SAP S/4HANA Reviews

There is a feature in SAP S/4HANA that is used by reconstruction companies. This feature allows the creation of different cost objects within the ERP. Instead of assigning costs to a single cost center or costing object, you can distribute costs across various aspects such as projects, work breakdown structures, activities, networks, and problem management. This flexibility enables the ERP to handle different cost elements within the organization.

It provides a 360-degree perspective of cost segmentation and tracking all cost elements within the organization. This includes materials, projects, human resources, and equipment. The integration with the public cloud and SuccessFactors is a new and intriguing development, making it possible to manage different aspects of the organization seamlessly as if they were part of a single product.

In SAP S/4HANA, an interesting feature is the quality inspection and delivery process within the ERP system. For instance, if there is a delivery for a project part that requires quality inspection and receives feedback from the customer, this can be recorded through the mobile application. The responsible person can visit the site, open the system using the mobile app, and add remarks and notes directly into the system without the need for paper or extensive communication.

Everything is automated and all information is collected and reflected in the system, providing a complete history of any project. This comprehensive approach ensures that SAP S/4HANA effectively meets the requirements of any construction contract, demonstrating SAP's excellence in this industry.

SAP S/4HANA offers two deployment options: the private cloud and the public cloud. The private cloud is a comprehensive solution. While it does require numerous approvals, it is a highly reliable product. However, when it comes to continuous improvement, the public cloud excels. My previous explanation focused on the private cloud. Medium-sized companies that cannot afford the private cloud often opt for the public cloud. However, the public cloud does not include all the modules available in the private cloud. Therefore, it is essential to enhance the module offerings in the public cloud.

For example, in the construction industry, companies needing advanced project systems often have no choice but to make a significant investment in the private cloud. SAP should invest more in expanding the features available in the S/4HANA public cloud. One area for enhancement is predictive analysis. SAP has developed solutions on the Business Technology Platform, including AI and machine learning products. However, there is still no packaged ERP solution that automatically delivers these features to customers.

It should provide better integration of AI products through the Business Technology Platform, providing storage and examples of best practices for various industries. Many customers are interested in AI but are unsure how to implement it within SAP applications. SAP, a reputable company, already has best practices, but it should expand its library to include more examples of AI applications. 

The solution is scalable. We have two companies, one have 150 users and the other habe 50 users using this solution.

Partners provide support and their cloud support is excellent. They respond immediately to requests. They have an integration process without delays and a customer interaction center. If we have any case requiring immediate support, we can call them directly and receive support promptly. You can schedule meetings with experts and easily make appointments. Additional chat support is available as well. The support challenge is already addressed and accessible, allowing for quick resolution of issues.

The initial setup of SAP S/4HANA is moderately complex, but there are not many use cases, especially in the Middle East. 

For the cloud solution of SAP S/4HANA, maintenance is not required. However, this is not the case for the on-premises solution, which does require technical support.

When you are using SAP S/4HANA for the construction industry, it is crucial to understand the specific needs and processes of construction companies, which are often based on the number of projects they handle. To effectively utilize SAP S/4HANA in this context, it's essential to explain how the system can support and streamline business operations.

In the construction industry, projects typically begin with a tendering process where companies look for construction services. In terms of presales, a system like SAP S/4HANA is invaluable for planning opportunities by incorporating initial construction rounds and cost estimates to determine pricing. These processes can be efficiently managed through an ERP system.

Once a project is secured, a new project is created in SAP S/4HANA, and WBS is established. Integrating the ERP with CAD solutions that contain the project drawings is crucial for reviewing cost elements and budgets. Based on the budget, POs can be issued to vendors for materials, automating the procurement process.

Cost objects related to the WBS or network are tracked using fund management within the ERP system. Integration with SAP SuccessFactors is also important to hire and assign employees to specific projects, ensuring accurate tracking of progress and costs.

