Sustainability with S/4 Sweetspot

However, sustainability can also be applied to practicability in economic and organizational terms. For this reason, the focus is shifting to the economic sustainability of IT investments. It influences the basis of cloud economics and therefore requires a careful evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of on-premises IT compared to public cloud and hybrid environments. It is crucial to find the right balance and avoid oversizing.

The migration to S/4 is an example of this. It offers a wide range of opportunities for sustainable implementation. Recently, companies across a wide range of industries have begun to evaluate the benefits of using transactional data together with contemporaneous experience data to develop a sustainable approach to their business. Thanks to artificial intelligence, data polarization is making great strides and providing companies with relevant, real-time insights that are instrumental in reducing their carbon footprint.

IT professionals are in favor of this benefit for the environment - in addition to other advantages that SAP data brings. But not at any price. The dilemma is usually how to take advantage of all the new innovative data solutions in a business-consistent approach while building a cost-effective new structure based on real facts and analytics. Otherwise, companies quickly realize that the associated costs are not sustainable in the long run.

The trade-off between the two types of sustainability also applies to something that is seemingly cost-driven and efficient, such as the S/4 Hana sweet spot of public cloud adoption. The economics of the public cloud are widely taken for granted. Adoption continues to grow as more organizations look to modernize their IT environments, reduce operational costs and improve sustainability. The consumption-based approach helps reduce costs by avoiding over-provisioning without the excess of a static budget.

However, many companies are realizing that there are situations where on-prem infrastructure can be more economical than moving to the cloud. For example, by switching to pay-per-use for data storage with Fujitsu uSCALE, the German city of Ludwigshafen is paying a lump sum to protect the data it stores. Previously, the calculation of the required data capacity was based on estimates, which meant that the city of Ludwigshafen had to pay extra for unused capacity. The pay-per-use solution provides a valuable safety net. 

According to a recent report by TechRepublic, 82 percent of IT leaders say they have adopted a hybrid approach consisting of public cloud services and privately operated hardware. Using a hybrid cloud helps them to estimate the required data flow of applications in a privately managed cloud. This is particularly helpful for future capacity forecasts and transparency towards users and other stakeholders. 

An objective workload analysis is an essential preparation for any investment decision that is to be sustainable in the long term - especially in view of the holistic meaning of the concept of sustainability.