SAP S/4 HANA: Direction in 2020

Denken Solutions, Inc. attended the “The SAP Innovation Day” held for SAP Partners on November 20, 2019. This blog will summarize some practical insights delivered in the event to each Line of Businesses (LoB). Intelligent Enterprise (IE) was one of the highlights this year. Mark Labedz, Global Head and Senior Director for S/4 HANA Product Marketing at SAP® addressed 3 key updates in the keynote.

Outline provided by SAP® on latest updates of S/4 HANA:

• The End of “Digital Core” and say hello to “SAP S/4 HANA”.
• S/4 HANA now includes a major chunk of Operations portfolio enhanced with ERP, Supply Chain, and Finance, So no longer a just backward ERP.

1. However, the exclusive core — ERP is available under the package of “SAP S/4 HANA Enterprise Management”.
2. While the Supply chain and Finance names are not impacted by this update.

• Positioning two options for S/4 HANA:

1. S/4 HANA: This is a conventional option and best recommended for Large Enterprise Companies with comprehensive/complex business processes (deployed in a customer-owned data center, on an IaaS provider, or HANA Enterprise Cloud).
2. S/4 HANA Cloud (inclusive of both single-tenant and multi-tenant): This option is packed with Industry-Standard capabilities as well as the cloud benefits that most of the companies look out for. (There is no real distinction between multi-tenant and single-tenant offerings.)

With SAP S/4 HANA real-time insights, companies can attain their transformation in today’s digital economy with ease.

Messaging for S/4 HANA:

Taking a look at the SAP’s overarching framework Intelligent Enterprise is crucial to understand S/4 HANA messaging. Here’s a look at its flow chart.

Intelligent enterprise flowchart includes,

Experience (X-Data): The X-Data enables ultimate customer and product experience with its improved ways by combining operations and data from user-experience.

Intelligence Enterprise (IE): IE is now blending Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics. New applications are developed using these technologies to decode the full power of your data with the SAP HANA in-memory database.

Operations (O-Data): Data, Procurement, Supply Chain, ERP, Finance, HR are all within the scope of Operation portfolio. It represents the intelligent suite which is the foundation of the intelligent enterprise.

In Intelligent Enterprise, Intelligence suite holds experience and operations together. This makes it possible for companies to adapt and stay-on-top of the ever-changing customer demands and markets.

This Intelligent Suite is constituted of 3 key elements.

1. Industry-Specific capabilities and processes.
2. Real-time insight at the point of decision.
3. State-of-the-art intelligent automation.

These 3 elements enable companies to understand, orchestrate and execute across a variety of business domains. Ultimate customer experience is ensured by utilizing Intelligent Enterprise.

SAP S/4 HANA Enterprise Management:

SAP’s next-generation Intelligent ERP is providing the means for companies to stand still. It is majorly composed of 3 pillars.

1. Navigate rapidly changing industries: SAP S/4 HANA made it easier for companies to deliver industries best practices by deducing decades of experience from its partners and leading companies in every industry thereby enabling companies to navigate rapidly changing industries. Transformative processes are put out to preserve customer needs like subscription, consumption-based billing, creating new highly personalized products and services with high flexible CPQ capabilities. Contract performance and profits can be monitored in real-time to make necessary amendments to attain maximum results.
2. Unlocking new levels of performance: Intelligent technologies like machine learning, intelligent robotic processes automation or natural language processing and interfaces are utilized to unlock new levels of performance across the organization. Faster and simplified decision making is made possible with these intelligent technologies as they automate AR/AP processes, replenish stocks, administer real-time predictive insights, and automate group-wide processes. Day to day, physical tasks is eliminated using automation business processes.
3. Deliver ultimate experience: Customers, Business partners, employees are delivered ultimate experience by companies using SAP S/4 HANA. Things like guiding the buying process with real-time product availability, optimizing your supply chain with live data from material requirements planning, and purchase requisitioning to keep your promises to the customer are made easier than before using SAP S/4 HANA enterprise management. Even delivery delays with intelligent remediation, all reporting requirements with forward-looking analytics, avoiding issues in real-time can be predicted and prevented. A new set of standards can be established by companies regarding service quality and reliability.

Conclusion:

With SAP S/4 HANA real-time insights, companies can attain their transformation in today’s digital economy with ease.