SAP S/4HANA Reviews

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.

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.

The solution's use cases depend on the market in which clients use it. I usually work with manufacturing companies. They used the tool for manufacturing, using whatever they needed to implement SAP independently. Warehousing users use the solution to manage inventory. Both retail and manufacturing markets use warehousing, and that's another big area where the tool is used.

The main focus of moving from an old ERP to the solution is that the HANA database runs in memory and quickly answers questions. Since it's already in memory, reports need not be created after the data is loaded in the transactional tables.

The solution's most valuable feature is integration. You're still talking about modules, procurement, and business partners. All of these are different modules in SAP S/4HANA. Everything is connected easily because of the integration of the same database in the memory. It's already connected there. You don't need to change the view.

You can change the view from one perspective to another, but it's mostly the same thing. You are not jumping between modules in such a way that you are seeing the same data differently. Since you see the same database, you are not making mistakes when seeing the customer in procurement or inventory. You see exactly the same data because it comes from the same view.

Everything is integrated in that way. There are no more mistakes in the data not being updated. Every time you access something, it is already updated in real-time. From a business point of view, you see the same figure no matter how you access it.

SAP S/4HANA is an expensive solution.

I have been using SAP S/4HANA for 10 to 12 years.

If there are no customizations, SAP S/4HANA is a very stable product.

You can add more transactions, materials, customers, and vendors. Scaling the solution is not a problem because you are in a private cloud. You need more servers, but the system is prepared to work that way. The solution is more suited for medium to enterprise businesses. Some small customers want to have this kind of ERP, but the problem is that it is expensive.

Without any changes, the solution's initial setup is easy. The process is very, very easy to implement. If there are changes, we need to recommend that SAP incorporate those modifications because they may be standard.

That is a long shot because SAP filters everything, as there are many customer requests. They filter them and implement only the ones they think are useful to everybody. Those modifications are taken into account for the next release. It's a problem for the customer if they need something that is not standard for SAP S/4HANA. If it is a standard for SAP S/4HANA, it's easy to implement.

I rate the solution’s initial setup ten out of ten.

Some customers needing this kind of software don't consider the costs. They think about the profitability they can achieve with the solution's implementation. People concerned about the costs need to evaluate whether implementing this system is profitable.

It depends on the perspective. You need to consider whether this investment is enough to get you to what you are looking for. It's basically a market evaluation of what you are doing.

With the solution's real-time analytic options, you don't need to use anything else. You already have the data in memory, and you can build any query to extract something that was hard to extract earlier.

The business process works fine because there are not too many steps now. Since everything is in memory, the processes are simpler than before. The business processes are cleaner because you don't need to go through too many steps to get the results done. You now have a 360-degree view of a customer.

Whether you are accessing the customer by invoicing or by a business partner, you get the view of these customers all around, and you don't need to jump between modules. Everything is now more easily integrated.

The first approach was to have this ERP implemented on-premises. Now, the solution is going to the cloud. The idea is to deploy the tool depending on the requirements of the customer or the client. The products are already built, and you don't need to do anything else.

You are accessing the solution in a way that is already customized for the customer. You don't need to do anything additionally. The ERP is already ready to be used. Then, you have hybrid implementations, partly in the cloud and partly on-premises.

Also, you can have everything on-premises but in a private network. So, it depends on the client's requirements. Everything can be done depending on the client's requirements, but the solution can be deployed everywhere.

Customers are currently looking to migrate from ECC into S/4HANA. The improvements or benefits will come from implementing S/4HANA. These customers are not so worried about how it is going to work because they want to do the initial migration. A lot of customers are doing that at this time, and it is a potential market for us as implementers on which we can rely for a long time.

SAP provides a module that facilitates migration from any system, not only ECC, to SAP S/4HANA. The idea here is to provide layouts already built. The customer or client only needs to populate this layout and then push it into the solution, which is easy. However, depending on the client, some things may not completely reflect what the customer or client needs. So, they need to do customizations.

