How to replace SAP with 1C:ERP, plan the migration, reduce costs, and meet CIS market requirements.
In 2022, SAP left CIS, and its products usedHalf of large CIS companies use it. By the start of 2024, 70% of them were not ready to give up SAP ERP. However, with sales and support discontinued, continuing to use SAP solutions became harder, so businesses are starting to implement local ERP solutions.
ERP brings together business processes companies on a single platform, which means: - all departments work with current information without duplication; - the company responds to changes faster; - manual work is reduced, calculations are simplified, and tasks are completed faster; - errors, redundant operations, and IT costs are reduced; - loss points and growth opportunities become visible; - the system grows with the business and is easy to adapt to new tasks;
- reports are generated automatically in line with RAS, tax, and accounting requirements.
SAP ERP software covers: - Financial management. SAP ERP provides tools for managing debt, revenue, expenses, and tax compliance.
Access to financial data in real time helps companies plan better and comply with regulatory requirements.
Executives get a consolidated source of reliable financial information, enabling more accurate forecasting and faster reporting. - Logistics and supply management. SAP ERP makes procurement, logistics, and inventory transparent.
Companies use software to plan and optimize supply chain operations, reduce operating costs, and adapt to the market. - Sales. The software automates sales processes - from order receipt to invoice management.
Its tools help improve customer interaction and drive revenue growth. - Sourcing and Procurement. The software enables companies to analyze supplier offers, choose the best options, and manage all procurement stages - from request submission to payment. - Human resources. The HR module helps companies manage the employee lifecycle: recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, performance evaluation, payroll, and motivation.
With it, organizations can strategically manage personnel and hire, develop, and retain top specialists. - CRM. SAP ERP consolidates customer experience data across all touchpoints.
As a result, companies provide customers with more consistent and personalized service, increasing satisfaction.
SAP ERP helped CIS corporations: - reduce IT costs by up to 30%; - increase operational efficiency by up to 40% and ROI to 200-400%; - optimize logistics and inventory, reducing supply chain costs by 15-25%; - prepare reports faster and increase their accuracy to 95%; - increase sales by up to 25% through analytics and forecasting.
1C solutions are used as an alternative to SAP in the CIS market.
They provide 80% of SAP functionality.
1C ERP consists of the following subsystems: - Enterprise performance monitoring.
Using it, a manager can monitor organizational processes in real time, analyze critical deviations from targets, and identify negative trends and growth opportunities. - Production management.Helps the company control and improve production processes in order to achieve digital transformation. - Cost management.
Its flexible tools help control material flow costs and resource expenses across all company departments. With 1C:ERP, a company can calculate the full cost of its goods and services. - Financial management.
The solutions in this subsystem make it possible to manage treasury, financial accounting, and reporting.
They are often used as a platform for reporting under local accounting standards and IFRS. - Budgeting.
Using the module, companies can flexibly manage budgeting through both top-down and bottom-up approaches. - CRM.Helps develop and implement customer relationship strategies, track customer experience and communications, create notifications, segment customers, and identify more profitable and new customers. - Sales management.The workflows and controls in this module help speed up the "order to cash" process in manufacturing, wholesale, and retail companies.
The software automatically blocks deliveries that exceed credit limits, production before an advance payment is received, sales orders before approval, and other processes.
1C:ERP includes ready-made solutions for automating trading operations. - Procurement management.The functions, workflows, and controls of this subsystem accelerate the "procure to pay" process. - Inventory management.With this system, the company tracks inventory levels and manages order demand as well as internal and external goods movements. In the manufacturing subsystem, it helps create production orders and material movement documents related to production.
Companies use inventory management to prevent overstocking and production downtime. 1C:ERP has globally specific capabilities: - a multilingual interface that allows users from different countries to work in a single database; - multilingual master data; - flexible field lengths for financial indicators; - core financial accounting solutions ready for localization to any national tax and accounting standards.
The 1C company regularly updates its products in line with international standards and works with experts who have worked with SAP.
This helps make the 1C interface and functionality more similar to SAP, making the business transition easier.
1C:ERP software is an integrated solution that gives businesses the following advantages: - Centralization and synchronization of business data.ERP replaces support for many disconnected databases with centralized data management.
This simplifies access to information, the preparation of timely and accurate reports, eliminates delays in data consolidation, and makes multidimensional analysis easier. As a result, managers make more accurate and effective decisions.
As a result, inventory are reduced by 24%, operating and administrative expenses by 17%, product cost by 9%, and accounts receivable by 22%.
