Imagine a world where organizations become “intelligent enterprises”.
All business information is digitized and integrated into an “intelligent platform”, and interconnected with all their business systems, enabling employees, vendors, partners to have access to a single source of truth.
Imagine that “intelligent technologies” like AI/ML, Blockchain, IoT, are harnessed to update the platform with real-time business data from a host of connected devices, websites and social media data, and data from other IT systems. This data is available on the Cloud and is constantly processed and analyzed in real-time to generate actionable insights that can be used for making business decisions.
This is the vision with which the SAP launched S/4 HANA – an intelligent enterprise resource planning application or ERP. SAP wanted to create an ERP to empower organizations to make data-based decisions that are smarter, faster, and better. This, in turn, helps organizations to improve their products and services, develop new processes, and create new business models.
SAP’s vision of the “intelligent enterprise” comprised of three key components:
- An intelligent suite of integrated business applications
- An intelligent digital platform that manages data, integrates it and makes it available using the Cloud
- Intelligent technologies like IoT, AI/ML, Blockchain, Big Data Analytics that can provide unprecedented speed, real-time information, and valuable business insights.
Let us understand S/4 HANA with this perspective in mind.
An overview of S/4 HANA
Ever wondered how the product came to be named as S/4 HANA? Here’s an interesting tidbit of information! The “S” in S/4 Hana is either an acronym for “Simple”, or may simply stand for SAPs legacy products. The “4” was added to indicate that this is a fourth-generation business suite. “HANA”, of course, refers to SAP HANA, which forms the foundation on which it is built.
S/4 HANA is, therefore, an intelligent, integrated, next-generation platform that helps businesses maintain an accelerated pace to meet the dynamic market scenarios. It is not technically a successive version of any previous product from the SAP stable and can be considered as a new product from SAP. It streamlines and simplifies business processes to provide agility and flexibility to businesses and improve their performance.
Built on SAP HANA, an advanced in-memory platform, S/4 HANA offers a robust digital core for businesses to operate on. HANA enables real-time data analytics and forecasting. It speeds up batch processing and enables the system to handle large volumes of data.
SAP Fiori functions as the front-end UI for S/4 HANA. It brings in a high degree of personalization and the best-in-class UX (user experience) that is highly intuitive.
S/4 HANA can be used from any location or any device, even if business users are on the move, working remotely, or working at off-site client locations. They are connected to the system and can access all business data in real-time, whether it is sales or transactional data, customer records, business documents, and operational reports. This is a game-changer as it allows for the remote, fully digitized, and cloud-based processes and workflows that will be the “new normal” in the post-pandemic era. It effectively eliminates any limitations posed by an employee’s location or device.
Simplifications in S/4 HANA
S/4 HANA holds true to SAP’s tagline “Run Simple”. One of the main characteristic features of S/4 HANA is the simplifications it has introduced compared to legacy SAP products as well as to the traditional ERP systems in the market.
SAP has re-architected its legacy solutions to eliminate the complexities associated with ERP databases.
The newly formed simplified digital core of S/4 HANA delivers ground-breaking speed, agility with access to real-time business data with the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Here’s an example of the typical simplifications introduced by S/4 HANA:
- The traditional ERP Materials Management module enabled specific transactions to execute business functions like Purchase Order, Purchase Requisition, Supplier Invoice. With SAP S/4 HANA, transactions that are redundant functions are removed and replaced with new, improved, and intelligent processes.
- Traditional SAP ERP provided SAP SRM MDM Catalog for catalog search to add items in shopping carts. With S/4 HANA, these MDM catalogs are replaced by a Catalog search function in the S/4 HANA Self Service Procurement component.
S/4 HANA harnesses intelligent technologies
S/4HANA is designed to simplify and reduce the number of tables and functions across several modules. This simplification has provided many benefits to the ERP functionality and has truly made S/4 HANA an intelligent ERP.
A simplified data model is required for harnessing intelligent technologies, like AI/ML, IoT, Big Data Analytics, Blockchain, and RPA.
Since S/4 HANA uses machine learning algorithms, the traditional database models cannot scale up and sustain performance levels required to run AI simulations and to train ML algorithms.
S/4 HANA provides an end-to-end experience that is faster to implement, can be consumed almost immediately by users, and can also be adapted to the specific needs of the enterprise. It has an open architecture to allow connectivity and the use of third-party micro-services. It uses cutting edge conversational UI and natural language processing to enhance usability. It brings in high levels of automation, using intelligent, predictive tools based on ML learning of patterns and trends in data.
In conclusion
In today’s time and the foreseeable near future, the digital economy will demand businesses to be “Live”. Real-time information, mobile-first strategies, all will require high computational speed and efficiency and a single source of truth.
S/4 HANA is the result of SAP’s vision to enable intelligent enterprises. SAP has redesigned its business suite to create a new solution that addresses the need for a strong foundational digital core to take advantage of emerging technologies and keep up the pace of operations and decision-making.
At Sapours, we enable businesses to take the leap to S/4 Hana and reap the benefits of AI, RPA, and real-time analytic.
We are helping businesses with new implementations of this Intelligent ERP, system conversion to S/4 HANA, as well as landscape transformation services to help you migrate to S/4 HANA.
Want to discover how we can help you transition to SAP S/4 HANA? Schedule a free consultation call with us today.
Author Details –
Pravin Malve.
Delivery Lead S4 HANA
Experienced Lead Consultant with a demonstrated history of working in the information technology and Service Industry. Skilled Business Process, SAP Production planning, Quality Management, SAP implementation, HANA implementation, Requirements Analysis and Pre-sales.