Those customizations need to be done before in SAP S/4HANA, and then this special module for data migration needs to be modified. It could be totally different from what the standard SAP is doing. So, they need to do other programming to get this data loaded into specific modules being modified for that client.

The idea is to get the benefit of what SAP S/4HANA is offering. The idea is not to customize anything. However, we always have something that is not specific for a client and needs to be modified. The module itself is capable of modifying what is required. If you modify the tool too much, the next version will not be implemented quickly.

That's why the recommendation is not to modify anything. The processes already built into the solution are enough for any kind of market. However, if you are doing it, you need to comply with what SAP recommends. If the new version is coming, you can implement it quickly, or you will have issues like in the past. Heavily customized ERP systems are complex to migrate to the new versions.

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

At our company, we use SAP S/4HANA to support our two main lines of business, which are crop protection and seed development. The product is used in the central finance of our organization. 

In our organization, we are currently working on a project with a product where traditional ECC systems will be converted to SAP S/4HANA systems. 

SAP S/4HANA showcases great performance as part of the HANA database. The solution provides multiple tools for easy integrations. For instance, if I have to work with a GUI and Fiori, it can be easily carried out with the resources available in SAP S/4HANA as compared to traditional SAP systems. 

In the traditional ECC Oracle systems, when the size is enhanced, it doesn't impact much on the cost, but for SAP S/4HANA, the sizing needs to be checked very frequently as the data grows every year.

The TCO impact is quite high for SAP S/4HANA; for instance, if today I am using a 64GB CPU and 512GB server, in another year, I will probably need to upscale to a 1 TB machine. SAP S/4HANA needs to bring a feature that allows a great quantity of data compression. 

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

In the first year of SAP S/4HANA deployment in our organization, we faced some issues with the solution, and our organization's team learned from it and following that, the solution has proven stable enough. 

The solution is easy to scale. The scalability of SAP S/4HANA depends on the hosting environment, the solution can be effortlessly scaled in a cloud environment but in an on-prem or SAP RISE's environment there are certain limitations, timelines and lead times for which a professional needs to wait before implementing upscaling or other scale changes in the solution. 

The speed and quality of resolving issues from customer support needs to improve. 

The solution was easy to deploy. In our company, we faced challenges with the third-party add-ons and its compatibility with SAP S/4HANA. To overcome the compatibility challenge at our company we had to collaborate with third-party owners of specific add-ons to obtain a certified and functional solution or version of the add-ons. To obtain the aforementioned add-on versions our company had to wait for a prolonged duration which elongated the testing time for us. 

The deployment time of SAP S/4HANA depends on multiple factors. The deployment of the solution in our company's central finance department, as well as for all our vendors, took around 100 professionals, excluding the core users for business validations. The maintenance of the technical aspects of SAP S/4HANA has become easier than before. 

The solution vendor previously used to provide indirect licensing, but now the vendor has a digital licensing facility for SAP S/4HANA. The licensing format is complicated for SAP S/4HANA. 

I have worked with the earlier version of SAP S/4HANA which was called SAP ECC. 

For analytics and business reporting purposes, instead of SAP S/4HANA in our company we use SAP Analytics Cloud. 

The in-memory computing feature of the solution brings agility to reporting or execution processes performed by our company on central finance systems. SAP S/4HANA needs a high-configuration server that has sufficient memory to store all the data that needs to be worked upon. The storage size and data management are two vital aspects of in-memory computing with SAP S/4HANA. The aforementioned aspects can directly impact the cost and performance. 

I would overall rate SAP S/4HANA a seven out of ten. Before deploying SAP S/4HANA, I would advise others to prepare an effective data strategy because data becomes one of the key aspects and they should ensure the compatible versions of the add-ons are being availed. I would recommend any new adopters of SAP S/4HANA to check how the product can blend with the business processes and provide advantages. 

