SAP S/4HANA Reviews

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. 

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.

SAP S/4HANA is the predominant solution from SAP, replacing the earlier SAP ECC. It's widely used for overall enterprise resource planning, including running banking operations and other enterprise functions.

My client's organization uses SAP S/4HANA for real-time analytics and decision-making by leveraging embedded analytics that are part of S/4HANA. Some organizations integrate specialized BW layers or their own data house layers for analytics, using SCC or BI for visualization. Others extract data from SAP S/4HANA to other hyperscalers or providers to create visualizations.

SAP S/4HANA supports my client's business processes in finance, procurement, and supply chain management through end-to-end management. This is often done with other IT specialists or independently for smaller customers using SAP S/4HANA.

SAP S/4HANA has been an excellent integrated solution for my clients, technically much easier to manage than the ECC solution. The embedded AI layer helps adopt intelligent AI directly within business scenarios, which has been very beneficial. These features enhance operations and efficiency for my clients.

Extensions to SAP S/4HANA have room for improvement, especially in integration with low-code/no-code platforms. Creating these extensions through Fiori transactions is more tedious than customers would like. Although the SAP build process has become more linear, further improvements could provide a huge benefit.

I have been using SAP S/4HANA since 2013.

It's a very stable system overall, but with new attacks targeting customers' SAP landscapes, the latest patches and versions must be applied. I would rate the stability an eight. 

The scalability of SAP S/4HANA is high, around nine. Typically, my clients are medium or enterprise businesses.

They are not excellent, but they are not bad either.

Positive

I would rate the initial setup of SAP S/4HANA as one because it is challenging. Implementing SAP S/4HANA involves integrating an organisation's processes, including different departments, geographical locations, and compliance requirements. Given the scale of these businesses, such as operations in multiple countries, it's complex and not meant to be simple.The physical deployment of SAP S/4HANA is not a challenge.

The deployment itself might happen within a day or even a few hours, given the accessible hardware. The time-consuming part is identifying the needed components, areas, services, and software. The actual deployment process is simple, but adjusting the software to meet your needs is complex. It's not the physical deployment of the application that is the problem.

SAP S/4HANA is usually deployed on the cloud through its own SAP
mechanism. This allows for deployment on both public and private cloud options.

Regarding pricing, I don't regularly deal with the financial aspects, but it is not a cheap solution.

When migrating to SAP S/4HANA, productivity initially dipped as organizations adjusted to the previous system. This is due to the need for change management and adapting to the new software. However, once the transition is complete, productivity significantly improves due to faster response times, a more mobile-centric approach, and better data handling. Overall, SAP S/4HANA helps users perform their tasks more efficiently.

SAP S/4HANA might not be able to address all business challenges directly, but other products can be integrated to fill these gaps. For example, difficulties like sustainability or energy rating do not have a direct solution within SAP S/4HANA. Similarly, areas like contact centre or customer call centre management are not directly part of SAP S/4HANA, but partner solutions are available to address these needs. 

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

We use the tool  as an ERP transactional system for financials, logistics, human resources, sales, distribution, and billing.

SAP S/4HANA dominates around 70 percent of the ERP market in Chile, and I believe this isn't merely coincidental. I've always maintained that if someone believes SAP S/4HANA lacks a certain functionality, they haven't explored it thoroughly. However, there's a widespread lack of understanding regarding its full potential and how to configure it.

Many businesses in Chile and elsewhere underutilize SAP S/4HANA, limiting its use to basic tasks like document entry or accounting, which is unfortunate considering its capabilities. SAP S/4HANA offers integration, consistency, security, and potential for user-friendliness. Nonetheless, initiatives like Fiori and SAPS/4HANA seem to be moving in the right direction to address this issue.

I can discuss one of our largest clients, a utility company. They specialize in generating and commercializing electricity, primarily for industrial customers. They utilize the tool, encompassing standard ERP features like logistics, human resources, and financials, and integrating their core business processes into the entire system. It adds great value to the company.

For instance, by integrating metering systems online into the ERP system, all billing and operational processes become online. The system connects with the CRM system and incorporates the physical network. Let me provide an example. If there's an outage at your home, contact the utility company, and the tool will identify your location and provide access to relevant client information.

The entire process is seamlessly integrated into the system. When the affected individual is eventually billed, they will receive a discount due to the outage, as per our loss analysis for such situations. It's all integrated, making the experience seamless, efficient, and pleasant for everyone involved, from the call center staff to the customers.

The solution's most valuable feature is integration. Our core data services are very powerful, and they allow a whole new reporting capability that was not present before. Another valuable feature is energy data management, specifically the processing of metering information from utilities, which has benefited our organization the most. It allows us to monitor real-time consumption data.

The use cases I mentioned before all involve customization in terms of parameterization and custom developments. We strive to keep things standard, but there are cases where centralization or more specific development is needed. Through both of these means, we've successfully delivered projects and provided meaningful solutions to our customers.

