SAP S/4HANA Reviews

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.

We use SAP S4HANA in a distribution business. We have the main site which purchases all material for management and then it goes through the main warehouses to the distribution sites. Finance controls, sales, and distribution are already there with the treasury added on top of the project.

The solution could improve by making customization easier. The on-premise version is a lot more flexible.

I have been using SAP S4HANA for approximately two years.

SAP S4HANA version 1909 is stable. We have not gone live with 2020 yet.

SAP S4HANA is scalable in terms of infrastructure scaling. The solution does not cover all aspects of the business. For example, there is no final solution from SAP for point of sale. They have no specific point of sales solution, you have to build something to cover this area.

Our project is at a large company with 8,000 employees.

We had an issue with localization, there is some sort of localization for S/4HANA for a specific country. We did not face a lot of trouble with the support. The response was good, but overall it seems the process itself takes too much time. You have to go through specific steps waiting for a reply and then the escalation takes more time. The support could improve their speed.

The SAP cloud itself was not easy to implement any project because it is very hard to do any customization for the business requirements.

SAP S4HANA is expensive and for smaller businesses, it is very difficult for them to have the budget.

My advice to those wanting to implement SAP S4HANA is to make sure they have their blueprint and design. People have specific imaginations but things can turn out differently. Align very well with the business and identify your scope correctly to be sure you are following a solid plan along with the project lifecycle.

I rate SAP S4HANA an eight out of ten.

We use it for our financials and ERP.

It has got all our data more scalable, and it made it more workable for us. So, we're able to make things run faster, especially when our developer team was doing data modeling.

We're able to get all our processes flowing together. We're able to make all of our business processes talk to each other.

It should have more support. Documentation and support for mobile apps can be improved.

I have been using this solution for six months.

So far, it has been good. We had some problems with our customizations, but everything seems to be running fine.

Its scalability is fine. We plan to increase its usage and use it extensively.

All people who are using it are in IT. Some of them are in the finance department.

Their technical support is good. They were pretty knowledgeable.

We're new to that. We didn't use anything.

It was kind of complex because we didn't know the difference between the SAP Business ByDesign and SAP S/4HANA. It wasn't clear. SAP just has too many versions, and it was like, "Oh, give me a break, and tell me what to get."

For its maintenance, we have at least five people. They're in IT with different roles.

We used a consultant. Our experience was good.

We're not sure yet. I think it was six figures a year, over 100,000. It has straight-up licensing fees.

I would rate it an eight out of 10 because it has got great scalability. It has worked so far.

I'm a senior functional consultant and we partner with SAP. 

Previously, when a sales person had to register a deal, it meant logging onto Windows to look at the deals, now it can all be done from a mobile phone. That's a huge benefit for us. 

The best part of this solution is the Fiori design. 

The documentation for this solution can definitely be improved and I'd also like to see more support, more numbers of Android or iPhone apps.

I've been using this solution for three years. 

This solution is stable. 

The solution is highly scalable. We've scaled it more than 75% of what we initially had. We regularly scale and there's no excess consumption of resources or major tweaks required when we're scaling up. We have around 500 end users and we have a team of five or six people responsible for maintenance, including a system administrator. We use this solution extensively and will continue to expand our use of it. 

We had a good experience with technical support. They know what they're doing and the response time was good. 

We previously used SAP ECC. We switched because they discontinued maintenance of ECC and this is a new solution altogether. It didn't make sense for us to continue with SAP ECC.

The initial setup was moderate on the complexity side. Not too complex, but also not so easy. The deployment was done in-house and took several months. 

There are a lot of ERP solutions on the market - Oracle, JD Edwards, and the like, but when it comes to SAP, my experience is that once you implement the solution and you understand how it works, it becomes intuitive to work with. When you upgrade to a new solution or when a whole lot of changes come in, the user experience stays pretty much consistent.

I rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

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.

The integration features of SAP S/4HANA stand out as the most valuable, surpassing those of other systems.

The product could be improved in several key areas, particularly in API granularity and ease of configuration. It is typical for new technology to initially lack the full functionality of older systems, as seen in every development cycle. In the Business Technology Platform (BTP) context, certain granular configurations available in S/4HANA, such as output determination, are not as easily replicable through current APIs. Previously, configuring outputs for delivery at a detailed level was straightforward. For example, one could easily specify output settings for regular deliveries. However, replicating this process in an API-driven workflow is currently more complex and less intuitive for business users. Additionally, there is no simple way in the new technology to verify if an output was successfully created and sent to a partner.

We have been using S/4HANA for approximately two to three years.

Overall, the stability of the solution is commendable. The core system demonstrates robust performance, maintaining operational stability in general use. However, there are instances where specific functionalities become less stable. These issues often stem from implementation-related factors, such as custom user exits, rather than inherent flaws in the software itself. For example, an order may fail due to a custom user exit, which should be considered an implementation issue rather than a reflection of the system's stability.

The scalability of SAP S/4HANA is highly impressive, making it suitable for companies of all sizes. Its flexibility allows for adding applications as required, enabling customization to meet specific business needs effectively.

The initial setup of SAP S/4HANA is inherently complex, with various factors contributing to its intricacy. While the software installation may be completed quickly, configuring it for practical business use involves a lengthy process spanning years.

Typically, an implementation partner is involved in this process. These implementers handle most setups, including addressing bugs or issues during deployment. They act as the primary contact with SAP for resolving technical problems.

I rate the product an eight out of ten.

It's mainly for business enterprise planning and enterprise resource management.

One of the things I like about it is its well-integrated and secure nature.

Considering it's not a small product, improving pricing would be helpful.

So, there is room for improvement in pricing. HANA is not a simple product; it's quite complex by design.

I have been using this solution for five years. So initially, I worked with DC for two years. After that, it became a mix. It's not straightforward. I started with PCC, then spent some time with HANA, and then switched to CCB. Currently, I am working with HANA.

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. It's quite stable, but given that it's a cloud solution, there are ongoing updates and new components in every quarter. So, we get four updates annually. 

It is a scalable solution. In my organization, we serve many clients, so there are numerous users. We have around ten customers. We are a service-based company.

The customer service and support are good and knowledgeable. 

Positive

It's somewhat straightforward but can be a bit complex, after all Fortune 500 companies also use this solution. It depends on the specific use case.

It's available for both on-premises and cloud deployment.

Our customers do need to pay for licenses. It is expensive.

I would recommend using this solution to other people as well. Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. Currently, the solution is adapting to the cloud. 

I use the solution in the retail and manufacturing industry.

All the modules available in the product are very useful. We have access to all types of reports in a single solution.

The solution is quite expensive.

I have been using the solution for two years.

The product is stable.

I rate the product’s scalability a ten out of ten.

The initial setup is easy for someone familiar with the solution.

We deployed the solution three years ago in our organization. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.