SAP has announced the next update for the SAP® Business Suite 4 SAP HANA® (SAP S/4HANA) suite, on-premise and cloud editions. As part of its road map to help customers across industries and regions drive their digital transformation with the next-generation business suite, SAP will deliver a massive wave of simplification and innovation covering the mission-critical business processes across lines of business such as finance, sales, service, marketing, commerce, procurement and sourcing, manufacturing, supply chain, asset management, research and development, and human resources. Additionally, enterprises can now drive end-to-end digitized operations across their key business functions with the SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management solution. The announcement was made at SAP TechEd, being held November 10–12 in Barcelona.
SAP S/4HANA solutions for lines of business combine the digitized core capabilities included in SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management with the on-premise and cloud solutions in the SAP portfolio for each line of business – such as SAP Cash Management application in finance; SAP SuccessFactors® solutions in human resources; the Ariba® Network in procurement, and SAP hybrid solutions in marketing and commerce.
“We worked closely with our customers that now evolve in the digital economy to identify where digitized operations can provide the most value,” said Bernd Leukert, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, Products & Innovation. “The result is a completely reimagined core, making SAP S/4HANA the first digital core for digital business in the industry. With this delivery, enterprises can drive unprecedented business value with innovative use cases in core financial and operational areas such as logistics to take full advantage of simplified data models and a responsive user experience.”
Key simplifications and innovations include:
Optimized working capital with new accounts payable and receivable cockpits
Decreased stock buffers with a simplified data model in inventory management for real-time, high-volume processing
Increased visibility with real-time insight into stock and material flow
Reduced manufacturing cycle time with streamlined material flow for internal requirements and material requirements planning
Augmented reactivity with real-time monitoring of production orders for flow and critical issues
Improved operational decisions with easier simulation of supply alternatives
Lower procurement costs with standard integration to the Ariba Network
Better customer service with a new sales order fulfillment cockpit to help identify bottlenecks and issues instantly.
“As an early adopter of SAP HANA, we have recognized the business benefits of an in-memory platform,” said Hiroshi Terada, general manager of Nomura Research Institute Ltd. (NRI), a Japanese IT consulting and solution provider. “Now with the expanded scope of SAP S/4HANA, we are looking forward to simplifying our subsidiary’s business processes in finance, sales, supply chain and beyond. With the intuitive SAP Fiori user experience, SAP S/4HANA will have a positive impact on the digital transformation for our group company and our customers.”
SAP S/4HANA, the First Digital Core for Digital Business
SAP S/4HANA represents a digital core of the 21st century. Built on the advanced SAP HANA platform and designed with the modern SAP Fiori® user experience, the new suite helps to drive instant business insight across industries, business functions and roles. Enterprises can go beyond traditional transactions and drive end-to-end digitized processes based on a single source of information from planning, execution and prediction to simulation and analysis, all in real time with one system. This digital core is an essential element of SAP’s digital business framework for customers because it represents a pivotal solution that connects the digital value chain in real time: workforce engagement, assets and the Internet of Things, supplier collaboration and business networks, customer engagement and omnichannel experience.
The market momentum has been record-breaking since the launch of SAP S/4HANA in February 2015. SAP S/4HANA has already become SAP’s fastest-growing product, with more than 1,300 customers in only 8 months.
SAP Activate, the Direct Route to SAP S/4HANA
SAP Activate is the innovation adoption framework that expedites implementations of SAP S/4HANA throughout the customer lifecycle. It offers ready-to-run digitized business processes optimized for SAP S/4HANA and comes with reference solutions in the cloud. SAP Activate is integrated with SAP S/4HANA and begins with a free trial of SAP S/4HANA. Customers can expect accelerated time to value, lower total cost of ownership, and a continuous way to innovate and improve upon their initial implementation.
SAP Activate has been designed as a consistent, guided approach for deployment modes based on best practices, whether on premise, in the cloud or hybrid. It includes guided configuration, a tool for content lifecycle management, and next-generation methodology. It provides a path to help simplify customers’ move to SAP S/4HANA. SAP Activate is also designed to amplify the innovations of SAP partners and allows them to extend and enhance their own specialized industry or line-of-business expertise.
A Partner Ecosystem Ready to Help Customers
SAP partners currently manage more than 80 percent of all projects focused on SAP S/4HANA and continue to play a major role in selling the software and helping customers plan, run and optimize implementation and digital transformation projects. With more than 1,000 reseller firms selling SAP S/4HANA — and those numbers are increasing — SAP partners play a strategic role and are fully enabled to engage customers, ranging from the small and midsize business markets to large enterprises and net-new customers globally.
Breakthrough Digital Approach Using Data from SAP S/4HANA Now Available
SAP Digital Boardroom utilizes line-of-business data from the SAP S/4HANA suite and SAP HANA Cloud Platform to provide a single source of truth about a company’s critical business metrics. Built on the SAP Cloud for Analytics solution, SAP Digital Boardroom contextualizes and simplifies performance management across businesses in real time. This approach can help companies monitor and drive change in the digital economy.
To find out more about SAP Cloud for Analytics and SAP Digital Boardroom, which are now both generally available, visit the SAP Cloud for Analytics website.
For more information, visit the SAP S/4HANA website