I think the user interface still needs improvement. While efforts are being made to enhance and make it more user-friendly, there are still shortcomings. Fiori is a great step forward, but work must be done. So, I believe SAP S/4HANA should focus more on improving GUI access. We also had a difficult time migrating the fixed assets. 

I have been working with the product for seven years.

I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the tool's scalability a ten out of ten. 

The tool's deployment is straightforward. 

The solution is worth its costs. 

I rate the product an eight out of ten. If your business processes are clear, the implementation will be straightforward. If not, it will not. Don't try to accommodate the system to your business process; instead, try to align your business processes with what's defined in the system.

I am a system integrator. We recently implemented it for a customer, and they are finding it easy to use.

We implemented the remote version of S/4HANA on Azure, and it is working well for the customer.

My customers use it for all functions, including finance, sales, and Oracle. 

They are using it for all six core functions: 

• Source to pay
• Record to report
• Order to cash
• Procure to pay
• Plan to produce
• Core finance. 

They also use it for other pharma operations.

The cloud-based feature of Microsoft Azure has been very valuable. It is easy to implement and use, saving the customer a lot of effort on infrastructure. The product is also very stable, and the customer is comfortable with it.

The customer has worked with previous products, and this one has brought a lot of comfort in terms of infrastructure handling. The infrastructure is managed by a different team, and the users are also comfortable with the interface. So far, they are happy with the product.

The product is user-friendly. The user interface, now called Fiori, is very stable. The product also has a lot of interfaces available to interact with cloud products, and it supports all kinds of integrations, so the amount of customizations needed from customers is greatly reduced.

The infrastructure resources are also effectively used. It is very optimized; used in a very optimized manner. The maintenance and handling of the infrastructure are very well taken care of with S/4HANA on Azure.

The interface could be improved with more Fiori applications. There are still a few applications in SAP GUI. I think SAP is working on this, but it will take time. 

Additionally, the admin interface could be improved. Since the admin is not directly an end-user, it may not be in focus, but if the customer's team is managing it, it would be helpful. 

Bringing all the admin applications into one place would be very helpful for customers to lock this down and use it internally for management.

In future releases, I would like to see a centralized admin interface. A lot of admin activities need to be done at different places. Apart from that, the pain development and change management for developments could be improved. 

Some features are not yet available in the new interface, so bringing those in would make it easier for customers to manage from the admin side.

I've been working with this solution for the last five to seven years. I work with the 2022 feature pack zero.

Since SAP brings new versions, I would rate the stability nine out of ten as of now.

So far, the performance is fine. No major hiccups or conversations have been reported that would cause the product to fall into any category of material issues. 

All stability and performance-related aspects have been taken care of. We have positive feedback from the customer side in terms of performance and stability.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Scalability is quite flexible. With the solution on Azure or other cloud products, scalability options are very flexible. The backend hardware technologies have improved on the cloud side, so many options are available now.

In my last five years of experience, all the customers I've seen are on S/4HANA. I've hardly seen anyone use older versions. New customers are all getting on S/4HANA.  

Our customers are mostly enterprise-level businesses. 

The technical support from SAP is quite mature. It's been five to seven years, so the product is now getting into the maturity phase. The product support team is quite capable of solving issues on time.

Positive

For me, the initial setup is very straightforward. It may not be easy for the customer, but for the integrator, it is.

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

There were some generic issues in development, but the support from SAP was good, and they were resolved. All products will have some issues. The product support is good enough to resolve them on time.

Deployment time:

Implementing it for all the functionalities within the given scope took around one year, including various phases like development, quality assurance, and production. It depends on the scope, but with the current scope, including all planned interfaces and project management, it will be manageable.

We (my company) are system integrators. 

Deployment process:

We start with development, where all customizations are performed. It's then moved to the testing system for various tests like regression, unit, user acceptance, performance, and integration testing. 

Once approved and verified by the customer, it's taken to production for deployment. Then, there's minimal functional and engineering testing, followed by live production testing done by the end users. If everything is clear, we go live.

Since customers are adopting it and finding it valuable, in comparison to others, I can give the pricing a five out of ten, with ten being expensive and one being cheap. It's not too expensive and not too cheap.

Additional costs to the licensing fees include maintenance or integration costs, depending on who manages it for the customer. Maintenance and support costs are general support costs for all products.

The product is mature and implemented in various industries. It's a very well-renowned and established product. They can go ahead and implement it. It depends on how they choose the integrator and the support for this product. 

The product is very stable, and finding integrators and support will not be difficult.

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

I am one of the implementing partners for SAP, specifically for HANA. I have worked on quite a few projects where I executed transformations with my clients, and I have found that the transformation has occurred. There is value that has been realized.