My primary use case for this solution involves controlling leads and organizing deals. It also includes managing proposals and commercial proposals. This is essentially the use case for which I adopted this solution.

SAP offers specific functions related to my data use case. There are small solutions tailored to specific CRM Control processes. For instance, the solution is common among console solutions. It includes features such as lead perspective and inputting data for new prospects and customers. 

Additionally, it provides control over offered amounts in packages and time expectations for concluding calls, yet it lacks integration with platforms like LinkedIn or other similar tools.

The disadvantages of this product include the lack of integration with platforms like LinkedIn. 

I believe the solution was used one or two years ago. Currently, it is not in use, although it was used consistently during that period.

The system is good and not slow. Availability is not a problem.

I don't know about the system's capacity or specifications regarding IT hardware environment capacity. However, the available capacity for features is good, and availability is sufficient, with no other issues to mention regarding service availability.

I am not familiar with the customer service information. I have never used the support team, and there have been no problems reported in this area.

Positive

I didn't join the company at the project's start, so I lack information on the initial setup or implementation. My involvement began two years ago, so I cannot provide details on the initial project's phases.

If the scenario is similar to mine, I recommend this solution. There is no issue with recommending it to others if it involves large consulting companies like Accenture or Deloitte. 

I rate the overall solution nine out of ten.

I use this solution because it provides immediate insights into financial affairs without waiting for month-end reports.

The ability to access real-time data analytics is crucial, as it supports events or calls that require immediate attention and decision-making. Utilizing Virtual NGINX has been quite effective for this purpose.

The user interface is less friendly than that of View ID, however, it is more robust overall. I can perform a lot of data manipulation directly on SAP using S-One, without having to resort to Excel, unlike with View ID.

I have used the solution for another SAP for a total of three years.

During my time with Angleton, we relied on a private cloud, and accessibility became literally impossible whenever the cloud service provider experienced downtime.

I highly recommend this solution. It is very easy to scale within businesses, especially when a new business falls within the range.

I absolutely would recommend the customer service.

Positive

This was my first encounter with ERP, and I have not used any other ERP solutions.

I joined the company when the migration was completed, so I am not aware of any setup challenges.

This was my first encounter with ERP, and I have not used any other ERP solutions.

Previously, using a private cloud meant that management could not always access data due to possible downtimes from the cloud service provider. It is crucial that management does not simply have to wait for month-end averages to understand the financial affairs of the business. Real-time data analytics with Virtual NGINX has been very helpful, and scaling within businesses when there is a new business under the range is also straightforward. 

I would rate the overall solution nine out of ten.

We use SAP for business processes.

SAP S/4HANA has significantly improved processes by enabling a more intelligent enterprise. With tools like SAP Business Technology Platform services and AI scenarios, data processing and decision-making have become much smarter and efficient.

The features that I find most helpful in my day-to-day operations with SAP S/4HANA are primarily related to data management. Real-time data analytics has significantly enhanced decision-making processes by providing instant insights into business processes and trends. The user experience with the SAP S/4HANA interface has also seen notable improvements, particularly in terms of a more friendly and personalized UI.

There is room for improvement in areas such as security features within SAP S/4HANA, which could further enhance the overall usability and effectiveness of the platform.

To make SAP S/4HANA better, there's a focus on enhancing responsiveness and reducing operational costs. This includes improving automation within the system to address strategic needs and accommodate users who primarily speak English, which is an ongoing effort.

I've been working with SAP for around seventeen years, specifically focusing on SAP S/4HANA since around 2015. I work with SAP as a partner.

In terms of stability, I would rate SAP S/4HANA at around nine out of ten. 

The initial setup of SAP S/4HANA was challenging, but it's vital to understand the manual innovations, tool design, and integration, especially with new features and core aspects. Learning and staying updated with new innovations is crucial for IT professionals, as it provides valuable insights into business processes and concepts. The duration depends on specific business requirements, typically taking around four months to complete.

I would rate the pricing at around six to nine out of ten depending on the edition and deployment type.