The system enables tracking project progress, completion percentages, and project costs. Reports comparing planned versus actual costs can be generated at any time. Project invoicing and planning are based on completion percentages and material consumption, as construction projects do not have regular invoicing. Instead, settlements are based on the completion percentage and material usage, allowing for accurate customer invoicing and cash collection.

Integration with service sheets ensures that customers can approve completed work. Once the work is confirmed, the system can automatically generate invoices and initiate the collection process. Additionally, the integration with tools like AutoCAD enhances the visibility and visualization of project completion within the ERP system, eliminating the need for external systems to track progress.

By leveraging SAP S/4HANA, construction companies can manage their projects more effectively, ensuring seamless integration of processes, accurate tracking, and improved financial management.

I recommend S/4HANA for various industries, except one. I cannot recommend it for that industry due to affordability concerns. However, for manufacturing, utilities, public sector, construction, and real estate, S/4HANA is the number one choice. But when it comes to the automotive industry, my recommendation is to go for Maxwell Dynamics.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

I use the solution in my company to pay for procurement, finance, and asset management, and we use all its modules across the board for everything.

I think the tool is very good for large organizations, and to handle large volumes of data that is used while being user-friendly. The documentation and storage procedures and other things are clearly defined for end users.

There is a need to improve the migration process.

I think that clearer guidelines on implementation for faster data migration need to be improved a little bit, as transforming the legacies to SAP S/4HANA is complex. When there are business requirements, the business needs to work closely and understand that data migration and cutover activities need to be improved to meet the production goal.

I have been using SAP S/4HANA for more than five years.

Sometimes we have issues with the performance and other things, especially when you don't do proper testing and other things, or when you basically miss some of the cutover guidelines or steps in implementation and deployment, but we get good support from SAP.

It is a scalable solution.

I think if you go for public cloud, the solution's technical support is not great and I would rate it as a five out of ten. If you have a private cloud, I would rate the solution's technical support as a seven or eight out of ten.

Neutral

The product's initial setup phase's complexity or easiness is something that depends on many factors. If you have a very good SI and, you don't need to look at the setup process. With ClamSAP and SAP Cloud ALM, things are a lot easier now. Compared to old days when we used to use SAP Solution Manager 7.2, things have become a lot easier now with SAP S/4HANA and every year it is being improved.

Deployment is like a thorough cutover activity that needs to be studied. Data migration, configuration, code, and everything need to be cross-checked or double-checked, and some kind of production verification or technical verification needs to be done at every stage before moving to the next one, making it fairly complex and there are a lot of people involved in it. The aforementioned areas can be considered as the downsides of the tool when compared to Salesforce and other applications. SAP S/4HANA handles large volumes of data when compared to other applications.

The solution is deployed on private cloud, public cloud, and on-premises.

With ClamSAP and fast-track implementation guides, you can implement the tool in three months.

The tool's ROI is pretty good, but it takes a long time to see any returns on the investment. SAP systems are implemented to last, like, maybe twenty, thirty years. The ROI will come back, but you won't see any benefits in the near future after its purchase. It is a long-term solution that you implement and move forward for twenty or thirty years, and I think the return on investment is good. If you're going into SAP S/4HANA, it is not like there is a need to bring in the whole suite for your whole business and more on to SAP S/4HANA. The ROI is good.

It is an expensive solution. The tool's price can be reasonable for large organizations, but it might not be suitable for small organizations with a small number of users.

In supply chain management, my company looks into MRP, forecasting, stock forecasting, and everything, and then the management, specifically invoice management, for processing payments.

In the finance and accounting aspect, the tool does end-to-end accounting, budget planning, and forecasting. The tool also does postings, Cl. balance, reconciliation, and all that sort of stuff.

The tool has improved the efficiency of the business processes, and I think it provides the best in-built practices as a solution, readily available, and it can be easily customized to suit your business. Everything, like the end-to-end processes, are all predefined, and the best practice for the solution is available in the product during the setup, which is really useful.