- Reduced data entry errors. Business processes span multiple departments, which increases the risk of data errors during manual entry.
When an ERP system is implemented, data is synchronized across departments, helping companies minimize information errors, reduce data entry time, and align workflows. As a result, orders are processed 75% faster and fulfilled 26% faster. - Managing accounting and financial information.The finance department in a company consolidates data from other departments and divisions.
With an ERP system, data only needs to be entered once, and the system automatically updates when information changes in other departments.
Companies can consolidate data daily without waiting for the period to end, saving time and resources while improving accuracy and consistency.
Management reports can be prepared 2.9 times faster, and accounting reports 2.8 times faster. - Improved operational efficiency. Large companies have complex, multi-stage workflows in place.
Effective processing of daily data requires a coordinated, timely, and accurate information flow. ERP applications help move and synchronize data in the system quickly and automatically, increasing business productivity. As a result, output and labor productivity increase by 36%, while material resource consumption decreases by 16%. - Human resources management. ERP systems help carry out internal controls and quickly identify the data source and task owner.
This simplifies monitoring of work stages and allows managers to remotely track labor productivity, sales volume, and daily revenue.
Automated data analysis helps quickly obtain information for timely improvements. - Creating a business information network. An ERP system provides communication tools between departments and employees, similar to an internal company social network. Chat, calls, and daily status updates help spread information quickly and improve team cohesion.
SAP ERP is a leading global ERP system designed for large international corporations. It is aimed at broad applicability and advanced technologies. 1C:ERP is a CIS-developed system adapted to the specific legal and business requirements of the CIS market. It adapts flexibly to local conditions, is cheaper, and is implemented faster. Comparison of SAP and 1C ERP Systems
| Criterion | SAP ERP | 1C:ERP |
|---|---|---|
| Scale of Use | International level, suitable for large corporations and global companies | CIS market, small, medium, and large enterprises |
| Integration and Process Coverage | Deep integration of all business functions: finance, transportation, manufacturing, HR, CRM, SCM | Good coverage of core processes: accounting, finance, sales, manufacturing, logistics |
| Scalability | High - easily supports business growth, new markets, currencies, languages, and regulatory requirements | Limited at the international level, but flexible for local businesses |
| Compliance with International Standards | Support for IFRS, SOX, GDPR, and local standards in different countries | Strong support for CIS standards: RAS, CIS tax legislation |
| Analytics and reporting | Advanced BI analytics, forecasting, integration with SAP BW and SAP Analytics Cloud | Standard reports, basic analytics capabilities, integration with 1C:BI and third-party solutions |
| Innovation | Support for IoT, AI, ML, cloud and mobile solutions, SAP S/4HANA | Mobile and cloud services are evolving, but the level of innovation is lower |
| Implementation and Support Cost | High: licenses, consulting, support | Lower than SAP: more affordable for small and medium-sized businesses |
| Implementation Speed | Medium/low - complex projects take months and years | High, especially for standard implementations |
| Configuration flexibility | Standardized best practices; customization is possible, but expensive and complex | Flexible configuration for a specific business, especially in the CIS context |
| Labor Market | High demand, but few specialists and high labor costs | A broad pool of specialists in CIS, more affordable |
| Business value | Suitable for companies with global ambitions: transparency, control, scalability, and innovation | Suitable for companies operating in CIS: low total cost of ownership, adaptation to local legislation |
There are two main approaches to migrating from SAP to 1C: 1. One-time migration.
Involves moving all business processes at once.
This is faster and more cost-effective, but riskier. 2. Gradual migration.
Involves gradually migrating parts of the SAP system while keeping some subsystems operational.
This is a more labor-intensive and expensive process, but it reduces risk: if something goes wrong, disrupted processes are easier to restore.
Integration can be implemented without middleware or with a dedicated bus.
The first option is simpler, but scales worse.
A bus centralizes data exchange and provides greater flexibility, but requires more resources.
has the following advantages: - cost reduction- owning 1C is cheaper than SAP; - compliance with CIS legislation - 1C better supports local regulatory requirements; - flexibility- in 1C, customization is faster and cheaper than in SAP.
Analysis and Preparation - Business process assessment. Compare current SAP processes with the target capabilities of 1C. Determine which processes should be migrated "as is" and which should be optimized. - Functional gap analysis. Determine which SAP functions are missing in 1C. Decide whether to extend 1C customization or implement external modules. - Defining the project scope. Choose a model - full migration or hybrid.