The user experience is quite attractive, and maybe the efficiency around the consolidation part as well. Everything is in one place, and the ease of use is significant. There is a lot of real-time interaction, and people have highlighted the efficiency and insights that come with it. 

Pure Infinity is especially effective in improving the user experience, and the preconfigured apps facilitate and expedite implementation time. From the governance point of view, I've seen positive changes, especially in finance and the transport management system as well.

More integration is necessary. Some struggles remain, especially regarding SAP's integration with other SAP modules. For example, integration between S/4HANA and Business for Logistics needs improvement. These issues exist within the integration space and present challenges during implementation.

I have been using the solution for almost over six years.

There are quite a few factors to consider, which may not be necessarily attributed to SAP and instead to other players. For example, issues related to the public cloud version, such as connectivity, could impact product stability.

The scale is quite significant. It is very scalable, to be honest.

I have a very good relationship, so I would rate it an eight out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup might be less straightforward, around four to six out of ten. Some elements are not as easy as one might expect.

It's quite expensive, to be honest. Technical upgrades, especially for those moving to SAP Cloud, can be significant. The cost might range between two to three million US dollars.

SAP for Canada is my primary job. Depending on the market, I focus on ground sales and private clouds. It's a good product. 

I would rate the overall solution an eight 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. 

The tool is like a spinning desk mechanism where a lot of data comes from multiple sources of multiple applications using a kind of main single source or an index from a single source through a system of record. For multiple applications holding all their data that pertains to a certain piece of data that is housed in a different application database over here, SAP S/4HANA builds models to basically collect all that information and figure out how to build reports out of each of the applications based on their datasets with a key from one of the datasets. If I have a transaction, but my transaction originates in the system over here, and the system has a lot more information, then the transaction makes its way into our system of record, after which it pulls data from the system of record, but it also pulls information from the other system to get more context to the application.

The most critical feature of the product for my company's operations would be the conglomerate business modeling which is good. I think the clients I work with are very concerned about their own data and the data of others, so they do need things in real-time, but they need more context around it and why it is being used, but otherwise, it is just a bunch of numbers.

I think that the cost is a big area of concern, considering what users get out of the tool. I believe there are some tools and even some cloud-based kind of data modeling tools, which once you start putting applications to the cloud and sharing search services in databases, I think that can kind of buy you what SAP used to put together years ago to sell, and it can be helpful for the power of what you are trying to do with it. In our company, I don't think we are building models constantly, like the real-time decision-making AI models right now with the current tool. In our company, I don't think we will ever be able to get to the aforementioned point with the use of the tool.

I have experience with SAP S/4HANA.

I have no issues with the stability of the product, as everything seems to be fine.

The product's scalability is very good, but again, I think our company's clients don't use it for what it is made for, specifically in terms of its cost. I think it is a more powerful tool than our company's clients need.

For support purposes, my company used to approach the main vendor of the product who helped us with the implementation part.

I work more on the functional side, consisting of reports in Power BI.

In terms of the product's initial setup process, I would say that my company is in a very unique situation with our clients. The product's initial setup process is pretty difficult to handle. On a scale of one to ten, where ten means it was easy, I rate the setup phase a three.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

The solution deployment took a few months because only a few experts knew how to do it. A lot of people were involved in getting the information ready and requirements done, but only a few experts could manage it.

The product is expensive. On a scale of one to ten, one being the lowest price and ten being the highest, I rate the product price as seven or eight.

A few of the products that my company uses are from SAP. My company mostly prefers an application-based or platform-based environment, so we are not on a single source platform. I think we are moving to Azure's cloud services, which will help enable our company to use some of the aforementioned areas. My company uses some NetApp tools to help with our data integration needs, especially since our systems are integrated. There are some API integrations with various applications that we use in our company.

There are some people in our company who deal with SAP S/4HANA set, and then what they do is they replicate data through the models and then expand that to Microsoft Power Apps and Power BI to create reports for everybody.

The tool must handle a lot of analytics and reporting areas like financial information, location information, and other things to support our company's core business processes.

I think because of the size of the data and some of the network support that my company has had on the tool, I can say that many of it wasn't in real-time. The tool hasn't really lived up to what it needs to be, especially from a cost perspective; it is too much, considering what our company gets out of it.

Migrating to SAP S/4HANA has affected our company's data management and reporting in a positive way. The tool gave better access to the information that can then be either viewed or manipulated externally through a different BI or utility. It did give more flexibility in building models. I think we had old warehouse mechanism information many years ago, so I believe that there is a need to do data mining of old transaction journals, which would take a long time, while SAP S/4HANA definitely has helped to speed up the process and actually regenerate the reports. I think sometimes making changes to the tool has been a problem because certain things that are not are just not built the way you want them to be, and so there can be bad information available inside out. I don't think our other tools feed SAP S/4HANA system to have the data in order to actually make it usable without some intervention.

I rate the tool a six or seven out of ten.