SAP S/4HANA Reviews

The features you have access to when using this solution depends on which format or version you use. If an organization uses the SAP ECC version, this is an older version and multiple things would be the same at a process execution level and architecture level. However, S/4HANA offers a lot of additional capability with respect to performance due to its built-in architecture for many functions including finance, production, quality, manufacturing, inventory or sales distribution and logistics. SAP offers many capabilities with respect to enhanced functionalities, process improvement and better analytics.

SAP has introduced a lot of management functionality from a sales distribution perspective. The finance module offers a lot of reports as well as the offering of Fiori, which is a UI5 based tool which can be installed in each and every handheld devices for the purpose of approvals.

In the transportation module, which is a part of the sales distribution, SAP offers modifications and enhancements.

SAP offers a lot of products now and all the capabilities are available from one service provider. However, the knowledge needed for the implementation of these capabilities isn't widely shared and so product knowledge in the market isn't comprehensive. This makes it challenging to fully take advantage of all the capabilities. We would like to have access to tutorials. 

The integration could be made a little simpler in terms of design and implementation. SAP should integrate easier with other third party systems. Industry specific retail or FMCG related industries can't directly rely on SAP with respect to the POS integration or the eCommerce integration. 

I have used this solution for ten years. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution but some companies face challenges in terms of migration when it comes to the material ledger, COPA cockpits or the introduction of the actual costing. It again depends upon the expertise of the consultants who are doing the implementation but is not part of a product bug.

We have consulted directly with SAP when it comes to completing the initial implementation. When it comes to going live and if we encounter any major issues which cannot be resolved by implementation partners, then we contact the platinum consultants at SAP. 

There is an option to pay for managed services and support from SAP.

The complexity of the setup depends on the organization. If the organization is using ECC then the setup is straightforward. If the organization is using another product like Oracle or Microsoft Dynamics, it is a big change migrating to SAP S/4HANA.

The size of an organization and volume will also impact the complexity of the setup. A mid-size organization would require an in-house team for maintenance. This maintenance is important as lack of specific activities or tasks could cause mishaps in the entire system. 

SAP is a costly product in terms of maintenance for an organization who has reached a particular level. For organizations, like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, they rely heavily on this solution and cost is not as issue for companies of that size.

I complete a comparative analysis when an organization is running on a legacy ERP. We provide the review services and pre-implementation services where this is a very common question. We complete a feature comparison analysis for Oracle versus SAP or Microsoft Dynamics 365 versus SAP. The most common outcome is that SAP is the best product overall. 

This solution can be implemented in multiple ways. One is the on-premise model where the organization has to manage servers and administration related activities on their own. The second is the cloud deployment model that requires some kind of public cloud or private cloud. There are multiple service providers who can help with cloud deployment. The third option is a hybrid model. You can complete a cost benefit analysis and have a mix of this kind of development.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten. 

We use this solution for ERP in our business. The solution is deployed on-prem. We have a backup on the cloud through Azure.

The most valuable feature is the detail in all of the processes. The solution captures our policies and enables us to implement our policies in SAP. There are different models that address our needs. We have also implemented SuccessFactors for our performance, which is for capital management.

It's a very vast product. It meets almost all our needs.

The Capex and Opex could be improved. It would be nice if they cut back on the cost. Otherwise, it's a very good product.

We moved to S4HANA in 2020. We have used SAP for a long time.

It's very stable. Once you do the right sizing for the infrastructure that is running on the hardware, on the storage, you are good to go. We are running on Hyper Converged. Most of the time, people get the sizing wrong.

If you run out of resources, you may start to experience some slowness. But once you size it right, they're good to go and there aren't any issues.

It's scalable.

For technical support, we recruited a lot of guys who have experience with SAP. We also have support for users. In-house, we're developing our skills so that we can address the needs of some immediate users. 

For needs that we can't address, we escalate to support. Other organizations provide that third-level support. But the second level has addressed needs from our super users and other users within the organization.

With SAP, you need to have total planning. Once you have the total planning, SAP is easy to deploy. When people complain that they failed in their deployment, it's because they didn't go the extra mile in planning and leaving no stone left unturned. If you plan it well, you'll have an enjoyable and successful deployment.