For example, keep finance and accounting in 1C, while leaving SCM/CRM in SAP. - Forming the project team. Bring in business analysts, 1C consultants, SAP specialists, and key users. Planning and Design - Designing the target architecture. Define how 1C will integrate with other systems - CRM, WMS, BI, and electronic document management. - Data migration planning. Classify data: reference data, master data, and transactional data.
Select data for full and partial migration. - Staff training planning. Create a user training program to reduce resistance and errors. Implementation - 1C development and customization. Configure processes for the specifics of the business, taking local requirements into account. - Data migration. Migrate data from SAP to 1C in stages with mandatory validation and cleansing. - Integrations. Set up data exchange with external systems: banks, electronic document exchange, BI, e-commerce. - Testing. Carry out several stages: unit, integration, and load testing. Pilot launch - Pilot in selected departments. For example, launch accounting and procurement in 1C for one branch. - Collecting feedback. Fix identified errors and refine the functionality. - Establishing the working methodology. Document instructions and operating procedures in the new systems. Full-Scale Migration - Step-by-step SAP decommissioning. Migrate modules one by one to reduce risk. - Support and Maintenance. Set up a user support service and resolve issues promptly. - Final check. Reconcile data and financial statements, and test critical business cycles. Post-Project Optimization - Performance evaluation. Compare KPI before and after implementation.
Assess reporting close times, order processing speed, and support costs. - Optimization and Development. Adapt the system to new business requirements, add BI, mobile solutions, and warehouse and production automation.
The most expensive part of the transition is not configuring the new system, but moving the data. Over the years, SAP accumulates reference data that cannot be transferred one-to-one: one counterparty may have four spellings, an item master may have three competing codes, and some fields were filled in "as agreed in 2015."
Language models handle exactly one class of tasks here: matching cases where no rule can be written, but a person can do it by eye.
Finding duplicate counterparties by spelling, address, and details.
Matching item masters across two systems when descriptions match, not codes.
Parsing text comments in documents to extract a structured attribute.
The key limitation is this: the result of such matching is a hypothesis, not an accounting entry. Anything that affects accounting must pass deterministic reconciliation checks, including control totals, balances, and turnovers. AI reduces manual reference-data review, but it does not replace balance reconciliation. A model allowed to decide on its own that two counterparties are one will eventually merge two different ones.
Practical workflow: first move what can be transferred by rules, then give the model the remainder that would otherwise be handled manually, and always keep a human to review disputed matches.
This setup pays off once you have several thousand items or more; with a small reference list, manual review is faster.
Yazaki Volga To avoid losing ERP access after SAP left the country, the company moved to 1C:ERP. This: - accelerated report creation; - improved cost accounting; - reduced errors by 65%; - increased inventory turnover and traceability; - increased data access speed by 90%. Tablogix Holding The company migrated from SAP to 1C:ERP in line with CIS requirements.
This made it possible to: - scale operations; - automate accounting; - improve supplier interactions and procurement management; - integrate a treasury management system.
When choosing a contractor, consider the following criteria. Experience and Expertise - ERP implementation experience on projects of comparable scale and in the same industry. - Case studies of migration from SAP to 1C - rare but valuable experience. - Certifications: 1C:Franchisee status, accreditations in industry solutions. Team and Competencies - Analysts familiar with SAP processes to correctly interpret the data model and business logic. - Experienced 1C consultants for setup and customization. - System integrators and architects to build a unified IT architecture and integrations with other systems. Implementation Methodology - Using a step-by-step methodology. - Having experience Agile- approach or Waterfall if the project is more formalized. - Readiness for a phased transition. Data Migration Approach - Practice of migrating data - master data, transactions, and historical data - from SAP. - Availability of migration tools and scripts to minimize manual work. - Quality guarantees: testing, report reconciliation, "dual accounting" during the transition phase. Cost and Pricing Transparency - A clear estimate structure: licenses, customization, integrations, support, training. - Pricing models: fixed price per phase or specialist hourly rates. Post-Implementation Support - Support terms: response time, communication channels, accountability. - A dedicated support team. - Experience developing the system after go-live: BI, mobile apps, integrations with marketplaces. Reputation and Reviews - References from clients in a similar industry. - Ranking in 1C:Franchisee or industry associations. - Public feedback: portfolio, media mentions, or professional communities.
Migrating from SAP to 1C is an effective and cost-efficient solution for companies that need an ERP system better suited to local needs. For a smooth and successful transition, companies need to choose the right approach, tailor the system to specific requirements, and work with experienced specialists.
What exactly to ask the contractor about scope, timelines, and post-delivery dependency is outlined in the description 1C:ERP implementation.