With the tool, you have real-time data and time reports. It is not like it was in the past when it was in-memory, as it used to take longer to generate the reports. Now, it provides reports in real-time, so it is really good.

Real-time insights have impacted the decision-making processes since, I think, we will know when customer orders are coming in, and we can see the demand go up pretty quickly. In real-time, the management can make decisions about reordering, manufacturing, and production planning, which is a lot on a dashboard where it is tightly integrated and helpful in many areas.

For the migration process, there is a learning curve. The end users may have to be trained. The migration process has a lot of paperwork and manual activity that has become redundant, which is good and bad since the learning curve is now a bit high. People who are near to the system need to be trained, which is a bit of a downside, but in the long run, it is okay.

I suggest the tool to large organizations, complex businesses, multiple companies, or entities with hundreds and thousands of users and employees, as it would be good in such environments. In small organizations, I wouldn't suggest SAP S/4HANA.

As maintaining and changing the tool is very costly, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

There are some main use cases for SAP S/4HANA because mainly we work with manufacturing customers.

I have mostly manufacturing customers.

The most useful features in this product are the real-time reporting and the complete integration between various functions.

The in-app integration works across all functions.

Since it's real-time, the reporting is fully integrated, and the people taking the reports don't need to reconcile between different functions because it is real-time with mission and completely integrated; that is the main reason why people go for SAP S/4HANA.

SAP S/4HANA is real-time and fully integrated, and SAP is always proactive in providing solutions for new scenarios or new business processes. It's scalable, so if an organization is small today and is working in one industry, tomorrow it can move to multiple geographies or industries and the size grows; it's completely scalable to a very large extent.

The cost is definitely high, so SAP does have a growth solution, which is slightly cheaper compared to other offerings with SAP.

A lot more customers would adopt it if they reduced the price by around twenty to twenty-five percent.

I'm working with a partner, and I've been working with SAP S/4HANA for the last eight to nine years.

I have faced no issues with stability or upgrades.

SAP S/4HANA is easy to scale in my opinion.

I would rate the scalability a ten.

The support that SAP provides is very good.

I would rate the support a ten because there are a lot of knowledge-based articles published, and most of them are available online.

Positive

I don't have much experience with SAP Business One solution or SAP Sales Cloud, only SAP S/4HANA.

It is easy to set up SAP S/4HANA now.

I would rate the setup a nine.

I'm expected to leave this for her, so I don't have expertise in any other tools such as data mining solutions, business intelligence, or other ERP tools. I would rate SAP S/4HANA a fit in.

The tool has improved our company's financial processes as it gives us a systematic way to look at data. Based on the analytics offered by the tool, users can judge if they want to spend money on something or not. Based on data or analytical data from ERP, you can easily make judgments, like whether you want to purchase something commercially or not. With the tool, we can see the transactions and everything in one place.

SAP offers very good ERP software. As ECC is into SAP HANA, SAP has already improved it, and now SAP is in the process of going with RISE with SAP. Everything has already been captured in the tool, and everything is as per the worldwide industry standard process, and the ERP solution is something that is based on it.

The tool's high cost is an area of concern where improvements are required.

I have experience with SAP S/4HANA.

It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

It is a scalable solution.

Around 200 to 500 people use the tool.

If you divide the workload between the projects and clients, then it can definitely be very costly. If your organization is not more than 10,00,00,00,000, I would say it is not okay to go with SAP S4/HANA.

For technical support, we are dependent on the consultants only.

I cannot say whether the product's deployment process is complex or straightforward, as it depends on the company where it is being deployed.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

A minimum of ten to fifteen people are needed to deploy and maintain the tool.

The solution can be deployed in five to six months.

A company's resources can't deploy the tool. You need specific people to deploy the tool. It's not a person but a team you require to deploy the tool. Consultants are needed to help one deploy the tool.