The price could be lower.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

the primary use case is to support business processes, ensure the operation of the company and compliance with regulatory and tax requirements. Provide management information in real time to improve decision making

we have improved the visibility of the information between the different areas, implemented tools that allow us to improve logistics processes and even reduce the immobilized stock, speed up the closing of accounting processes

The in-memory processing capability and real time information is most valuable. 

The migration form previous versions to SAP S/4HANA is a challenge both for customers and clients. 

there should be simpler ways to incorporate the new tools into a process framework. Many customers are still using the same tools but running in SAP S/4HANA

for more than 18 years.

It is very stable.

It is scalable. We have more than 1,000 users. 

Their support is very good. 

Positive

We were using SAP Business Suite 6.0 

we wanted to incorporate improvements of the new functionalities, keep ourselves updated in the latest version

For a customer, the complexity, in general, is related to representing their business processes with this solution. It isn't related to S/4HANA.

We implement through our partner Softtek. 

It is important to understand the licensing model and ensure that the sizing of the platform is correct for the number of users and the volume of information to be processed.

Some components may require additional licensing.

The concept of digital or indirect access should be eliminated

No

We have more than 25 S/4HANA implementations on Azure. We have at least three SAP S/4HANA implementations on AWS, and we have one S/4HANA on GCP.

Its implementation challenges are related to finding the best way to adapt the business processes as per the standard or best practices of SAP. The key is to adapt the best practices as much as you can so that in the future, it's easier for you to update to newer versions.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

SAP S4HANA can be used for many things such as financials, accounts payable, accounts receivables, set accounting, management accounting, and banking.

SAP S4HANA provides a solution towards a green industry. They keep making a different version of the solution to meet the needs of different industries, such as automotive and utilities.

The solution could have a better user experience. However, they are working a lot on the user experience and they have come up with various applications, such as mobile applications. This was lacking over the last two years.

I have been using SAP S4HANA for approximately two years.

The solution is scalable.

There are various modules of functionalities available in SAP S4HANA. However, it might be better for us to only use one or two of the modules at first and scale as needed later. 

In one of our implementation, there were 50,000 users using the solution.

The support is very good.

The size of the team needed for the implementation depends on the size of the organization. If the organization is relatively small, we can manage the implementation with one or two skilled technicians, and depending on the complexity of it, it could need more technicians for support.

There is a license to use this solution.

I would highly recommend this solution to others.

I rate SAP S4HANA an eight out of ten.

Because I'm a procure-to-pay consultant, I mostly look at that angle, and I have a bit of experience with sales and distribution. I also like the integration between S/4HANA and other ERPs because S/4HANA is a suite. For example, the integration between S/4HANA and EWM Transportation Management, and Ariba.

The procure-to-pay solution in the Contract Management angle could be better. If you look at it on Ariba, the Contract Management Life Cycle for Ariba is more robust. You can create documentation, SLAs, and NDAs. Apart from the procurement aspect of the contract, you have the legal side, but Ariba cannot do that.

From what I've seen, the features of the procure-to-pay model in S/4HANA and their Contract Life Cycle Management side primarily focus on the procurement side. I believe it would be good if this solution could handle a part of the legal side.

They will incorporate Extended Warehouse Management and Transportation Management into the S/4HANA cloud. Most big companies that use a solution like S/4HANA have a legal department within the organization. Suppose they can incorporate that to be in S/4HANA suites; I think it'll be good. It will be just like what we have with Transportation Management and Extended Warehouse Management.

The user interface could be better. They have too much information on the interface, and our customers still keep complaining that it looks complex. Even though many things have changed, they still complain that the interface or the screen they see is a bit complex. It's only when they see the Fiori interface that their mind becomes a bit calm.

I've been using SAP S4HANA since 2018.

SAP S4HANA is a stable product.

SAP S4HANA is scalable. That's one of the main benefits of using SAP solutions. Most SAP solutions are scalable.

In Nigeria, we have to consider currency conversion rates with the Euro and Dollar that impact the final cost. But I believe that it'll be cheaper in the cloud where SAP has to do the maintenance of the server and more in the long run. 

I would tell potential users that S/4HANA is suitable for big companies. It comes with best practices and handles most processes, be it simple or complex. SAP also has almost 50 years of experience in the supply chain and financial industry. They should go for it, but they should stick to the best practices and not do much customization.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give SAP S4HANA an eight.