SAP S/4HANA's integration capabilities are highly impactful on the IT ecosystem due to its seamless integration with both SAP and non-SAP systems through the integration suite. I would recommend SAP S/4HANA to anyone who needs an efficient ERP system with a user-friendly interface, strong security features, and the flexibility of deployment options. For those concerned about security, on-premises deployment is recommended, while for others, a hybrid approach with cloud integration can be advantageous. 

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

Our company provides SAP services for the SAP ECC version and the latest SAP S/4HANA version running on the SAP HANA database. SAP S/4HANA is used by SMEs, large enterprises, and Fortune 500 companies that are globally distributed. For ERP solution requirements for the aforementioned companies, I believe SAP is the market leader that provides end-to-end solutions to cater to all business requirements, daily business transactions and operations. 

As part of the business operations, SAP solutions are used for inventory, procurement, production, planning, quality maintenance, post-production, post-quality check, dispatching, and sales. SAP also caters to completing end-to-end financial processes in fields ranging from expense to revenue. SAP also has multiple add-ons for services in analytics, data warehousing, and advanced or enterprise warehouse management with SaaS productive solutions.   

There is another SAP Ariba product used for advanced P2P, payment and procurement processes. SAP also has solutions for CRM and customer solutions and multiple other products for every line of business. SAP has ideal tools for retail, hospitality management, agriculture, and Oil & Gas businesses.

Depending on customer requirements and their line of business, our company provides suitable SAP services. Based on certain prerequisites like company turnover and yearly revenue, SAP products or system licenses can be adopted. Based on the user licenses procured, whether on-prem or cloud, the solution can be managed by the vendor. SAP products are also adopted by all lines of businesses, including automotive and manufacturing. 

Our company not only implements SAP S/4HANA but also manages the migration from older versions to the latest SAP S/4HANA. For any dedicated projects with SAP S/4HANA, there are some taxation-based processes and procurement processes to develop or customize the solution. 

SAP S/4HANA is a highly compliance-oriented system. The solution provides real-time compliance and auditing from the financial and system perspectives. SAP's USP is that about 80% of customers in the market are using their solutions to run across different systems. Another USP of SAP is that the solution supports all the data across models with proper integration for each and every processes. 

There are no misalignments, ambiguities, or issues within the system for database transactions, business transactions, or reports when using SAP S/4HANA. The product is trouble-free, and it enables businesses to make faster decisions and run systems without errors in day-to-day business operations. 

Consultants need to always remain updated with the latest technology and features from SAP S/4HANA. The licensing of SAP S/4HANA needs to be improved. 

I have been using SAP S/4HANA for four to five years and have been working with SAP products for seventeen or eighteen years. 

SAP S/4HANA is quite scalable. But to scale the solution, there are some additional costs associated for the infrastructure. In our organization there are four to five clients for the SAP solution. SAP S/4HANA gets easily integrated with almost any third-party tool. 

The initial setup of SAP S/4HANA is straightforward. The license of the solution should be obtained in accordance with the customer's requirements. For deployment of the solution, there are compliances and audits that need to be implemented, following which compatibility has to be analyzed and prerequisites need to be verified for the organization who are willing to adapt SAP S/4HANA.

The solution can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud. Once the deployment model is identified, SAP or its service partners should identify the organization's business processes across all business modules.

As part of the deployment process, a business blueprint documentation needs to be prepared, the complete end-to-end scope needs to be identified, realization certification needs to be obtained, and user testing needs to be implemented. If a customer wants any customizations in SAP S/4HANA that can also be implemented. 

The deployment of the solution can be diligently handled in agile mode by identifying the primary requirements that are of major importance and secondary requirements that can be considered at a later stage. 

Our organization's customers have claimed that the ROI is realized within three to five years of using SAP S/4HANA. Our organization's customers of SAP S/4HANA have also informed us that the solution has helped reduce business costs, narrowed business operation leakages, improved compliance, and streamlined the taxation process.  

