SAP S/4HANA Cloud Reviews

SAP S_4HANA Cloud is still used for ERP, so enterprise resource planning, and I would say the true core of SAP S_4HANA Cloud is truly the financial planning, the financial transactional accounting. Order to cash, purchase to pay, record to report. The core, I would say SAP S_4HANA Cloud is really used for the core financial transaction, also known as bookkeeping of a company. I think that is, has been, and I think also for the foreseeable time, will be the core in my opinion.

That was BDC. We have better analytics and Fiori which were great for operational reporting. Obviously for more advanced analysis, you would need the BDC, Business Data Cloud by S/4 sitting on top. Generally speaking, most commonly, there are hundreds of process-specific KPIs like cycle times and quality KPIs, but normally I would say a pretty standard across everything is measuring efficiency in terms of FTE, the number of people needed before and after the implementation. So are we able to do processes faster with more automation, meaning with less manual interruption, and that should translate into FTE gains and FTE savings.

On the cloud topics, I would say specifically with SAP S_4HANA Cloud, clients get the information SAP provides earlier than if you take the on-premises version. Second, obviously it offers great integration and automation possibilities. That is efficiency due to automation and integration via the SAP BTP platform with third-party solutions. I think that is really important, a seamless integration. And then obviously the cloud also offers you, depending on the service model, you don't have to do everything on your own. If you do a platform as a service or software as a service model, you have the ability to basically choose what kind of service you would need rather than hiring people on your own. I think that is also a key benefit compared to on-premises versions.

I think that is a given and a must-have. I would say Fiori technology and embedded analytics offer valuable integration. I think the Fiori integration and the embedded analytics integration offers, I think that is for operational reporting highly valuable. If you want to do reporting again, this is essential.

A lot of my clients are complaining about the SAP license policy. I think that is quite intransparent and obviously quite expensive. I think that is a usual complaint. And also the flexibility to shift between different products and getting some kind of credits. People perceive that as intransparent and also not really flexible. This is what I would say. And obviously, as the product is quite complex, it's not intuitive. But this is basically the business processes. I would say the business processes themselves are complex, so I think this is not a problem of the system, it's rather a problem of the business processes that are trying to be reflected in the system. It's not a disadvantage but just a perception clients often quote.

Everybody can improve. I think it depends on what kind of support package you have agreed with SAP. It depends, do you have premium service, do you have the basic support? Obviously, the basic support is lacking, but the SAP premium engagement, if you have chosen that one, then that's adequate. It's not, I would say it's not a great experience, but it's a good support. If you pay for it, you get what you need.

The cloud discussion was back in 2018, but that has been increasing and changing. I would say, what is it now, 2026? Seven years, eight years? If you include the predecessors, that makes sense.

Not on SAP S_4HANA Cloud. The old ECC has downtimes. For SAP S_4HANA Cloud, not at all. Usually SAP S_4HANA Cloud is really stable.

I think it depends on what kind of support package you have agreed with SAP. It depends, do you have premium service, do you have the basic support? Obviously, the basic support is lacking, but the SAP premium engagement, if you have chosen that one, then that's adequate. It's not, I would say it's not a great experience, but it's a good support. If you pay for it, you get what you need.

The support, I would say that's an eight. I would say the premium engagement support, that's an eight. Eight out of 10.

Positive

I think it's in my opinion, Oracle is so in Germany, mainly in Europe, SAP is the predominant tool. In the UK, United States, Oracle has a lot of installations for historical reasons. In my opinion, they are pretty much interchangeable, depending on the effort to shift from one tool to the other, which is higher than I would say the actual incremental benefit. I think there are details like business model, data model, and processes support, but let's not go into detail. I think both tools do their jobs.

Usually, you need to harmonize your business processes and you need to be aware of your requirements. So the deployment itself is easy, but the preparation work is time-consuming. Data migration, testing, preparation of your requirements, that is time-consuming.

I would say it's worth the price, but it's quite expensive, I would say. In absolute terms, it's expensive, but there is, I would say, I think there's no alternative on the market that has the same features and the same scalability and reliability. There's no other product if you're a large corporation. Except for Oracle, obviously. It's either SAP S_4HANA Cloud or Oracle, but you need to choose one. There's no way around it.

