In practice, fit-to-standard means demonstrating a standard SAP process to the people who actually perform the work, validating whether it supports the intended business outcome, collecting configuration values, and recording any justified delta as a requirement. The default question is not “How do we rebuild the old process?” but “Can the business adopt the standard, and if not, what specific requirement remains?”
What happens in the workshop
SAP Learning describes Fit-to-Standard workshops as a central Explore-phase activity. Configuration experts demonstrate scoped standard processes, customer line-of-business experts validate them against day-to-day work, and requirements are documented when the standard process does not fully satisfy a business-critical need. The result feeds configuration and backlog decisions for the Realize phase.
Fit does not mean “identical to today”
A standard process can be a fit even if users need to change how they work. The test is whether the standard supports the required business outcome, compliance obligation and operational control. Existing customizations should not automatically become future requirements. Conversely, a true statutory, integration or business-critical need should not be dismissed just to protect the standard.
What should be captured
Capture configuration values, unresolved questions, approved requirements, dependencies and owners. Requirements should be specific enough to explain the missing outcome and why it matters. SAP Cloud ALM requirements are commonly collected from Fit-to-Standard workshops, which helps keep the requirement connected to the relevant solution process.
How this differs from fit-gap analysis
Fit-to-standard is the workshop approach and operating mindset. Fit-gap analysis is the classification and decision work around where needs align or do not align. They overlap, but the first focuses on validating standard through demonstration; the second focuses on evaluating and resolving deltas. See also how process design workshops work.