The ROI part cannot be judged, and it is something that is based on how much a person uses the tool. If your company is small, but when it comes to process orientation, the ROI is always good. ROI is not dependent upon the size of a company.

The tool is expensive.

SAP S/4HANA is a very decent product for our main business. My company is into mining and production. The tool is a process-oriented product. If you train people, then the product is very likely to be used, and it is defined as a tool that offers a systematic industry standard process.

Speaking of whether the tool has significantly increased our company's operational efficiency, I would say that it would be an injustice in areas like manufacturing, material movement, HR, production planning or quality assurance since each and every part is connected with each other.

The real-time analytics capability impacts our decision-making process and can be very quick if you have the right data. With just a few clicks, you can get everything.

The tool's Fiori UX has improved user suggestions, productivity, processes, and real-time data in our company.

I recommend the product to those companies that have a capital of 10,00,00,00,000.

SAP S/4HANA is a good product, provided it is used in a proper and realistic manner. Training is also required for the tool's users. You may go for SAP S/4HANA, but you need to decide if, as per your company's costs, you don't mind spending too much money or if you are capable of spending some money. You can take any ERP solution since there are many solutions available nowadays. SAP is very expensive, I feel.

To those who want to buy the product, I would say that they need to prepare a plan and should ensure that they have the right people to deploy the tool and create a strategic planning process, after which the process of choosing the right consultants should be carried out. The right consultants are the people who feed with the fact that the deployment processes carried out are done for life long. It is not possible to stop anything midway.

I rate the tool a ten out of ten.

It has supported our client's digital transformation initiatives. There are two versions of S/4HANA: on-premise and on-cloud. We haven't seen many client use cases for the cloud version yet, mostly pilots and proof of concepts (POCs) on Azure. We sometimes convince clients to go for the cloud version for analytics purposes. 

However, 80-90% of the time, clients use the on-premise version. Clients run their entire enterprise on it, requiring customizations, which we help them with.

S/4HANA is an ERP system that connects to all other systems, even non-SAP ones. For example, S/4HANA talks with SuccessFactors, Salesforce, or Ariba. This integration allows it to serve as a single source of truth.

The finance module is the best thing. It integrates well with other modules, which makes it the best ERP available. This advantage comes from ECC, although new licenses are no longer being sold. Currently, S/4HANA is the one in use.

Views on real-time analytics in S/4 HANA:

It is a limited part. Real-time analytics is available to a certain extent, and the visualization is very good.

S/4HANA offers additional features like fuzzy search and duplicate detection. It even provides a percentage of how likely it is a duplicate based on defined parameters. These out-of-the-box features are helpful for users.

Customization capabilities: 

On-premise is completely customizable, but the cloud version has limitations. There are certain limitations of the cloud version for customization.

On-premise provides more flexibility. You can create custom code or change the entire process. For example, one of India based Oil & Gas major has built everything custom, even their configuration page is a custom SAP GUI. They have their own custom SPRO.

Similarly, every client needs some customization because:

• Terminology and processes differ slightly. You definitely need customizations for these two things. 
• Additionally, there might be extra requirements. Let's say you want someone to be notified when a purchase order is released. This also requires customization.

On-premise offers full flexibility for this, while cloud deployments have set limitations. These limitations are documented, and we have no choice but to comply. This can be a blocker for users who feel they have to accept what's offered, not what they need. This is a major concern for users considering the cloud version.

There are certain limitations of the cloud version for customization. The cloud version offers various deployment options. If it's managed by SAP, no changes are allowed. If the customer manages it, they can make some changes, but not drastically. There are limitations on the extent of these changes.

For the on-premise version, it's mostly there. However, there are certain things like the strict adherence to LOBs (Lines of Business). They don't always operate in isolation, and S/4HANA may not always be a perfect solution.

For example, material creation and vendor management are separate LOBs. But procuring materials happens from vendors, and those vendors also become entities in your system. Ideally, there should be a way to intermix these LOBs.