Out of the system, not per se. Obviously, if you have, normally you do an integrated system. If you have a new transformation, you integrate a lot of systems, and the more systems you have, obviously the easier to maintain. Obviously, SAP provides compliance by design. I think a lot of those processes already have compliance, both in authorizations, segregation of duty, etc. in mind. But this is not a specific feature I would see as a huge differentiator, I would say, but it's just a must-have, I would say.

I know the AWS Marketplace. Usually we do it directly via SAP, not via the Marketplace. But the reason is not that we don't need it. The reason is rather that usually the license is so huge for SAP S_4HANA Cloud, we're talking millions of euros, that you directly negotiate with SAP rather than going via a marketplace.

I would rate this review as a 9 overall.

I work with SAP S_4HANA Cloud solution.

We have experience with Cloud ERP as we are using SAP S_4HANA Cloud here in my current organization.

We are mainly using SAP S_4HANA Cloud for recording all our financial transactions, purchase orders, payroll processing, employee timesheets, and monitoring the project plans versus actuals; almost every activity related to my current company is recorded through SAP S_4HANA Cloud.

I found the integration feature of SAP S_4HANA Cloud the most valuable so far because prior to that, we used multiple systems that were not ERP; for finance to know procurement details, they had to log in to different systems; now it's all integrated, so finance can see anything, whether it's services or material procurement, which goes through procurement review and approval, enforcing that without a purchase order, there is no payment; this brought a lot of control to financial transactions and also provided visibility about revenues and profits against each business unit.

One metric used to evaluate the efficiency improvements provided by SAP S_4HANA Cloud in our operations is the significant reduction in queries from the external audit team, which earlier was around twenty to fifteen queries and is now reduced to maybe one fifth, roughly around five, thanks to everything being recorded in the system, which is a big plus for our efficiency.

From a procurement perspective, SAP S_4HANA Cloud's compliance features benefit our organization with a three-way matching system where we pay only for the quantities received; the approval and workflow processes are automated and quite well-mapped in the system, allowing us to maintain compliance for timesheets, purchase requisitions, and purchase orders.

The areas for improvement in SAP S_4HANA Cloud could be from the data storage perspective, as we are using it in a limited way and it could be a bit expensive if the data volume increases; that is one constraint, although the availability and management of the data center by SAP is really good compared to on-prem solutions.

I have been working with SAP S_4HANA Cloud for maybe three years now since 2000, but before that, we were on-prem.

We are using Microsoft Azure connectivity to connect to SAP S_4HANA Cloud system, and from an availability and stability perspective, it is quite stable, although we faced some connectivity problems with Azure a couple of times in the last three years, but they were either planned outages or manageable issues.

We are evaluating how scalable SAP S_4HANA Cloud has been; moving to the latest version poses not much of a challenge compared to on-prem upgrades, as SAP handles the technical areas, while we only take care of whatever customizations we have made; thus, from that perspective, it's quite easy for the customer compared to on-prem systems.

We communicate with SAP S_4HANA Cloud technical support occasionally, especially when using the 2018 version, where some capabilities were lacking on the project system; while we didn't face many problems with supply chain and finance, we have interacted a bit more in areas such as result analysis in the project system, and SAP is continuously improving the functionalities towards the current versions.

Based on my experience with the technical support, I would rate it between six and seven; it depends on the individual consultant's understanding of our nature of business, as sometimes we have great consultants while at other times, we encounter product consultants who lack business experience.

Neutral

Before choosing SAP S_4HANA Cloud, we evaluated three other options: Microsoft Dynamics, SAP S_4HANA, and Oracle Fusion, but the business selected SAP.

The analytical data from SAP S_4HANA Cloud really helps management; if any project is going beyond the planned revenue, it allows us to control and adjust the project cash flow and make decisions accordingly.

We are not using much of the AI features in SAP S_4HANA Cloud; we just use the standard analytics offered by Experana and do not have any other products at this point in time.

We are not using the data analysis capabilities of SAP S_4HANA Cloud to generate business insights based on our data; we are still exploring either SAP or Microsoft Power BI, so nothing is finalized in that area.

We are using standard analytic reports provided by SAP S_4HANA Cloud, but it is just a simple report; it does not give any storyboards or those kinds of detailed analyses.

