What is SAP S/4HANA?
Your ERP solution for all business scenarios
S/4HANA is the latest IT solution from the pioneering enterprise resource planning (ERP) firm SAP. Running on an in-memory database, this intelligent and integrated system allows you to develop high quality business cases with access to real-time information across your business.
As a future-ready ERP system with built-in intelligent technologies, including AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics. Leveraging the Cloud Editon can deliver the latest industry best practices and innovations into your integrated business functions.
Hosting S/4HANA - What Are Your Options?
As a ready-to-run public cloud ERP system, SAP S/4HANA delivers the latest industry best practices and continuous innovation for finance and procurement. This preconfigured solution allows you to connect your disparate business assets efficiently, swiftly, and affordably without adding extraneous complexity. Customers can quickly troubleshoot potential issues because of the preinstalled Software as a Service (SaaS) functionality. What’s more, options for ongoing support with a partner are readily available should that better suit your business case. This edition was built to allow a broad range of customers to get the most out of their cloud ERP owing to its simplified UI and agile software. Accordingly, this makes SAP S/4HANA an ideal choice for engaging workforces.
The Public Cloud Edition can come as part of a GROW package, an offering from SAP that helps small to midsize enterprises (SMEs) use cloud ERP in an efficient and user-friendly way. Deployment is quick and flexible due to its utilisation of AI and best practices, allowing customers to enjoy the benefits of a cloud-native ERP solution. It also allows customers to integrate and customise their apps and processes with SAP BTP and SAP S/4HANA Cloud.
A cloud ERP solution that adapts to your needs and protects your SAP ERP investment. It supports SAP S/4HANA software with 25 industry processes, though some features may be limited. Furthermore, you can use RISE with SAP to move to the cloud quickly and get extensive ERP functionality. This edition lets you extend and modify your system with biennial SAP upgrades.
On-Premise
This is a self-hosted ERP solution with full functionality, real-time analytics, and financial accuracy. Therefore, it integrates with SAP marketing, collaboration, and network tools and supports service management. Microsoft Azure can host this solution, hence allowing for solid infrastructure, connectivity, VMs, storage, and event integration.
Your SAP S/4HANA implementation: Your 7 path Options
Every journey to SAP S/4HANA is unique. Every organisation has different transformation goals, challenges, system background and business situation. So why should you be limited to only two migration path options – Brownfield or Greenfield?
With CeleRITE, we offer 7 paths to S/4HANA to specifically address your priorities and business scenario.
Brownfield
Full Reuse of your ECC
1. Clean & Start
ECC simplification followed by S/4HANA conversion
2. Jumpstart
S/4HANA conversion followed by S/4HANA simplification
Selective Transition
Mix and Match
3. Hybrid
Selective migration to S/4HANA for certain areas and new implementation for other areas
4. Consolidate
Selective migration from ECC to an existing S/4HANA environment
5. Carve Out
Extract and migrate to a new S/4HANA environment
Greenfield
Full Redesign
6. Fit to Business
Launch a new S/4HANA environment and selectively transfer key custom objects from ECC
7. Fit to Standard
Implement a new S/4HANA system focusing on standard SAP processes
With CeIeRITE we address all transformation scenarios including ECC to S/4HANA migration, Mergers & Acquisitions, Cloud Migrations and Divestments & Landscape consolidations.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are S/4HANA's additional functionalities apart from finance and procurement?
Whilst SAP S/4HANA is designed to tackle a business’ finance and procurement needs out of the box, additional functionalities can be configured by installing other specialised modules. These modules collectively cover a broad suite of business cases including data analytics, HR & payroll, and oil and gas logistics among others. Whilst an implementation of any of these modules individually is technically possible, setting them up as part of a larger S/4HANA project will allow users to leverage their full capabilities.
What are the differences between SAP ECC and S/4HANA?
Like with any system upgrade, SAP have nipped and tucked various functionalities as well as adding and removing some. The main difference between the SAP ECC and S/4HANA is the type of database they use. ECC (also known as SAP ERP 6.0) can operate on any database, including third-party and, more recently, HANA. On the other hand, S/4HANA runs only on the HANA database, which is an in-memory database developed and tuned by SAP for faster performance and real-time reporting.
S/4HANA presents a simplified UI for SAP Fiori, which is different from the classical SAP GUI UI in ECC. This not only makes some value propositions of SAP S/4HANA very tangible but also offers end users an impression of the new user experience.
Please note that the transition from SAP ERP 6.0 to SAP S/4HANA is a significant undertaking that involves changes to business processes, data migration, and potential re-training for some end users. Whilst there are undoubtedly transferable skills between the two versions, it’s still recommended to carefully plan this transition considering the specific needs and context of your organisation as well the fast approaching 2025 deadline.
Are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) making the move to S/4HANA?
SAP has built S/4HANA with SMEs in mind, meaning the solution is well-equipped for their unique business needs. In fact, SAP estimates that 80% of their current user base are SMEs.
Despite the software’s handiness for SMEs, S/4HANA is fully up to the task for larger organisations too.
How does AI play into S/4HANA?
S/4HANA uses AI to enhance business processes, analyse data, and give predictive insights. SAP hopes to further consolidate this AI functionality in 2024 with the introduction of Joule, an AI assistant integrated into SAP’s cloud-based platforms that aims to provide various business solutions via generative AI that is relevant, reliable, and responsible. The assistant can analyse data from SAP and third-party sources to provide critical business insights from across different domains, such as HR, finance, supply chain, procurement, and customer experience.
SAP Joule is already available in SuccessFactors, and will be deployed across the rest of S/4HANA throughout 2024.
When is the current implementation deadline?
The date of which SAP will end Maintenance for SAP ERP customers has always been driven by the deadline for conversion.
In February 2020, SAP announced an extension of mainstream maintenance for ERP 6.0 customers on EHP 6, 7 and 8.
Maintenance for these customers has been extended up until the end of 2027, with further extended maintenance options through to 2030.
We advise you to start building your business case for S/4HANA as the industry is gearing up for this shift. Absoft is well-versed in S/4HANA migrations and our teams have the skills, knowledge and track record. Speak to our S/4HANA migration experts to review your options and journey.
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