The standard approach to rollout is a global template that is derived from an initial implementation. (Rather than independent of a first implementation and then piloted) A team builds the SAP system at headquarters first, then copies the template to each subsidiary and adjusts it for local tax rules, languages, and reporting requirements. That copy-and-paste approach, according to LeapGreat’s reporting on global rollouts, often leads to surprises, longer timelines and higher costs, since a template built only around the parent company’s processes leaves every subsidiary to discover, late and one at a time, where it does not fit. Toni Tomic, a senior partner at Ernst & Young, put the fix simply: “A well-designed global template must account for both current subsidiaries and future acquisitions. By involving subsidiaries early in the design of the template, companies find better collaboration and shared learning across the organization.”
That discovery tends to happen in sequence. Headquarters goes live, then subsidiaries follow in waves, each one waiting months or years for its turn. Tomic said the sequencing is itself a source of delay. “There is the problem of sequencing the rollout implementations,” he said. “It is hard to parallelize this effort so that everyone is working together on the same page and providing refinements to the solution. If one can parallelize, you can dramatically shorten the rollout cycles.” Bob Cummings, chief executive of LeapGreat, described the risk more directly. “Don’t underestimate global rollouts. They are not a simple cut-and-paste exercise,” he said. “There can be factors more challenging than the initial implementation.”
The Cost of Making a Subsidiary Wait Its Turn
Waiting has a cost beyond the calendar. A subsidiary that sits idle for a year while headquarters finishes its own implementation inherits decisions it had no part in making, and it reaches its own go-live with the template already fixed. Sequencing also pushes change management to the end of the project, where LeapGreat’s account of global rollouts puts the cause of user resistance. Cummings argues it belongs at the other end. “Change management should begin from day one, facilitated by real-time system visibility,” he said. “Stakeholders can see their processes and roles within the system early, leading to smoother adoption and fewer surprises later.”
FrontLoad’s Answer: A Working System From Day One
LeapGreat built an approach called FrontLoad to address the two problems Tomic and Cummings both named: late visibility into the working system, and subsidiaries stuck waiting in line. Instead of starting with a blueprint, FrontLoad deploys a working S/4HANA environment, populated with the subsidiary’s own data, from the first day of the project. The system is preconfigured by industry, which in LeapGreat’s own example means a manufacturer of HVAC systems does not spend its first weeks navigating templates designed for bicycle production. Because each subsidiary gets its own live environment at the outset, several can move at once instead of waiting for headquarters to finish first. Cummings made the same point about global rollouts specifically: “Early system visibility also enables companies to do all workshops with their working system, which accelerates feedback loops and enhances collaboration across teams. In a way, the word Rollout creates a problem itself. It is something like a one-way street. Instead, one should think of continuous subsidiary modernization. A bit like a harbor-master who brings ships in and out repeatedly for modernization. ”
Olaf Schoenfelder, Head of Product Management at LeapGreat, quoted on LeapGreat’s FrontLoad page, said that starting from a working system changes how people engage with a project before it even gets underway. “It’s amazing to see the effects when we start a project with a version one of the future reality of the people,” he said. “It’s so much easier for a human being to start with a version one instead of creating something on a blank sheet of paper.” He also argued for keeping the business, rather than IT, in charge of the decisions that follow. “Often such large transformation projects are IT-driven, but at the end, the business is the customer,” he said. “If the customer is in the driver’s seat for such a transformation, you will get the right outcome at the end.”
Because training and data migration can draw on the same live environment, LeapGreat says the work of preparing each subsidiary can start earlier too, running alongside the build instead of after it. The company’s FrontLoad environment includes navigation tools, business process documentation and embedded guides that carry through to go-live, so a subsidiary’s change management can begin at the first workshop. Assumptions and decisions get documented as the project moves, which matters later, during training and handover, when someone needs to know why a process was built a particular way. Tomic makes a related point about who that documentation is for: “Clear, interactive documentation can help new users, especially younger team members, grasp the system quickly, thus mitigating one of the main causes of rollout delays.”
The Open Question for Program Directors
For a program director weighing a global rollout against the numbers ISG and Gartner have published, the open question is less whether templates and sequential waves cause delays. Consultants and the vendor already agree on that much. It is whether a live system that took one site five weeks to stand up holds up across the dozen or more subsidiaries a global rollout actually requires.
FAQ
What is LeapGreat’s FrontLoad approach? FrontLoad is LeapGreat’s method for starting an SAP S/4HANA project with a working system rather than a blueprint. It deploys a pre-configured, industry-specific S/4HANA environment, loaded with the subsidiary’s own data, on the first day of the project.
What are the biggest SAP S/4HANA global rollout challenges, compared with a single implementation? A single implementation solves its design and change management problems once. A global rollout repeats the same problems across every subsidiary, usually in sequence, which is why delays and cost overruns compound. LeapGreat’s own reporting on global rollouts describes the standard headquarters-template-then-copy practice as prone to late discoveries the template did not account for.
What is the SAP ECC 2027 deadline? SAP ends mainstream maintenance on its ECC platform on December 31, 2027. Gartner data cited by LeapGreat, via reporting from Tachyon, found that only about 39 percent of SAP’s roughly 35,000 ECC customers had migrated to S/4HANA as of late 2024, leaving on the order of 21,000 still on ECC.
Can subsidiaries roll out in parallel instead of in sequence? LeapGreat says its FrontLoad approach enables parallel rollouts by giving each subsidiary early access to its own working system rather than waiting for headquarters to finish first. Ernst & Young senior partner Toni Tomic has made the case for parallelizing more broadly: “If one can parallelize, you can dramatically shorten the rollout cycles.”
What results has LeapGreat reported from FrontLoad so far? In a case study LeapGreat published on April 3, 2025, one medical technology manufacturer used FrontLoad to implement its full SAP scope in five weeks, with reduced cost and risk and faster business alignment and adoption. That is a single documented client, not a result reported across multiple subsidiaries or a broader set of customers.
See your ERP in just one week.
Ready to get started? Have a few questions? Schedule a call and begin your LeapGreat journey.