I would rate SAP S_4HANA Cloud between five and six as from the cloud capability perspective, we are not using much insight due to additional licensing costs, so we see we still have a long way to go, especially from the data analysis perspective. My overall rating for this solution is 5 out of 10.

We are using SAP S_4HANA Cloud for a company that specializes in retail and fashion products. Because the company I am referring to is one of the top brands of retail and beauty products, SAP S_4HANA Cloud is used for their sales order, material management, logistics, pricing, promotion, and condition records.

Real-time integration is a prime feature of SAP S_4HANA Cloud. Data is available in real time, whereas in other cases, data used to come with a batch process. Any transaction happening at any end gets posted at the same time itself. We do not wait a whole day to run a batch and update this data in SAP S_4HANA Cloud.

SAP Cloud Analytics, which is their data analytics cloud product, has the capability of building dashboards and reports on the fly. Any management team can see what the daily sales are for that day, what the daily sales revenue they need to get is, and what the daily payment outstanding is. All these details are visible to them.

I do not have the details with me at this moment as it is very difficult to share. However, there are a lot of SAP forums where we have participated and provided inputs, especially in the retail sector, where a lot of improvement is required. We have shared those details, but I am not able to recollect those details on the fly.

Earlier, SAP S_4HANA Cloud was restricted to only cloud services of either Amazon or Microsoft. Now, a lot of cloud services are available. As a product, a lot of improvement is required in terms of performance, scalability, and customization, though it is very difficult to articulate those things in few words.

I have been using SAP S_4HANA Cloud for two years.

Scalability is good and they can scale. The only thing is that you have to have money to scale those things because it is very costly. When you have one tenant, it is good, but when you have multiple tenants, that needs to be bought out when the load of data is going high. However, scalability is not a problem at all.

I would rate customer service as seven out of ten. It is not ten out of ten.

A lot of factors are there depending on the situation. For example, during a month end close, when we raise a ticket, the ticket has to be attended based on priority and queue. If you are not getting a solution on support in time, then you will not be happy.

It is not the best, to be very honest, but they are maturing. It is right now six and a half or seven. There are a lot of improvements required, so it is not ten out of ten.

I have not changed from SAP HANA Cloud. This is the total SAP S_4HANA Cloud program and SAP HANA Cloud where I am working. I have not changed to any other SAP product or any other SAP application than SAP S_4HANA Cloud.

The initial setup process is generally handled by our basis team. They install SAP S_4HANA Cloud system, do the server sizing, and implement everything on the server. I do not have much knowledge over there, but there is a team who can implement SAP S_4HANA Cloud initial setups.

I am still with SAP because this is a long-term SAP S_4HANA Cloud implementation. I have not stepped into any other application as of now. If there is a new application there, I can update you. SAP S_4HANA Cloud is good as of now and there is nothing much to share there. My overall review rating for SAP S_4HANA Cloud is seven out of ten.

With SAP S/4HANA Cloud, we are doing migrations, spin-offs, starboards, and implementations. We are doing end-to-end migration in SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

BW for HANA features are valuable.

There are many valuable features with SAP S/4HANA Cloud. SAP S/4HANA Cloud has OLTP and OLAP together in the same system. OLTP stands for online transaction processing and OLAP stands for online analytical processing in simple layman terms. Previously, these two were different in ECC SAP S version. In SAP S/4HANA Cloud, both functionalities are available at your fingertips. The customer can get the very latest fresh data for anything they work with. This is very fast as it is an in-memory database.

It has an apps-based user interface where you can work on mobile devices, tablets, or computers. The alert mechanism and workflows are made very simple. SAP S/4HANA Cloud has extensive features. The full maturity model is on the finance side, the consolidation side, and the planning side. They are gradually incorporating all the models available in traditional SAP ECC into SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

Currently, there are fourteen thousand plus apps available to work with in SAP S/4HANA Cloud twenty twenty-four twenty-three version. Each app is either a transaction or the combination of multiple transactions. It has three different types of apps: transactional, analytical, and fact sheet. Transactional apps complete operations such as creating a purchase requisition. Analytical apps provide reports from all purchase requisitions. Fact sheet apps provide information such as stock levels. SAP S/4HANA Cloud has become very mature.

