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9 Most Frequently Asked Questions and Answers about SAP S/4HANA

SAP S/4HANA has swiftly become the largest and most popular ERP solutions in the world.

 

SAP S/4HANA is the fourth ERP package created by SAP; its innovative design contrasts rather well with the standard interaction database. It is an in-memory platform with column-save data, making quick real-time diagnostics and computational capacities.

 

As SAP S/4HANA is gaining more popularity, people are getting curious about it, and hence several questions arise about the working and benefits of this innovative platform. In this post, I have listed the top nine questions I get regarding SAP S/4HANA, and have answered them for you.

 

Let’s take a look!

 

1 What Is the Commercial Advantage of SAP S/4HANA?

SAP S/4HANA is an altogether revolutionary business suite with simplified, tremendously efficient, and enticing functionalities.

 

Accely's SAP S/4HANA overview indicates the platform’s move beyond the transactional processes toward gathering data. It edges towards a more innovative approach to provide dynamic decision guidance for business users in real-time, depending on data sourced from various platforms.

 

Businesses can currently calculate financial models by using TCO savings and enhancements on the SAP HANA Business Suite. These computations apply to the SAP S/4HANA platform as well.

 

However, SAP S/4HANA's features also provide additional advantages, such as the usage of innovative user interfaces, decreased size of data, better flexibility, and better performance level. For instance, financial institutions will benefit from highly productive integrated solutions and speedy financial closures more than others, leading to better profit margins.

 

 

Learn how SAP S/4HANA differs from other ERP solutions here.

 

2 How Much Time Does SAP S/4HANA Implementation Take?

It is quite difficult to generalize, of course, but we have concrete scientific results: 75% of businesses have moved their current SAP business models to SAP S/4HANA as their first move within six months after deciding to migrate to SAP S/4HANA.

 

Some big companies choose greenfield initiatives—taking SAP S/4HANA’s technological breakthroughs as a way to reinvent their ERP ecosystem from the roots up. Brownfield initiatives are also an effective option: customers leave their IT environment intact with this method, but use the latest tech to improve and strengthen it. Both these initiatives take at least a few years to complete the entire implementation process.

 

3 Does SAP Provide Software to Facilitate an SAP S/4HANA Migration?

SAP is quite keen to provide their customers with help in this regard. They provide an SAP Rapid Deployment software solution specifically to allow a fast and efficient migration to both the SAP HANA database and SAP S/4HANA Finance. Such preconfigured packages are supplied by SAP and sometimes allow fixed-pricing deployments.

 

4 What Expertise Do Potential Implementation Partners Possess?

Naturally, integration providers strive to offer speedy and efficient implementation options. SAP service partners have extensive expertise in the implementation of the SAP Business Suite and, now, SAP S/4HANA. More than 60% of deployment operations are carried out by partners and integration partners rather than SAP.

 

To instruct and educate implementation partners about the latest software and solutions, SAP conducts regular programs for partners. The SAP Global Partner Organization (GPO) often organizes "Enabling Sessions," where partners learn about new innovative technologies quickly and about the ways SAP S/4HANA might affect their operations.

 

 

5 What Are the Necessary Skill Sets for SAP S/4HANA?

In most instances, clients are not required to get stuck in project intricacies as it is the implementation partner who manages the majority of the implementation process. Additional information can be obtained through the SAP Community or the SAP PRESS Blog, which you’re currently reading. Implementation partners and SAP HANA clients can both refer to SAP Community for any needed information.

 

6 Can Business-Specific Personalization Be Migrated to SAP S/4HANA?

Yes, in theory. SAP took a special effort to guarantee that its solutions were "backward compliant." This means that following migration, users can maintain their existing modifications and keep on utilizing them.

 

This doesn’t necessarily mean major changes are needed. Let us consider a house analogy: if the owner has modified it to have a balcony, but then later, also had the structure of the house renovated, the house's functionality may get altered, while the balcony remains unaffected.

 

7 What Are the Specific Criteria for SAP S/4HANA Implementation?

The primary approach is to switch from your existing SAP ERP or SAP Business Suite on SAP HANA system to SAP S/4HANA, and then deploy packages and solutions with the needed features for streamlining your specific business procedures.

 

8 What Is a “System-Driven” SAP S/4HANA Implementation?

SAP S/4HANA is significantly simplified to allow clients to achieve immediate performance and reimbursement. It is especially essential and relevant in the cloud when clients want to implement a preconfigured system. Consequently, SAP delivers fully prepared business technology solutions that may be triggered using best practices.

 

SAP HANA automatically configures itself at the time of activation. The SAP S/4HANA automated configuration makes it easy to customize SAP operations. Straightforward SAP Fiori user interfaces can be employed within the application Manage Your Solution, which helps in keeping organizational design consistent, creating approval criteria, and configuring other settings.

 

9 What Is the Price of SAP S/4HANA? Do Clients That Have Deployed SAP Business Suite Need to Pay an Additional Fee?

For clients utilizing SAP Business Suite, SAP S/4HANA is a separate solution; therefore, it is not free of cost. SAP S/4HANA pricing is not defined on the SAP site at this time.

 

 

Conclusion

The basic advantages for customers employing ERP solutions are exceptionally great when transferring or shifting towards the SAP S/4HANA system. Naturally, there are several doubts that a client can have when they switch to SAP S/4HANA to enhance the overall system productivity and boost efficiency.

 

I hope that the answers provided above might help you clear up some of your questions about SAP S/4HANA. If you have any more questions about SAP S/4HANA apart from the ones listed above, let me know about them in the comments below. And, I will try my best to be of assistance.

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Eric Smith
by Eric Smith

Eric Smith is an SAP professional with 15+ years of experience in providing consulting for SAP solutions to his clients. With a knack for technology, he loves to write on the latest SAP developments and share his knowledge with readers.

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