SAP S4HANA is used as an enterprise resource planning solution.

I have been using SAP for more than 13 years and the new SAP S4HANA was not only a simple upgrade, they have made a lot of improvements. They have simplified a lot of the functions, the all-new interface gives users a better experience. The database itself is quite efficient in nature and it provides effective data queries. It is a good upgrade from the previous version of SAP R/3.

I have used SAP S4HANA for approximately two years.

This solution is stable. The application runs on hardware and if you are using cloud architecture it is stable. However, there are too many factors to clearly say this solution is stable because it depends on the environment. For example, where are you hosting the solution and how are you accessing it can impact the stability. If one of these many factors is not suitable then the solution as a whole could be determined to be unstable. 

It is simple to implement SAP S4HANA. If you are already in this type of environment, then the transition is not very complex. However, if you do not then it can be difficult.

It does not matter what ERP you are using, whether it is Oracle, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, or others, and even locally made or customized solutions, it is always the change management that takes all the effort. It is never technology that comes in between as the bottleneck because whatever technology you choose, configure, design architect, it does the job. The issue is the mindset of people, how to change people, how to train them, how do you make them efficient, how they will become more fluent and adapt to this change? That is the challenge, it is never technology that falls in place as a bottleneck.

I have evaluated Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, SAP, and other solutions.

When trying to improve, you either implement something new and then try to improve your internal process, or there is a change in business, market, product, or scenario altogether, or maybe a merger equation that you need something which is not there. It is always a gap between the demand and supply and that is the reason the flow happens. Otherwise, if everything is saturated, then it becomes fully stable, there is no need for any movement or change anywhere. 

There has been a lot of changes in businesses recently with COVID, the entire way we do business has changed from the way we used to do business earlier. For example, in a manufacturing company, they could have had everything configured in a certain way, and then suddenly no one was able to attend the offices or building. This pandemic has placed a lot of restrictions and yet you have to manage everything, such as productivity, people, and their time. There have been tremendous changes over the past year and a half. If you look at any supply chain or any transport company, there is a change in requirements, reporting, monitoring, and objective analysis of each and every function. It is a process that is going on that will transform the industry, the outlook, the way of we are going to be working with people. Operations are shifting from a physical presence to remote working and virtually managing. Time, demand, and businesses keep changing, and then the software and different upgrades, functionality, will change too.

I am completely agnostic to any particular solution or vendor. My advice is if you choose SAP, Microsoft, Oracle, or another solution, all of them are equally good. They can be configured and can be customized. There is never a one size fits all solution, you will have to find what solution fits your particular business and use case. One solution might be the best for one type of use case but not work well in another. 

I rate SAP S4HANA an eight out of ten.

SAP S4HANA is a product that can be used for any hyper-scale, such as AWS, Google, or Azure. It can even be used on-premises.

SAP S4HANA is part of an Intelligent Enterprise and the solution is used for various things.

The most valuable feature is the inbuilt standards included in SAP that customers can adopt easily. It can be customized based on the specific requirements.

It has evolved over time with the feedback provided by various customers.

Another benefit is in the delivery, it offers an explorative approach to simplify it for the customer.

As an end-user, this solution offers what is needed.

The dashboards are great. The platform is very intuitive, and in terms of communication, the interface is very interactive. 

The initial setup could be simplified. It needs improvement.

I would like to see the AI included to help from a data standpoint.

I have been working with SAP S4HANA for more than six years.

I am using the latest version.

It's a reliable solution from a technical and business standpoint.

It's a scalable solution. In terms of the number of users that are using it, it scales well.

The range of customers who use this solution can be from less than 100 to more than 3,000.

SAP S4HANA can be customized to be very scalable. It can be adapted for large enterprises.

In our organization, our customers are from medium enterprises to large-sized companies as well.

SAP supports this solution well when there are any bugs or glitches in the solution.

Initially, we had a hiccup. We contacted technical support, they were supportive and helped resolve the issue.

I am not using an alternative ERP.

Depending on various factors, the initial setup can be completed in as little as six to nine months or it can take as long as one and a half to two years.

The initial setup can complex.

Licensing works on a subscription model for the cloud version and it's a one-time fee for the on-premises version.

We are happy with the pricing because it is dependant on the number of users who are using the solution.

I feel the pricing model is fair. It is also very flexible.

