S/4 needs time and arguments

In the future, anyone who wants to complete the digital transformation in the factory will need an IT landscape in which applications are networked and run automatically and data can be provided in real time.

The digital core S/4 Hana in combination with the in-memory database Hana enables an end-to-end and sustainable business transformation. S/4 Hana is available on-premise or in the cloud.

According to the SAP consulting company Phoron, SAP is cutting a few braids with S/4 Hana and is bringing existing processes to a new future-proof version both via the database in the background and from the user interface.

SAP users benefit from the new Fiori interfaces, which are much more intuitive to use than the SAP GUI, the graphical user interface of a current ERP SAP system.

The Hana database itself provides customers with a platform that offers additional benefits in terms of performance-intensive calculations and analyses, e.g. as a basis for SAP predictive analytics, SAP data mining and SAP Hana data warehousing.

However, according to the DSAG Innovation Study 2016, reactions to SAP's new solution are rather restrained. DACH SMEs are acting hesitantly and investing mainly in rollout and consolidation projects. Only five percent of companies see S/4 Hana as the focus of their main investment.

Clarification required

"The strengths of the new business suite require customers to migrate existing systems and adapt processes where necessary"

says Wolfgang Mayer, Managing Consultant at Phoron.

"The partial change of the data model may also require adjustments to customer-specific programs and interfaces. Hana places different, usually higher demands on the system landscape than a normal database.

In this respect, there are some points that need to add significant value in the course of an ROI calculation before embarking on such a project."

For some customers, working in the cloud, such as transferring or accessing data, comes with an uneasy gut feeling, he said:

"The most important thing is to prepare the extensive information and keywords available on the part of SAP in a way that customers can understand.

For example, we explain to our customers the differences between Suite on AnyDB, Suite on Hana' Suite on Hana including S/4 Hana Finance and S/4 Hana. We show where the advantages and risks lie."

To make S/4 Hana more palatable to customers, it could also be an advantage if SAP opens up to other databases. This has been a contentious issue so far.

For SAP, the advantage of having only one DB is that it is possible to focus precisely on optimizing this platform, thus increasing the number of innovations or revised processes.

"Broad support for multiple databases inevitably increases the development effort for the corresponding database interface. However, existing customers in particular need more time here."

says Mayer.

"An ERP system version change is a major project that ties up a lot of resources (business and IT) and incurs high costs, both internally and externally.

The mere argument 'We can do more with this in the future' is not enough.

The specialist area can only be convinced by concrete solutions for concrete problems. The greater the pressure to suffer, the greater the willingness to deal with new products."

Not a hair-pulling action

Basically, an SAP consulting house should communicate to its customers what is and what is not possible for the company with the SAP Hana cloud platform.

The Hana Cloud platform offers various functions such as the development of standalone applications, but also the outsourcing of services (mobile services, Adobe Document Services).

In principle, Mayer recommends a step-by-step migration to keep project risks low and to use the respective innovations in stages.

When it comes to SAP's new Business Suite, most SAP users are still gathering information.

In order to drive the topic forward with existing customers, SAP partners are in demand on the one hand, who should develop deployment scenarios for different industries and their challenges.

On the other hand, SAP is being asked what arguments it can still use to reach users.

Up to now, S/4 Hana has been advertised with an enormous increase in speed - this argument is not sufficient for many existing customers to switch to S/4 Hana, especially if they do not have any performance problems. Concrete solutions to existing problems are required to convince the business department.