SAP S/4HANA Reviews

Customers reach out to me when they have challenges related to licensing and contracting costs associated with it.  

Customer choose this solution because they want to transition away from Oracle or because they are compelled to go for SAP.

Oracle has its own data center, hardware, virtualization layer, and database. They offer a complete solution, which SAP currently can't match. This is a weak point in SAP's proposition.

I have been using this solution for the last 20 years.

It is a stable solution. 

It is a very scalable solution. We have enterprise-level businesses using this solution. 

The customer service and support are average. There is room for improvement in response time. 

It is easy to install. Our clients deploy it on the cloud or on-premises.

It's quite expensive. However, it can be expensive to maintain the solution. 

The licensing varies because I serve multiple customers, and there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. There are additional costs for technical support and consulting

I have a background in Oracle, I'm making a few comparisons between Oracle and SAP. I fully understand SAP's strategy to move their customers to S/4HANA. However, when we consider the developments in ERP suites in the cloud, especially Oracle's approach compared to SAP's,  I lean more towards Oracle from a solution perspective. Oracle provides a native cloud solution that integrates everything seamlessly. 

On the other hand, SAP, especially if you're using the right solution, essentially involves deploying older on-premises SAP software on a hyperscaler, which we refer to as a "cloudified" solution. This, in my opinion, isn't as strong in the overall proposition.

I would recommend thoroughly evaluating other options and ensuring a clear understanding of the associated risks and costs before making a decision.

Overall, I would rate the solution a six out of ten because there is always room for improvement and SAP lacks a native cloud solution.

It is a great product to be implemented for different industries for my customers. Can it be used globally?

The latest version from SAP is highly valued. It is an easily enabled platform from SAP, and represents the next generation of ERP solutions.

There could be a bit more competitiveness in their licensing and pricing.

I have used the solution for three to five years.

I would rate customer service a ten out of ten.

Positive

SAP is not selling on-premise to any customer.

Overall, I would rate the product ten out of ten.

We use the solution for a retail customer. As an administrator, my activities involve system installation, troubleshooting, and performance management.

The tool could improve development, particularly during upgrades or conversions from ERP systems to the solution. Adapting the code to the new standards can be challenging, especially when customers try to keep their old ERP developments.

I have been using the product since 2018. 

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

SAP S/4HANA's scalability is good. 

I have contacted SAP's technical support, mainly for incidents rather than during installation. They're about 90% accurate, but sometimes they can be slow or misunderstand the issue.

Positive

The product's deployment is easy and fast. The deployment time varies depending on the scenario and environment. From development to production, it can take a few weeks. Starting the development system doesn't take long if you have all the preparations done - like sizing, setting up the final systems, and accessing them.

The tool's licensing is very expensive. They've changed their licensing model from the old ERP system to a new model using FUEs, which is somewhat better but still expensive.

I'm not directly involved in financial operations. However, from conversations with colleagues in finance, I understand there have been improvements since using the tool. The main challenge is often user resistance to change, as they're used to working with the previous system.

I advise new users to get an overview or take a course to understand the system's capabilities. Preparing the end-users for the implementation is crucial, especially when moving from old systems to new ones.

I rate the product a nine out of ten. It's a really powerful tool that has been improving since around 2016. The improvements in the Fiori interface and its integration with the system are particularly impressive.

Our company implements the solution for customers. It is used for order management, finance, purchasing, and manufacturing. We currently have two customers using the solution. 

The solution's new UI called Fiori is user friendly.

The solution is very easy to integrate.

The solution is complex technically because both an old and a new path exist. Some more development work is needed for Fiori before a complete switchover can happen. Right now, they are enhancing and developing Fiori. In two to five years, things may change because Fiori will be finished and in the market. 

I have been using the solution for three years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable. 

Technical support could be better so I rate it a five out of ten. 

Neutral

The setup is complex. We were given instructions but setup was not easy. 

We implement the solution for customers. Implementation can take between six months to two years depending on the scope and customer. 

The pricing model is based on an annual license. 

I recommend the solution for big companies because they have a lot of SAP users and can handle the specs of implementation. I do not recommend the solution for mid-sized or small companies because there won't be enough users or support. 

Because two systems are being used within the solution as it iterates over to Fiori, the system is currently very technically complex. A lot of workarounds are needed and this creates a bad experience for customers. 

I rate the solution an eight out of ten. 

Our organization is into the technology stack. Our customers are big companies from around the globe that all use SAP, either hosting it on public cloud, private cloud or on-premise. Personally, I have 22 years of experience. I deal with the operating systems, databases and the installation of the applications.

S/4HANA is an ERP package that runs on HANA database and LINUX operating systems. Most big companies are running their ERP on SAP. 

S/4HANA is an end-to-end solution. It seamlessly integrates with all the SAP Business Suite products such as IoT, AI, Analytics and all other SaaS solutions. The product is very robust and comprehensive.

Small businesses that have a small user base find this solution too expensive. I would like to see the price come down.

I have been working with SAP and ERP solutions for 22 years. The package is very mature.

S/4HANA is very stable. All of the big companies are running SAP, for example, British Airways, and UK Babcock are both using it. The solution is reliable. 

The solution is scalable. We have customers that have a 500 user system with 500 clients, and we have customers with 50,000 users and 50,000 clients. S/4HANA is absolutely scalable.

SAP's technical support is one of the best.

The initial setup is very straightforward. However, we required very specialized expertise to implement S/4HANA as it requires customization for the customer. It takes anywhere from six months to twenty-four months to implement, depending on the landscape of the customer.

SAP S/4HANA is affordable for big companies, but is very expensive for small companies. The implementation costs of SAP are substantial.

For large companies, this is a good solution. I understand that CIOs need to walk a tight rope between time to implement and the budget. SAP as a product requires, to a large extent, business process reengineering. It is important that anyone considering this solution understands the mapping of their business processes and how it will run in SAP. You also need to ensure you have all stakeholders buying into the process.

I have seen many companies buy the product thinking that they will implement it within five months only to discover that after five months, nothing has happened and the stakeholders are not aligned. Further, if you adapt the solution independent to your own needs, it will become difficult to maintain and manage. 

It is important to have a core team that understands SAP, and not only rely on an external consultant.

With the right project plan, execution, blueprint, and fully committed stakeholders, the solution will be successful.

I would rate this product a ten out of ten.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's scalable.

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

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

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

The price could be lower.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

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

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

The solution can scale well.

The solution is stable.

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

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

The solution can be a bit expensive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We are customers and end-users.

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

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

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

My client is a biomedical company that sells medical devices. I use Tricentis Tosca to automate SAP.

SAP S/4HANA is a very easy-to-use and user-friendly solution.

The solution’s stability could be improved.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten for stability.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

Overall, I rate SAP S/4HANA a nine out of ten.