I would definitely recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

This solution is suitable for small to large enterprise companies and can use the pricing model. 

They can adopt the solution in less than a month and use the standard that SAP offers.

I would rate SAP S4HANA a nine out of ten.

The POD applications are very useful to us. There are a few POD apps which we are using for the different business scenarios. They are quite interesting.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The documentation is very good.

The solution can scale well.

The solution is stable.

It's been just one year that we started using this product, due to the fact that we need to have different integrations as well to other systems. With S/4HANA, when SAP started, everything worked in a single SAP system. Slowly then it's been delegated or divided into multiple SAP systems. That's why we have around 25 different SAP products running in our landscape. Yet, at the same time, S/4HANA is the core. It's the core component.

Going forward, I believe more systems could be consolidated into S/4HANA. We need to reduce the number of SAP systems running in our landscape. S/4HANA has the capacity to host many other SAP products, therefore we can discontinue some of the SAP products. Currently, we have now the Global Services, the Governance, Risk, and Compliance, and Enterprise Portal, BW, Supply Chain Management, Warehouse Management, et cetera. If SAP could consolidate many of the systems so that we can reduce the number of systems, that would be ideal.

The solution can be a bit expensive.

We would like to see more DevOps capabilities in the future.

The solution would benefit from offering more serverless features in the sense that when you deploy SAP, it's a pretty big deployment and you have a lot of dependencies or you are closely tied up or you have a dependency with the hardware vendor and the hardware providers and the certified hardware and items like that. At the same time, all these deployed components and these files are possible to deploy without a server as well. Slowly SAP is providing some of the features so that you can deploy this in containers and so you don't have any dependency on the running hardware. That way, you can restart the systems without any downtime or the end-users will not feel the difference. Aspects like that need to be improved. 

We do have here monthly maintenance due to the fact that sometimes we need to recharge the system and we have seen from the end-users there will be certain downtime as well. If there is no dependency with the hardware and if it goes serverless, then we can have zero-downtime maintenance.

We've been using the solution for the past year or so. It hasn't been that long.

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very reliable. 

The solution is scalable. At the same time, it depends on where you deploy your systems. If you deploy your systems in Azure, then it would be using the scalability of Azure. If you deploy in AWS, it uses the scalability of AWS. If you deploy in a virtual private environment, then it depends on where you deployed the system. At the same time, it depends on being compatible with all these different hyper-scalers. For the most part, it goes pretty well with the different platforms.

We are deploying the solution in different countries. Currently, we have close to 10,000 users working in SAP. Yearly, we do the deployment in multiple countries. In two months, we deploy in one more country. There will be another 200, 300 more users will be coming. By the end of this year, there will be 2,000 more users. Currently, around 10,000 users are using this application.

The SAP S/4HANA technical support is mainly with the service provider. When you deploy SAP, you have different support teams. Most of the time, you will have a service provider or a supplier that you would be associating with. You will have a kind of application management or infrastructure management support with that vendor. For example, IBM, Capgemini, Accenture, DXC. They are the different vendors. However, then you get the OEM support via the SAP Support Portal for product-related issues. That support has got different priority levels based on the importance. Generally, we know how the SAP support works and it's acceptable. We're satisfied with the level of support provided overall.

The initial setup isn't too difficult. It's pretty straightforward for the most part. SAP has got some good documentation and there are different migration scenarios and implementation scenarios you can work with. With the help of documentation, things are pretty straightforward. 

Most of the time, you do the SAP deployment or the migration with a partner. SAP has got certified partners to help with the implementation.

SAP has got different license mechanisms. It depends on how many SAP products you run and then how do you negotiate with the SAP teams and what kind of offer you get. At the same time, generally, everyone says SAP products are a bit costly. 

Some of the SAP systems are licensed based on the number of CPUs that are being deployed, and some of the SAP products are licensed based on the number of primary users, and some of the SAP systems are based on the database footprint. Different SAP products have different license mechanisms, so there should be a person who is knowledgeable about SAP that can understand and then review the licensing agreement and get the right SAP product - and perhaps help negotiate the price.

We are customers and end-users.

We have around 25 different SAP products. We are using SAP S/4HANA in our company.

The production and the test systems are deployed in the virtual private cloud on-premise, and we have sandbox development and quality systems are deployed in the Azure public cloud.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.