Improvement is needed, and they need to slow down. When I say slow down, they need to do more validation. Things are going rapidly and changing fast. For example, they moved from SAP SRM product to SAP CLM. They bought IBM CLM and marketed it as SAP CLM. Shortly after, they bought SAP Ariba and discontinued the SAP CLM product. Now they state that SAP SRM is outdated and has reached sunset.

The challenge is that if a customer has already deployed the entire solution on-premises, it becomes difficult to immediately convert to the new product and manage new license costs. From a consulting perspective, it appears that SAP's biggest competitor is itself, as they sometimes discontinue their own products to promote new ones.

I have been working with SAP S/4HANA Cloud since its inception until the present day.

For support of this product, I would rate it nine points. As a consultant, I cannot fully evaluate it, but based on my background experience, they provide good support.

Positive

I have worked with SAP for almost twenty-three years. The evolution of SAP comes from SAP 3.0, from mainframe to the current SAP S/4HANA Cloud. I started working from SAP 4.6 C D, then mySAP.com, Enterprise Central Component, EHP one through six, and then SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud initially started with Central Finance and Simple Logistics. They gradually moved everything to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Now they offer public cloud and private cloud versions. Public cloud requires adherence to standard processes without changes, while private cloud supports existing customizations.

Their real-time data analytics capability is superb and fantastic. The real-time data is absolutely top-notch and significantly impacts decision-making.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is more expensive than other products, according to customer feedback, though I have limited experience with other solutions.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is the best fit for newcomers and organizations wanting to invest in ERP without any existing system. However, organizations that have already invested heavily in SAP and want to move to SAP S/4HANA Cloud might want to wait for a more mature model.

I rate this solution 9 out of 10.

We are using SAP S/4HANA Cloud with different modules such as PM, FICO, and PS. These are the modules we are presently using.

Based on my recent experience, I have observed that Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) appears to offer a more mature and user-friendly approach
to financial transaction processing compared to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Specifically, Oracle's financial modules often provide a more intuitive
and streamlined interface for entering and managing financial data, which can enhance user productivity and reduce training time.

Oracle provides more control over subledger-level accounting rules through tools like SLA (Subledger Accounting), users typically see more granular
control and visibility during data entry and posting. Whereas in SAP S4 Hana transactions are posted directly into the Universal Journal (table ACDOCA), ensuring real-time impact across financials
and controlling. Offers simplified data models, eliminating many reconciliation steps between subledgers and the general ledger.

However, I must acknowledge that my exposure to SAP S/4HANA Cloud is relatively recent, and my current perception may evolve as I gain
deeper insights into the system's capabilities, configuration options, and best practices.

Real-time analytics is valuable when data is visible to all segments. Department heads receive reports properly with actual data. We are going to implement the analytical parts, as we are not using them now. The reports, figures, and facts are readily available to us at this point in time.

The solution is scalable.

While SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers numerous functional benefits and powerful integration capabilities, there remain certain usability and operational challenges—particularly within the Fiori applications—that warrant attention to enhance user adoption and experience.

From a usability standpoint, although Fiori apps are designed to be modern and responsive, the current user interface lacks flexibility and stability during transaction entry. For instance, when creating Purchase Orders (POs) or Purchase Requisitions (PRs) via Fiori apps, the screen layout often behaves inconsistently. Users have reported that the interface becomes unstable or erratic—jumping between fields or sections—when navigating or entering data. This instability leads to user frustration and impacts data accuracy and efficiency.

To improve user comfort and ensure accurate data capture, SAP should prioritize refining the layout behavior and responsiveness of Fiori apps across various devices and platforms. Enhancing form consistency and control placement would significantly contribute to a more professional and user-friendly experience. Additionally, incorporating a structured feedback mechanism within the application would empower end users to provide targeted and actionable feedback directly to SAP. This would allow for more agile improvements and better alignment with real-world usage scenarios. From a system governance and audit standpoint, there are current limitations in how access and audit-related configurations are handled. The need to raise SAP support tickets for request or audit-specific queries like SOC and all (especially in cloud environments), creates administrative overhead and delays. Customers should be empowered with tools and self-service features that allow them to manage audit requirements and access controls more independently—without relying on ticket-based support for standard configurations.

To increase acceptance and usability, SAP should address these usability gaps and operational inefficiencies.

