Case Study
Modernizing core systems for secure, statewide operations
Supporting public safety and rehabilitation at scale
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) operates one of the largest and most complex correctional systems in the United States, supporting rehabilitative and restorative justice programs across dozens of facilities statewide. With responsibility for sensitive data and mission-critical operations, CDCR requires systems that are secure, stable, and capable of supporting modern workflows at scale.
Today, approximately 8,000 CDCR employees rely on SAP systems to manage critical operational functions, including finance and budgeting, procurement, grants management, project and program tracking, human capital management, payroll, and enterprise analytics.
Preparing for a stable, controlled migration
As CDCR prepared to modernize its enterprise systems, the department faced significant challenges within its legacy environment. These included data quality issues, orphaned and archived records, unused add-ons, defects in migration tools, and system environments that were not properly sized.
Left unaddressed, these issues posed a risk to migration stability and long-term system performance – creating barriers to modernization and limiting CDCR’s ability to move forward in a controlled manner.
At the same time, CDCR faced a critical milestone: without successfully moving to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, the department risked reverting to legacy homegrown systems that would lack the modern capabilities and security required to support its mission.
A secure path to SAP S/4HANA
CDCR partnered with SAP NS2 to support its transition from its on-premises legacy SAP ECC system to RISE with SAP S/4HANA – a cloud-based ERP offering that combines SAP’s next-generation S/4HANA platform with managed infrastructure and services to simplify and accelerate enterprise modernization.
Given the sensitive nature of CDCR’s data and strict state security requirements, SAP NS2’s U.S.-based environment, vetted personnel, and robust security controls were essential enablers of the migration.
The migration was completed in approximately one year. To help accelerate the effort, SAP NS2 deployed an additional migration server, enabling parallel migration activities for both SAP S/4HANA and governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) systems.
By moving to SAP NS2’s secure cloud environment, CDCR also realized an estimated $3 million in annual cost savings compared to maintaining its previous environment.
Immediate performance and usability gains
Following the migration, CDCR users experienced immediate improvements in system performance and usability:
- A more intuitive user interface
- Ability to run reports almost instantly
- Real-time processing for tasks that previously required background jobs
These improvements have enhanced daily efficiency for users while providing CDCR with a more stable, modern foundation for future innovation.
End users across the organization report that the new system is significantly faster and easier to use than the legacy platform, enabling staff to access information more quickly and complete key processes with greater efficiency.
CDCR’s transformation by the numbers:
8,000
users supported
1-year
migration timeline
$3M
annual savings
Immediate
performance gains
“The migration delivered immediate improvements. The user interface is more intuitive, reports run almost instantly, and overall system performance is noticeably better.”