Currently, you have to use different T-codes for each, which makes sense, but there should be ways to integrate or cross-utilize them.

I have been using SAP S/4HANA since its inception; I have worked with almost all versions except the latest one released in 2023. 

It is quite stable, with no concerns. It offers flexibility and robust reporting out of the box.

On-premise scaling is excellent, but cloud scaling is intentionally restricted. If the same solution is accessed with different tenants, they can't change SPRO, and you're also expected to use SPRO. That's the model. 

However, the on-premise version is highly scalable, as demonstrated by India based Oil & Gas major, who has changed almost everything. This shows that it's scalable down to the code level, if needed.

For S/4HANA, I'd rate it an eight, slightly higher than the seven for ECC.

Positive

There are no close competitors to S/4HANA. Other ERPs exist, but they aren't at the same level. They are often considered "poor man's ERPs." So, no other tools currently compete with SAP S/4HANA.

Deployment refers to the cloud, while installation refers to on-premise. Both are straightforward, with numerous documents available and a supportive team that provides quick assistance when needed (if at all we need the support). It's easy.

For maintenance, there are two answers: on-premise is easy to maintain, while cloud is tough.

Cloud maintenance difficulties:

Even with managed services, even to make allowed changes involves SLAs (Service Level Agreements). Moving a transport, containing all changes, even a single comma, can take three days. It never happens within an hour. You have to wait one to two days to see changes reflected in your system. This is a major drawback, especially since moving a transport could be automated, considering SAP's flexibility.

SAP's licensing and pricing model is quite flexible. They offer both a floating license model and an agent model, focusing more on the latter. It depends on the number of licenses and users.

In some cases, they also offer seat-based pricing. For example, 50 seats can be used by either Kumar or Michael, or one seat can be shared by Kumar and Michael across shifts. They have a flexible model and the price is also flexible.

For instance, if it's 10 or 20 licenses, there might be a lump sum, but for 100 licenses, they offer a better price. They are flexible in that sense.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. S/4HANA could gain a larger market share if they extend their SAP model pricing to smaller companies. Currently,  S/4HANA focuses on an agent-based model for larger companies. If they were willing to offer an SAP model, they could secure more deals.

Smaller companies often have a rotating workforce, so allowing the same license to be used by different people at the same desk would be more appealing. This flexibility could attract more users to opt for S/4HANA.

I'm an architect. S/4HANA is an intelligent enterprise. When an organization needs an application or software to run its operations, S/4HANA comes into play. SAP is the market leader in ERP. S/4HANA is not a traditional ERP anymore, but an intelligent enterprise. That's the power of S/4HANA.

The integration capabilities of SAP S/4HANA and AWS are excellent.  SAP S/4HANA is an intelligent enterprise. It can harness data and provide the right data at the right time for decision-makers to carry forward the operations. 

For integration, you have SAP BTP, a platform as a solution that can work with S/4HANA. There are also other tools like SAP CPI and SAP Process Orchestration. So, there are a lot of tools available for SAP to integrate with the outside world.

AI capabilities are good with SAP S/4HANA. When WE combine SAP S/4HANA with SAP BTP, there is a use case in the healthcare industry where it can detect yearly symptoms and save lives. This is referred to as SAP Business Technology Platform.

S/4HANA is a very large application. There is no one specific tool I can pick. It depends on the customer, the use case, and what the business needs. Different industries will find different business functions helpful. 

If it is a construction industry, probably something related to the construction function will help you. If it is a logistics industry, if it's a logistics function, it's a separate one. So, depending on the type of industry, you will have a different business function that will come into place.

Most of the Fortune 500 companies use SAP S/4HANA, so I don't think it's unfit for any particular industry. But if a customer has limited requirements, like only sales activity, then they can choose Salesforce. They don't need SAP S/4HANA. It's not a proper comparison because we can do a lot with S/4HANA, like HR, sales, distribution, production planning, quality management, transport management, and more.