We have been using the solution for the last year, implementing it in August 2024.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a growing market in the Indian environment and business sectors. It is very flexible and can cater to every industry. The implementation time was approximately 155 to 160 days, which is faster than our earlier ERP implementation. Based on this experience, SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a good option for any company interested in implementation.

In our experience, SAP S/4HANA has provided the flexibility to scale across multiple entities, geographies, and business lines while maintaining process standardization and compliance. Additionally, the cloud deployment model supports continuous innovation without major upgrades, ensuring the system grows with the business over time. 

From functional perspective, the modular architecture allows businesses to start with core processes and expand into additional areas—such as advanced analytics, machine learning, or industry-specific solutions—as their needs evolve.

Regarding technical support, I would rate them seven out of ten. The teams are competent, but the challenge is knowing which team to approach. If tickets are raised to the wrong team, it takes considerable time to be routed to the appropriate team. The technical team is skilled, but the process of reaching the correct team is cumbersome from an end-user perspective.

Positive

We successfully migrated from Oracle E-Business Suite to SAP S/4HANA Cloud with minimal disruption to business operations, as we transitioned from one robust ERP platform to another.

As a joint venture between Indian Oil Corporation and Adani Group, both stakeholders were aligned in their preference for SAP, given their prior experience with SAP ECC. Our earlier Oracle EBS system, while functionally sound, had become outdated, and the underlying infrastructure was no longer sustainable in terms of support and scalability.

This transition provided an opportunity to modernize our ERP landscape and align with industry standards while enhancing system integration and performance across business functions.

The implementation process was straightforward, taking approximately 155 to 160 days.

Since we implemented just one year ago, it will take minimum five years to determine the return on investment.

Regarding pricing, it could be more flexible and beneficial for customers to capture the Indian market particularly. The sales team conducts intense negotiations with customers.

I rate SAP S/4HANA Cloud an eight out of ten.

Some of the use cases for SAP S/4HANA Cloud include the transition from ECC 6.0 to the S/4HANA version where they started by building out their finance ledger in S/4HANA, also known as Simple Finance, which allowed them to move their ECC systems, including order to cash and procure to pay functions into the S/4HANA system.

It began as an S/4HANA system only taking financial transactions, then part of a business line was moved fully into S/4HANA, and over time they are addressing other major systems managing regions like Europe and Asia, with a complete transition mandated by 2027.

The good thing about SAP S/4HANA Cloud is its scalability, performance, and great database compression, which far exceeds traditional databases such as Oracle, allowing for large data storage at reduced costs, plus faster real-time transaction processing compared to ECC 6.0.

Some areas that could improve with the SAP S/4HANA Cloud are related to the challenges of migrating data from legacy systems into SAP S/4HANA Cloud, which is labor-intensive and expensive. Although it is the better version of what SAP has, the migration process is complicated and takes a long time, often needing ETL or ELT tools, and the migration cockpit provided by SAP only supports certain data types.

This reliance on ETL experts or data engineers is necessary to ensure clean quality data, which is critical for the effective operation of the SAP S/4HANA system.

The rating of the customer service for SAP S/4HANA Cloud does not differ from SAP in general; it is a multi-level support system where the first level typically does not fully resolve issues. My experience shows that it often requires another level or two to reach someone who can effectively address the problems.

Positive

I would recommend SAP S/4HANA Cloud and advise companies considering it to look into the scalability it offers. A lot of companies prefer to keep their own data and often consider non-progress versions, but moving to SAP S/4HANA Cloud can impact license fees based on database size.

It is crucial before migrating to cleanse your data and ensure a solid migration methodology is in place. Additionally, I suggest cross-training after the transition to accommodate the differences between SAP S/4HANA and legacy systems, and overall, I would recommend the move to SAP S/4HANA.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution a 9 out of 10.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is an ERP solution. We use it in multiple industries to maintain their process flows for financial, sales, procurement, and production processes. All these processes are integrated with each other. We use SAP S/4HANA Cloud to manage and integrate all these processes, one window operation as an ERP.

The solution's most valuable feature is the seamless integration of different modules into one solution. From an accounting perspective, the warehouse has two general entries. One hits the payable cycle, and the other hits the inventory cycle. With SAP S/4HANA Cloud, we are achieving that purpose in one window solution. In a single form, we are achieving two different purposes.