The product is expensive. The licensing of SAP S/4HANA needs to be improved by allowing more privileges to the on-prem segment because there are still customers who prefer to use the on-prem version. Due to data security, validation and privacy reasons, certain customers are unwilling to transport their data to the cloud. There are some restrictions and limitations on the on-cloud version of SAP S/4HANA due to network security. 

The customers of our organization are facing numerous issues in user-licensing; we have found that the customers are reluctant to obtain a perpetual or subscription-based license because every organization has its own budget and business requirements. 

SAP S/4HANA helps in real-time operations by providing real-time reports. When using the HANA database, the complete in-memory data arrives in the RAM, which is slightly expensive for the one-time installation and implementation purposes, but once the overall business database is transferred to the RAM, SAP S/4HANA provides a fast and easy access to reports across all the modules.

Using the features of SAP Fiori and SAP BTP landscape, you can acquire and access dashboards, general reports and MIS reports for faster decision-making using mobile devices. 

The vendor is making efforts to transport the solutions to the cloud but in our organization, we have witnessed that a large number of customers want the solution in on-prem versions. Even if the technologies are shifting to cloud and its becoming the nature of system maintenance, still somewhere down the line, the vendor should be aware that in some cases the solution will need to be deployed on-prem. 

The cloud version of SAP S/4HANA is completely managed by the vendor and the on-prem version is managed by the customer. A certified SAP service partner should be identified for the implementation of the product. When each and every process of setup is signed off with proper documentation and consolidation there won't be any issues.

I would rate SAP S/4HANA as nine out of ten. I would advise others to first check if their company is able to fulfill the prerequisites for adopting SAP S/4HANA and they should also analyze the cost.

SAP has now launched the BTP that helps SAP S/4HANA integrate with not only SAP solutions but also with other vendor solutions. Any heterogeneous system can be easily integrated with the SAP S/4HANA. Using micro-managed services, cloud platform integrations and BTP, all integrations can be smoothly managed in SAP S/4HANA. 

I mainly use it for finance activities like FICO, SD, etc.

Compared to other systems, it is more customer-friendly and time-efficient. It is easy to operate and understand. The reports and solutions provided by SAP HANA are excellent. I have worked with different software, but SAP HANA stands out due to its quality and functionality. It also offers extensive customization options for reports, making it user-friendly for partners, customers, and stakeholders at all levels.

As a finance professional, I appreciate the user-friendly interface and time-saving features. We can easily access reports and other information. So, it reduces the need for manual work. 

If I input data correctly, everything is available in the system, which allows me to generate reports effortlessly and present them to management. This saves a lot of time.

As an end-user, I find that working in SAP is efficient and resolves issues. We can easily access reports and information, reducing manual work. This is a major change in SAP.

SAP S/4HANA's Fiori UI: 

I've been working with Fiori for years. We have thousands of users at the front-end level, including stores and distribution points. Many of these people lack technical knowledge or experience with SAP. Introducing Fiori with its tiles made their lives easier and simplified SAP for many. With Fiori tiles, there's no need to memorize key codes or complex procedures.

Since employees keep changing in any company, especially front-end. So, SAP made it easier for new employees to learn and be trained quickly. There's no rocket science in Fiori; everything is user-friendly. With minimal training, we can teach them what's available in Fiori. Everything is accessible through tiles. Fiori is especially beneficial for front-end and average-level employees due to its ease of access. Just one day for training, and they could work with it.

There are areas for improvement. SAP needs to consider both global and regional requirements. For example, India has unique tax implications and regulations. They shouldn't have to rely on extensive customization for basic things because the standard features don't align with India's needs. 

More standardized features tailored to India or Indian customers and partners would be helpful, especially concerning tax regulations.

For example, India has different income tax rules [GST], but many things are not standardized in SAP. SAP broadly focuses on the global requirements of the top ten countries and may not prioritize India's specific rules and regulations. If they consider these and include them as standard features, it would be easier for customers in India to implement SAP quickly.

