ERP doesn’t require a massive replatforming. Many companies follow a proven two-month approach:

Key stakeholders: Business process owners, IT data leads, partner consultants, and key SAP users from each functional area.

Common tools used:

• DataLark for data extraction, validation, rule-based transformation, and loading to SAP Migration Cockpit
• SAP Datasphere for real-time replication
• SAP APIs for bulk loading (OData, SOAP)

Choosing the Right Migration Partner

Most GROW with SAP customers benefit from expert-led migration. Mid-market businesses often lack in-house IT resources or ERP expertise. Working with a trusted partner ensures smooth migration while your team focuses on business operations.

After choosing a migration partner, preparing a readiness assessment of your landscape is essential to ensure that your legacy system is ready to transfer. Make sure to:

• Evaluate data quality
• Define migration scope and fallback plans
• Run testing cycles

DataLark’s Unified Data‑Migration Assessment & Roadmap offer is your opportunity to kill not two, but four birds with one stone; our experts will closely collaborate with you to create a data migration strategy, assess data, conduct testing, and prepare a plan of fallback scenarios.

This offer is a four‑week consulting sprint that designs a safe, cost‑balanced path to move master and transactional data from SAP ECC and non‑SAP systems into SAP ERP (public or private edition). In the case of GROW with SAP, the data will be moved from a legacy non-SAP source to SAP Cloud ERP.

Our experts combine SAP Migration Cockpit, SAP Datasphere replication flows, and SAP Integration Suite APIs to deliver an actionable migration blueprint, a two‑object pilot proof, and a cut‑over playbook. For scenarios involving complex field mappings or integrations between SAP and non-SAP systems, which is a common case for GROW with SAP, we use DataLark - an SAP-centric data management platform designed by LeverX to streamline the migration process.

Here’s what happens during these four weeks:

• Week 1 – Discovery:

  • Landscape inventory (third‑party ERPs and data lakes)
  • Data volume and quality profiling
  • Stakeholder workshops and risk register
• Week 2 – Design:
  • Migration‑path scoring (Greenfield approach for GROW).
  • Tooling mix definition: SAP Migration Cockpit, Datasphere replication, SOAP Bulk APIs, OData V4, DataLark.
  • Compliance checks: clean‑core, SAP Note 3255746 (RFC ban), public‑cloud API limits - KBAs 3542227 / 3391018.
• Week 3 – Pilot proof:
  • Prototype migration of two representative objects (e.g., BP from a legacy non-SAP ERP, Item Master from a data lake).
  • Using direct connectors or CSV extracting when third‑party connectors are not in place.
  • Measure throughput, error rates, and delta‑load feasibility.
• Week 4 – Roadmap & business case:
  • Migration roadmap (timeline, budget, roles)
  • Cut‑over & rollback playbook
  • Executive‑ready business case deck and Q&A

As a result, you will have the following aspects of your GROW with SAP migration ready:

• High-level Migration blueprin — target architecture, data‑flow diagrams, tooling stack
• Pilot results report — load metrics, issue log, remediation actions
• Data quality & cleansing report — ranked by risk and impact
• Cut-over playbook — a plan with fallback scenarios

With our offering, your business will be fully informed on how to perform data migration to the new platform.

Business Benefits of GROW with SAP in Plain Terms

Switching to SAP Cloud ERP using the GROW with SAP journey brings tangible value for mid-market businesses that can hardly be overestimated. Taking on new cloud technologies and transferring to the SAP ecosystem opens up unlimited possibilities for business scalability, overall growth, and further digital transformation, all of which are crucial for staying competitive in ever-evolving and fluctuating markets.

Streamlined operations

GROW with SAP is a digital transformation journey tailored to help mid-market businesses that aspire to enhance operational efficiency. The platform unifies critical processes from supply chain logistics to customer engagement, which allows users to get real-time insights across the organization. This unmatched level of transparency empowers businesses to pinpoint process gaps and inefficiencies, introduce data-driven improvements, and boost overall performance.

Lower TCO

As GROW with SAP operates in the cloud, using the system eliminates the need for mid-market companies to purchase costly hardware infrastructure or software. This dramatically reduces upfront IT expenses, decreasing TCO (total cost of ownership). Consequently, GROW with SAP frees up resources that can be redirected toward strategic initiatives to fuel growth and increase profitability. GROW with SAP also offers no-code development options that empower businesses to tailor applications, create custom solutions, and automate workflows without the need for a dedicated team of developers.

Improved decision-making

GROW with SAP utilizes SAP Cloud ERP, integrating sophisticated analytics and machine learning capabilities. This empowers mid-market businesses to gain deeper visibility into their operations, supporting smarter, data-driven decision-making. By harnessing these insights, companies are better positioned to accelerate growth and enhance profitability.

Enhanced scalability

GROW with SAP is built to evolve alongside mid-market businesses, offering a flexible solution that adapts to each company's specific requirements. Scalable by nature, GROW with SAP ensures that organizations can easily tap into cutting-edge technologies and innovations without the burden of heavy IT infrastructure investments.

Integrations made easy

As part of the SAP ecosystem, GROW with SAP allows companies to seamlessly implement SAP Business Suite for evolving business needs. This allows enterprises to maintain their data and operations in a single source of truth, streamlining processes and knowledge sharing with no need for third-party integrations or switching between different systems.

Enhanced customer experience

GROW with SAP delivers a set of powerful features aimed at elevating customer experience. From personalized recommendations to advanced analytics, the solution equips mid-market businesses with deep insights into customer behaviors and preferences. Armed with this knowledge, companies can fine-tune their offerings to better align with customer expectations, ultimately improving satisfaction and fostering long-term loyalty.

Better security and compliance

All SAP solutions offer outstanding security features and ensure compliance with local and global industry standards, and GROW with SAP is no exception. The solution is equipped with features like data encryption, access controls, and continuous monitoring, which helps safeguard sensitive business information. Meanwhile, the adherence to compliance standards gives mid-market companies the confidence to operate securely in a global marketplace.

Conclusion

GROW with SAP’s customer-journey program is a transformative opportunity for mid-market businesses aiming to modernize their operations, embrace cloud innovation, and future-proof their growth. By harnessing the capabilities of SAP Cloud ERP and SAP BTP, this digital transformation solution empowers companies to streamline processes, reduce costs, and make smarter data-driven decisions.

While migrating your data and processes to SAP Cloud ERP is comparatively easy, you still need a carefully prepared migration plan. Also, make sure to utilize professional data management solutions that ensure your data is fully prepared to be transferred to a new system. Combining GROW with SAP with the right guidance, tools, and support, your business can confidently transition to a cloud-first environment and unlock its full potential.