With other products, we have to input different modules in different ways. The integration is perfectly fine in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, and we are achieving multiple reports. SAP S/4HANA Cloud has a build-based Android and iOS application. You can get the approvals, alerts, and dashboards on the mobile app. Since it's a cloud-based solution, there's no need for an on-premises solution and a fixed cost for the company.

The solution is perfect on the cloud. We had a lot of pain areas in the previous solution that we were offering to the clients. SAP S/4HANA Cloud has multiple functions that help us deal with complex scenarios in the production process. In the procurement process, there are multiple options to deal with different industry segment scenarios in SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

Certain add-ons like quality control, payroll, and HRMS are not part of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud. SAP S/4HANA Cloud doesn't provide a quality control module. SAP S/4HANA Cloud does not have its own payroll and HRMS system. The partners develop their own cloud and integrate with the solution.

There are certain modules specific to some industries, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud doesn't deal with those modules. Every partner of SAP S/4HANA Cloud has to develop its own and then integrate and certify with that solution. We can't say that these modules are part of SAP S/4HANA Cloud. There is a little area of improvement that SAP has to opt for particular types of solutions like QC, payroll, and HRMS.

The graphics of SAP S/4HANA Cloud are not user-friendly. They don't look like they belong to a branded solution that costs too much. The solution's user interface is not appealing or user-friendly. On a scale from one to ten, where one is bad and ten is good, I rate the solution's user interface a five out of ten.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud has built-in reports that are hard-coated. We have to alter or modify built-in reports in different marking segments, but there are no options for that. We have to build complete reports from scratch, and SAP-developed reports are not used in the market. SAP should provide a tool for customizing its developed reports so that there should not be a process of reengineering or reinventing the process.

I have been using SAP S/4HANA Cloud for two years.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is more suited for large enterprises.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight to nine out of ten.

We have raised tickets with SAP's technical support when customers have a problem we cannot resolve. The support team takes almost 24 to 48 hours to respond and resolve the issue. It takes almost three to four working days to resolve an issue.

If you are stuck in a production process, you have to wait for three to four days for the support team to respond. Since we are working in a business environment, we cannot wait three to four days. SAP's support team should respond quickly and resolve the issues promptly.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a large-scale product, and its competitors are Microsoft Dynamics and Oracle NetSuite. Microsoft Dynamics has a good retailer system and the best outsourcing model, whereas SAP S/4HANA Cloud has no retailer system. Both solutions have pros and cons.

I have worked with multiple ERP solutions for the last nine years, such as Sage 300, Odoo, and SAP. Compared to other solutions, SAP S/4HANA Cloud has some complex configuration scenarios. A person with only two years of experience might find it challenging. However, the tool is not too hard to configure for someone who has worked on multiple ERP solutions for the last nine years.

The solution’s pricing is very high.

I previously worked with the on-premises solution, which is known as ECC. Later, I opted for the cloud-based solution. Regarding business processes, SAP S/4HANA Cloud is now the need of the hour. We had to choose this solution because our business was suffering due to the non-availability of any cloud solution in our bucket. So, we finalized the deal with SAP to sell SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

Once we successfully got the partnership from SAP, we won multiple clients for the cloud. We have multiple projects and multiple teams working on the implementation processes. We have grown bigger because of SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

Real-time data processing is an important feature of SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Whenever the user enters or saves something, it gets to the database in real-time, and your reports and dashboards upgrade in a nanosecond.

Whenever we have implemented SAP S/4HANA Cloud for multiple clients, the IT team consists of four to ten members before implementation. After the implementation, they have to enlarge their team and add more professionals, which adds more value in terms of knowledge and manpower. It increases the reliability of the whole IT infrastructure.

The client has to update everything regarding software or IT infrastructure. They have to update their infrastructure regarding networking, their server structure, their network structure, and their computers. It is a complete revamping of the IT infrastructure in the industry or a specific organization where we will implement the solution.

Whenever we implement SAP S/4HANA Cloud in the market, that particular market or segment gets better results in terms of monetary value and business growth. Organizations that implement SAP S/4HANA Cloud grow their IT infrastructure and business domain.