In future releases, I would like to see more availability zones and VPCs so customers have more freedom to choose. Also, more training so customers can utilize the training enablement.

I have experience with S/4HANA for around seven or eight years.

AWS is premium. From a cost perspective, AWS might be on the higher side. The users have to check if the required availability zone is available in the customer's region. Sometimes, only Azure is available. I don't see any issues of that sort. It's very mature.

The customer service and support are very good. There are options for SAP called RISE with SAP. You can make a note of it. With RISE with SAP, customers can choose their hyperscaler. It can be SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, AWS, Azure, GCP, or even Alibaba. When it comes to support, you can go with a single contract with the RISE with SAP option, so you get one support contract.

The support comes from SAP, not AWS. The support is the same for AWS or Azure. Some customers will enter into an exclusive contract, while others will go with a generic contract. For the sake of an answer, I can give it an eight out of ten.

Positive

Every implementation has its challenges. Sometimes, the challenges are with the project timeline, sometimes with resource availability, and sometimes with the business process meeting the requirements of the business. 

Especially with a product like SAP, such a big project, there are challenges, and that's when project management comes in to make sure the project is delivered successfully.

We have multiple deployment options. We have S/4HANA on public cloud and S/4HANA on private cloud. Depending on the customer's appetite, we can choose which one they want. 

Even within the private cloud, we have options like greenfield, which means we implement from scratch; brownfield, which means we convert an existing system; or bluefield, which is loosely related to a data migration approach. So, it depends on the customer's appetite.

SAP S/4HANA is a solution, and AWS is just an infrastructure provider. Some customers might prefer S/4HANA on Azure or Google Cloud. It depends on the customer's requirements.

Customers will have access to the latest innovation from SAP and will be updated with the business process libraries. They can stay ahead of their competitors in the market because of the innovations provided by SAP. 

They also have lots of tools or options available to integrate with the outside world.

I would recommend using it. Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

Overall, it's being used mostly for analytics. It's basically the movement of goods between various warehouses. That is also pretty much used.

The output that we get, maybe the analytics part, is even faster compared to what we used to see on the ECC system. It used to take a few days for the analytics reports to come out of the loading, etcetera. It took a lot of time. However, now it's just a matter of a few hours to get the reports generated. That is one of the things.

I don't see any additives as of now. Any of the standard APIs or whatever is available to be integrated is done so easily with the S/4. 

It's been four or five years.

The team regularly checks on the logs, audit logs, et cetera, and they review a few important KPIs as well. So no issues are present as of now since everything has gone through proper testing, et cetera.

There are no issues in terms of onboarding. Probably, in terms of scalability, we have to plan for that.

The initial setup was kind of complicated. It went through with proper planning, et cetera.

We have separate teams handling the introductory part and the application parts or the tech team's parts.

Moving from ECC to S/4 is a kind of transformation program which involves a lot of changes, including organizational change planning. That is very crucial. All these things should be taken care of when planning this transformation. 

I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

We use it for the internal SAP database, for the information, multiple portfolios of products of SAP. It addresses the issue of managing extensive data resources.

Its analytics capabilities are valuable as they enhance data analysis and insights.

It could be improved by focusing on user-related challenges, as end users might face certain difficulties.

I worked with SAP S4HANA for two years.

The stability can be rated as eight out of ten.

The scalability is also rated at eight out of ten, indicating good scalability.

The quality of technical support from SAP can be rated as eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup was difficult, presenting challenges for users.

The implementation was handled by a third party, and we did not perform it in-house.

We have observed a good return on investment, with calculations based on a five-year ROI plan. Most cases have shown positive returns.

The pricing of SAP S4HANA is high, however, it's higher compared to similar peer solutions.

I would recommend SAP S4HANA because it is a known solution that is stable and widely used by customers, thus making it reliable.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.