Your SAP S/4HANA system is live. The implementation team is celebrating. But on the procurement floor, things are already starting to unravel. POs are getting stuck in approval loops. Users can't find basic transactions. The help desk queue is growing by the hour.
After supporting dozens of enterprise go-lives, I've seen the same mistakes repeated across industries. Here are the five most critical — and what successful organizations do differently.
Mistake #1: Generic Training That Doesn't Match Your Configuration
The most common mistake is training teams on standard SAP scenarios that don't reflect your actual system. Your approval workflows, custom fields, output types, and pricing procedures are unique to your organization. Generic training creates a dangerous gap between what users learn and what they encounter on day one.
When a requisitioner logs into your system and the screens don't match what they practiced, confidence evaporates instantly. Every unfamiliar field becomes a support ticket.
What to do instead: Insist that all training materials use screenshots, scenarios, and exercises from your actual configured system — or at minimum, a sandbox that mirrors production.
Mistake #2: No Hands-On Practice Before Go-Live
Slide decks and recorded demos feel efficient. They cover a lot of material fast. But watching someone process a goods receipt is completely different from doing it yourself under the pressure of a real deadline.
Teams that only receive passive training (watching, listening, reading) struggle to execute when it matters. They hesitate. They second-guess. They call the help desk for tasks they technically "learned" last week.
What to do instead: Build hands-on practice sessions into your training plan. Let users create real POs, process goods receipts, and verify invoices in a sandbox environment. Muscle memory beats memorization every time.
Mistake #3: Missing Post-Go-Live Support
Training typically ends a few days before go-live. Then the training team moves on to the next project, and your users are left on their own. The first week after cutover is when questions are highest and confidence is lowest.
Without dedicated floor support or office hours, users develop workarounds. Some are harmless. Others create data quality issues that compound over months — wrong cost centers, skipped approval steps, manual processes that bypass the system entirely.
What to do instead: Plan for at least 2-4 weeks of hypercare support post-go-live. Floor walkers, dedicated office hours, and a rapid-response channel for common questions can prevent bad habits from forming.
Mistake #4: Treating All Users the Same
A requisitioner who creates 3 purchase requests per month has very different training needs than a buyer who processes 50 POs per day. Yet most training programs deliver the same content to everyone, covering everything at the same depth.
The result: casual users are overwhelmed by complexity they'll never need, while power users don't get deep enough into the advanced workflows that define their daily work.
What to do instead: Develop role-based training tracks. Requisitioners need a focused, streamlined path. Buyers need deep-dive sessions on PO management, vendor interaction, and reporting. Approvers may only need a 30-minute mobile walkthrough.
Mistake #5: No Super-User Program
Super-users are your first line of defense after go-live. They're the colleagues who can answer "how do I..." questions before someone opens a help desk ticket. Without a formal super-user program, this knowledge stays concentrated in the implementation team — who are usually moving on.
Organizations that invest in super-user training see faster adoption, fewer escalations, and a built-in knowledge transfer mechanism that outlasts any consulting engagement.
What to do instead: Identify 1-2 super-users per department. Give them deeper training, access to documentation, and a direct line to the support team. Empower them to train future hires — this is how sustainable adoption works.
The Common Thread
Every mistake above shares a root cause: treating training as a checkbox instead of a strategic investment. Your ERP implementation might cost millions. The training that determines whether your team can actually USE the system? That's where the ROI lives.
The organizations that get go-live right aren't the ones with the fanciest systems. They're the ones whose teams can execute confidently and independently from day one.