I would recommend the solution to the industry that can afford it. SAP S/4HANA Cloud is a big product with a lot of features that every industry can't cope with. They may train multiple resources on SAP S/4HANA Cloud, but their weak infrastructure can't handle the big solution, and the implementation will fail in the end. SAP S/4HANA Cloud is the best solution for organizations that can afford its pricing mechanism.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I work with SAP S/4HANA Cloud with two major clients: one in the UAE and one in UK. I already work with the cloud-based S/4HANA and ECC.

Use cases also depends on the business process. It's personal to what the use of the previous business process was, what they want, what they get from ECC, and what they want in S/4HANA. 

Everything in S/4HANA is related to the business processes. It depends entirely on the customer's or client's requirements. If you want to check the software via ALV report, S/4HANA can deliver it. If you want to show everything graphically, S/4HANA can deliver that capability, too. 

If anyone wants to check data, like dashboards, S/4HANA also provides those facilities via Fiori apps. S/4HANA delivers everything related to the business process.

We currently leverage SAP S/4HANA Cloud for real-time analytics.

In SAP S/4HANA Cloud, we work on RFCs (Remote Function Calls). Overall, the dependencies on the client's requirements are similar to those in SAP ECC. The major fields in S/4HANA are the same as in ECC. I work on SD and MM modules, and they are integrated with each other via web services or IDocs.

ECC is almost finished. SAP will support it until 2027, and S/4HANA is the long-term solution, supported until 2040. 

S/4HANA provides more features using the Fiori interface and business processes. We can use the GUI, SAP Fiori apps, and web browsers. It is accessible online from anywhere in the world. It is a more user-friendly environment and faster than ECC. The major feature is that it uses its own database, not relying on third-party applications.

The cloud aspect of SAP S/4HANA:

It uses its own database, HANA 2.0, and because it is its own database, it works very smoothly and quickly. S/4HANA is stable, and there is no chance of data redundancy, making it fast and responsive for the client.

It has been almost more than four years in S/4HANA Cloud and almost three years in ECC. Overall, I have more than nine years of experience in SAP and five successful implementations, including three S/4HANA Cloud and two ECC projects.

I work as a web consultant/specialist and also with technical functional consultants, like integrations, enhancements, scripts, workflows, etc.

It is a 100% stable product. I would rate the stability a ten out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten because it supports all the business processes. 

It is suitable for all types of businesses. 

After the successful implementation of S/4HANA for a client, technical support is available 24/7 because the client may face errors at any time. So, technical people are always available for support.

The technical support team is all-time available.

Positive

I would rate my experience with the initial setup a ten out of ten, with ten being easy. I am a technical consultant, so it was easy for me. 

It can be done within a few hours, but it also depends on the customer's requirements. If they want some changes, it may be done within one hour. But if there are large-scale changes, it may take one week or one month.

Integration capabilities:

I have a lot of experience with integrations in my nine years of experience. A major integration I successfully completed was in UAE, with a big company called Q Holding. They needed to resolve property-related issues in the UAE and REFX modules using SAP. We fully integrated it with mobile apps and browsers, and everything is accessible online. 

Another major project was in the UK, with a company called CVS, an international company. We integrated it with ECC, and now we've moved to S/4HANA, with everything done by S/4HANA. It is totally integrated with three modules: MM, SD, and FI modules.

SD and FI are the core workflows for enterprise businesses. Without SD and FI capabilities, the business process cycle is not complete.

The expense of S/4HANA depends on the business scale. For a small business, it may be less expensive, but for a large, international level, it may be more expensive. It depends on the kind of business scale.

I recommend S/4HANA 100%. It is user-friendly ERP software and 100% trusted, with no chance for scams. Business processes run smoothly, and we can completely see our balance sheet, profit and loss, and year-end closing with tenure.

It's the best, ten out of ten.

The SAP S/4HANA Cloud has greatly improved our business processes. With SAP hosting the backend, database (HANA), and the application, we get all new features and security patches seamlessly according to SAP's schedule. Everything, including certifications and integrations, stays up to date for the customer. We achieve almost zero downtime, which is very important. The cloud setup provides redundancy, so if something happens at one site, it's seamless to switch.

SAP has a specific product called SAP Analytics Cloud (SAC) for analytics. This cloud-based tool is great for creating dashboards, drill-downs, and everything related to analytics. SAP has moved everything to the cloud now—SuccessFactors, the S/4HANA database, analytics, and more.

