What is the benefit of reducing list entries when moving to SAP S/4 Hana?

One of the biggest benefits and levers moving to SAPS4Hana is the reduction of listentries – independent whether you choose a Greenfield, Brownfield or SNP Group’s Bluefield™ approach.

This potential should be leveraged in any case following the maxims of structuredness, organization and tidiness to achieve the goals of easeofuse, easeofextension and transparency.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝘆?

List entries are related to drop-downs or value helps. This means fields a user has to select a value, and potentially has to scroll through an extensive list of entries.

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀?

Amongst others typical examples comprise the following:

Distribution channels
Divisions
Business partner roles (previously known as customer account types)
Business partner functions (previously known as partner functions)
Payment terms
Technical object types (e.g., equipment types)
Sales inquiry, quotation and/ or order types
Price calculation schemes and condition types
Invoice types
Maintenance and/ or service notification and/ or order types
And many more

What is the financial impact?

Reducing input time and incorrect entries and consequently process cost
Reducing SAP maintenance cost for the internal and/ or external IT team

What is the background?

Research shows that the human brain is able to process up to 6 alternatives correctly. As soon as this number is exceeded, the human brain struggles.

What are the consequences?

Longer input times (e.g., if you have a list of approx. 100 order types, it takes time for your staff to go through them and process the information),
Incorrect entries (e.g., the likelihood that your staff selects a wrong entry is quite high in this example which leads to wrong follow-up processes, cancellation of orders, and invoices, and newly created orders) or
Dummy entries (e.g., if there is a “general”, “dummy” or “other” option available, the likelihood is high that your staff selects this option).
Longer times for error analysis and solution extension due to unnecessary customizing entries resulting in untransparent processes in the system.

What are guiding principles?

Reducing list entries to the number of 6
(FYI: I used 9 in previous years as my brain can remember “it should be a 1-digit number” which also worked very well for clients.)
Keeping the system clean and transparent by deleting unnecessary customizing

N.B.: There is also research on 4 and on 7 +/- 1 or 2 alternatives.

Putting it in a nutshell, the common nominator seems to be a 1-digit-number, and the consequent reduction of cost list entries will be beneficial in any case.

𝗗𝗼 𝘄𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵?

Within the course of one of our current projects, we

Deleted 3.500 list entries, and
Achieved 6 list entries or less in 95% of the cases.

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