Back to the Future with Hana

Covid-19 not only has negative effects due to various combat fatigue, but also on "Hana minds". Possibly also the circumstances of home office invite some SAP customers to question again the meaning of life with the S/4 transformation. In the process, some discussions lead back to the origin, which in retrospect also recall interesting thoughts.

Once upon a time Hana

Hasso Plattner's technical vision was to solve the massive performance losses of reading and writing data carriers. His revolutionary approach of vertical data structure, data storage in RAM and the simultaneous massive increase in CPU capacities, has led to the legendary in-memory technology.

This also triggered the Hana transformation at SAP about seven years ago. Today, the reason at the time is hardly known. The original target group was actually only Big Data customers, who could achieve massive performance improvements through in-memory technology and thus implement some business strategies more successfully.

All other customers went along with the euphoria and developing momentum. SAP quickly recognized this and retained the remaining customers with the new developments under S/4 technology and the general IT strategy in the direction of the cloud.

In retrospect, customers are questioning which of the originally planned approaches and strategies could actually be successfully implemented with Hana technology to date. At the same time, due to the protracted technology change, there is at least some uncertainty about the future strategic direction. Three topics in particular have emerged.

The first issue relates to performance with the questions: Do we even belong to the target group with the critical amount of data and do we have areas where performance has any negative impact on the business at all? Where do faster evaluations really bring business advantages?

The second question concerns the new development of applications and processes under S/4 technology: Do we really need these new developments, and what benefits do they bring? Many new Fiori developments with UX and UI may be "nicer usability" for users and mobile usable, but purely economic benefits are hardly measurable.

The standard processes changed by the newly developed S/4 applications do not always have advantages. The company-specific approach has not changed: Do you adapt the company's processes to the standard software or do you create your own developments for the specific company processes? In doing so, possible business benefits must be economically contrasted with the additional costs. Whereby technological advances such as AI, algorithms and similar developments are out of the question if necessary.

The cloud as a third topic occupies many customers. The topic is extremely broad. It starts with the corporate culture and goes through IT strategy, security and costs to the business benefits.

Crisis thoughts must be overcome quickly. Looking back is important, but one should still face reality and turn to the future. The ongoing IT technology change and transformation are well advanced in many areas and can no longer be stopped.

But it definitely makes sense to take the refreshed topics with you and not lose sight of how to ensure the expected business successes in the ongoing S/4 Hana transformation process.