Generally, there's not much noise or many issues, but we sometimes open tickets. These are mainly due to underestimating business needs at the beginning of deployment or sudden changes in the business. For example, when we suddenly open branches in other countries, add many users or the business grows fast, we might need more memory or disk space. We sometimes underestimate our needs from the cloud. This isn't a problem with the cloud or the vendor but more about our estimation. We raise tickets for things like increasing memory, dealing with one-time errors, or issues with space utilization. We might need to increase resources or improve performance.

I haven't encountered any major challenges with SAP S/4HANA Cloud because working with the cloud is the most efficient and modern method. It serves our business well. However, we occasionally face minor issues related to the design of the server or resources. Sometimes, we must send a ticket and wait for results, which can be delayed due to business needs. But the escalation process is clear, and everything goes fine after we push for a fix. The cloud is the best recommendation for any new implementation.

I have been working with the product for more than seven years. 

I rate the tool's stability an eight out of ten. 

I rate the solution's scalability an eight out of ten. My company has around 2000 users. 

We provide customer support services, including maintenance, issue resolution, enhancement development, and reporting. We handle new business processes, especially in HR, like annual policy changes. This is normal support work.

We have a dedicated support center with 30-35 people. As a support company, we don't use SAP's technical support much ourselves. We only contact them for third-level support when there's a system bug or a problem with the system itself.

Neutral

The deployment process is very straightforward, especially when hosted by SAP itself. AWS hosting is also good. If SAP hosts it, it's even better because it provides seamless patching and handles security issues. The deployment time isn't just minutes, but it's very quick. It's like going to a store and selecting what you need - RAM, hard disk, applications - and everything is ready in a few hours. However, you still need to customize the application to fit customer needs. It would be best to have configuration and customization for the full stack. I'm in senior management, so we have a special team of about 40 people for deployment across different modules. This includes developers, material management specialists, sales and distribution experts, and some basis administrators, though fewer because it's a cloud implementation. We have project managers, functional finance and HR, and technical teams. The cloud implementation offers better availability, easier patching, lower risk of data loss, and simpler upgrades compared to on-premises deployment.

The tool's pricing is reasonable. 

Working with on-premises systems has many disadvantages. There are significant risks in performance and availability. With SAP's cloud solutions, all applications are on the latest version with security patches. Being hosted by the vendor means everything can be done easily for you. If you face any issues and raise a ticket, experts will solve them immediately without trial and error.

Your servers, system administrators, and local technical teams are becoming outdated. The cloud is very cost-saving in the long run. I estimate we save at least 30-40 percent on costs. The productivity and availability are the highest, while the risk of losing data or applications is the lowest.

Some customers are considering moving from the cloud to on-premises, but I advise against it. They would lose many benefits and face much higher costs. They'd need to buy expensive servers and hire technical staff for database administration and other specialized roles. This approach is no longer valid.

I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten. 

The main use case for SAP S/4HANA Cloud for my clients revolves around its ERP capabilities. Companies often opt for SAP because it is a leading product in the market. The choice is sometimes predetermined due to its widespread usage among large enterprises. Clients primarily look for better controls and main ERP functionalities.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud provides integration, controls, efficiency, visibility into business operations, and collaboration, especially for geographically spread operations. It allows management to remotely manage operations. This functionality aligns with what other top-tier ERPs provide.

The system is very heavy and requires a lot of resources and a dedicated team. It is costly to maintain, demanding trained professionals, which adds to the expenses. This makes the overall cost very high. Buyers must evaluate these costs carefully.

I have been a consultant, implementing SAP solutions for over 20 years.

SAP S_4HANA Cloud is very stable, especially for bigger corporates that are geographically spread out.

SAP doesn't typically listen to individual feedback because of their position as the number one product. My experience has been that although feedback is sent to them even from customers, they rarely act upon it.

Positive

Historically, I have worked with ECC before transitioning to SAP S/4HANA.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is very expensive, both to purchase and maintain. It's important to evaluate the costs of recruiting and maintaining trained personnel as it's not just a one-time payment yet requires ongoing maintenance.

Clients often evaluate alternative ERPs, such as Oracle or IFS, which might not be as costly as SAP. Companies may avoid SAP due to costs, opting for other similar yet less expensive ERPs.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.