So SAP should consider tax parameters for India.

I have around seven years of experience with this product. 

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. 

Currently, we rely on two or three tools to get things done. By moving to S/4HANA, we plan to consolidate these into one tool, that will increase efficiency and eliminate the need to depend on multiple tools. This is a major improvement we see in SAP. 

So, the management made the decision to switch to SAP. This was a brilliant move for the system, finance, and all departments. It will resolve at least 50% of our current technical issues.

Personal experience: 

I personally have experience with Oracle Financials and Microsoft Navision. I have almost 18 years of experience working in different software areas, primarily with SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft.

I worked with an initial version of SAP in 2008. It was less user-friendly than the current version. S/4HANA has many customizations and new features that make it easier for front-end users.

I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, with ten being easy. 

Deloitte is the partner integrating SAP in the current company. The process is ongoing. It is yet to go live in the production environment. 

The deployment is a lengthy process. It normally takes a week.

There is a ROI. 

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

My recommendation: Consider the size of the organization, its requirements, and future plans before deciding to use SAP S/4HANA.

SAP S/4HANA is used for business applications. At our company, we have implemented the solution across nine modules which include CO, SD, MM, HCM, PM and more. 

In the past few years, there have been drastic changes in application environments; the SAP Fiori apps with numerous dashboards and KPIs provided by the solution help our organization adapt to the industry transformations. The SAP Fiori apps of SAP S/4HANA assist in decision-making processes. 

The SAP Fiori apps can provide an excellent and comfortable user experience. The aforementioned SAP S/4HANA apps can be integrated easily with almost any portable device so that POs and business documents can be approved on the go.

The classic interface of the solution and the configuration at the back-end or at the consultant's end needs improvement. 

I am a user of SAP S/4HANA. 

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. SAP S/4HANA offers impressive stability and functions well without any errors. 

I would rate the scalability of the solution a seven out of ten. The product is majorly for enterprise-level customers and offers great scalability. The classic application feature of the solution needs drastic improvement, but the SAP Fiori app already provides all the advanced features. There are more than 100 users of the solution in our organization. Our company uses SAP S/4HANA, majorly for large enterprises. 

As part of our company, we engage with technical support as consultants and a response is obtained in three to four hours. The response time of technical support should be improved by the solution provider. Whenever certain business operations cease in our organization, we seek immediate support from SAP, but it's not available presently. I would rate technical support a six out of ten. 

Neutral

At our company, the previous legacy software was not supporting us with reporting features and did not facilitate business operations. The software was developed using old technologies, and our company management division was expecting a top-tier solution with dashboards, analytics, and KPIs to rebuild the business operations; this was the reason why our organization shifted to SAP S/4HANA. 

The initial setup of SAP S/4HANA is difficult as, for every module, a dedicated consultant is required. For instance, if you need to implement nine modules, nine individual consultants are required to configure the product. In addition to the aforementioned team, a technical professional will also be needed. I would rate the initial setup a four out of ten. 

Our company had the target to deploy the solution in ten months, but it took sixteen months. For the deployment process in our organization, we used the ASAP methodology for implementation, and it was completed in five phases. The phases include preparation, BTP, business grouping, realization, final preparation, going live, and lastly, the after-implementation phase.

It's quite an expensive solution because multiple hardware resources are needed. A large investment must be made in hardware and software applications to use SAP S/4HANA. I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten. Small and medium businesses usually won't be able to afford SAP S/4HANA. I believe the standard licensing price remains fixed for the solution without additional costs. 

The implementation process of SAP S/4HANA needs to be well-planned in advance and all the required professionals need to be aligned. The expertise of the deployment professionals, consultants and deployment partner is a major factor in SAP S/4HANA deployment as the process often involves transformation from a legacy system to a top-tier solution. I would overall rate the solution an eight out of ten.