1. What is SAP S/4HANA?

SAP S/4HANA is the next-generation go-to Business Suite tool for SAP.

Only available on SAP HANA database, SAP S/4HANA covers the majority of the
functionality that was previously available within SAP ECC. The concept behind
S/4HANA is to produce a simplified Business Suite that runs on HANA with an SAP Fiori
front-end and real-time analytics.

The underlying table structure has been re-written to provide a simplified data model
to increase performance, simplify reporting and reduce the overall size of the system.

Deployment Options: On-premise or in the cloud, the choice is

yours
S/4HANA can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud, depending on your individual
needs and requirements. The on-premise version gives you high degrees of control and
flexibility, whilst the cloud version is quicker to deploy with a lower total cost of
ownership.

Versions
There are two current versions within S/4HANA with a different scope:
SAP S/4HANA Finance is based on the core ECC solution. The Finance modules, tables
and processes have been simplified whilst the remaining areas have been untouched.
Additional new functionality has been released within the Finance space.

SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management has a wider scope, with Materials Management
and Operations simplified as well as Finance. A number of new functionalities have
been released and many traditional modules have been removed.

With the aim to run simple, SAP has a paradigm of the principle of one where there
will be only one module or process for a particular area, rather than the few that were
traditionally available within ECC.
 Industry-specific functionality will be added to S/4HANA over time as it evolves.

2. Why SAP S/4HANA?

SAP S/4HANA has been created to enable your business to transform. Processes run
quicker, real-time analytics allow for more accurate decision-making, and there is an
improved user experience for your teams.

Business transformation
SAP S/4HANA is designed to provide business transformation for your organisation. This
transformation may be subtle or very dramatic. Each organisation will approach
S/4HANA from a different baseline, with different objectives and therefore there is not
a single set of motives to move to S/4HANA.

Simplified data model

One of the core concepts of S/4HANA is the change in which data is held within it. The
new data models will significantly reduce the size of the database which in turn will
lead to performance benefits and hardware cost reductions. The new data model will
allow processes to be performed in a less complex manner and reporting can be
simplified as all of the data is now in a reduced number of tables.

Improved user experience

SAP Fiori is available within S/4HANA to improve your users experience. Fiori reduces
the volume of key strokes that are required to perform a transaction. This in turn frees
up your users time to add value elsewhere. Fiori is also more intuitive therefore
training and testing costs will be less than those associated with a traditional SAP ECC
 solution.

Real-time analytics

Embedded analytics provides a world of opportunities for organisations. Gone are the
days of extracting data from ECC into SAP BW, and then transforming the data to meet
reporting requirements. Real-time reporting is now available directly from S/4HANA.
This simplified approach leads to enhanced decision making, using relevant data. In
turn, the speed and functionality of SAP HANA removes the need to utilise offline
methods to generate reports and employ analytical tools.

SAP HANA

SAP HANA as a database provides unrivalled speed and performance which enables
jobs and transactions to run in a more acceptable timeframe. The predictive engine
within HANA provides new ways to work by automating complex calculations and
improving the accuracy around decision making.
Combining all of these four key areas in a process will provide significant benefits to
your organisation.

3. How to get to SAP S/4HANA

Finding the right path for you in your journey to SAP S/4HANA.

Part of the decision-making process in moving to SAP S/4HANA needs to be how.

What is the right journey for you to take to S/4HANA? As it is a new product, the steps
and processes to its implementation are different to a typical solution upgrade.

a. System conversion
This takes your current SAP ECC solution, provides a database change to SAP HANA,
assuming you are not already on Suite on HANA, and then converts the data and
functionality into the new S/4HANA.

Your custom code needs to be checked to confirm it will work on the HANA database, and
with the new data models and processes within S/4HANA.
The traditional ECC table base needs to be converted into the new simplified data
models.
Functionality that has been removed from your existing ECC system needs to be either
replaced or converted into the new solution.

This option is most attractive if you have a reasonably clean ECC environment, do
not want to apply additional functionality within S/4HANA and have a reasonable
downtime window.

This option is least attractive if you have a complex environment with a significant
amount of unused data and code, with a requirement to install new functionality
and have a tight downtime window.

b. New Install
Rather than keep all of your old and unused custom code, and in some cases data, a new
install is a way of providing a clean landscape to grow from.
Relevant customisations will need to be applied to the new solution.
All relevant data will need to be migrated. SAP Activate can be used to manage the
project and the guided configuration tool can be used if required. There is also
the ability to base your configuration on SAP Best Practice to ensure you stay
close to standard SAP.
You have the ability to add all of the required new functionality in the initial release.

This option is most attractive to an organisation who has a complex

environment with plenty of unused data and code, with a requirement to install
new functionality and has a tight downtime window.

This option is least attractive to an organisation who has a pretty clean ECC
environment, does not want to apply additional functionality within S/4HANA
and has a reasonable downtime window.

c. Landscape optimisation
You may have more than one ECC environment to manage your global requirements.
S/4HANA can be used as the vehicle to consolidate these environments into a single one.
When you have more than one SAP ERP system you have the flexibility to do things in
different ways. The downside is that when you want to provide a single global view for
reporting it becomes difficult to achieve. S/4HANA can be used to link to your current ERP
systems (SAP and non-SAP) and provide a consolidated environment to manage your
financial data. This is referred to as the Central Finance option.
There is also the ability for you to create a new S/4HANA environment and start to run
combined processes from a single system. This will provide you with significant cost saving
in terms of support and maintenance, however all divisions would need to follow the central
patching strategy.

This option can only be used if you have more than one ERP environment. There will need to
be a compelling business case to consolidate the ERP environments as you could still use
either option 1 or 2 to move to S/4HANA for each of their separate ECC systems.

d. Roadmap to SAP S/4HANA

Helping you to understand the key influencers when moving away from SAP ECC and what
the right endpoint is for your organisation.

SAP S/4HANA is the current end state for those of you using the SAP ECC6 Business Suite, so
plans need to be made as to what is the best route for you. Every organisation is different in
terms of size, complexity and focus, meaning that there is not a common approach.
There are various options available to you when you choose to move to S/4HANA. These
include moving to SAP Suite on HANA and also considering the two different on-premise
S/4HANA versions (Finance and Enterprise Management).

What will influence your journey to S/4HANA?

When designing your roadmap to S/4HANA these three areas will influence the route you
take:

Business involvement
Your organisations strategic objectives will determine where its focus is going to be. If the
current ECC solution is blocking some of these objectives, or conversely, functionality within
S/4HANA can enable one or more of them, then providing business resources will be easier
to achieve.

There will also be occasions where the business change achieved by moving to S/4HANA is
required, but not for a few years. In these situations, moving from ECC to Suite on HANA
may feel like a sensible approach for you to take. The introduction to SAP HANA with a
mainly technical focused project will shield the business from a more significant undertaking
whilst providing some initial benefits.

Solution fit
The S/4HANA solution that is currently available is not fully complete. New processes are
being designed, new functionality released and Industry Specific solutions are aligning to the
S/4HANA design principles. There are currently a couple of thousand SAP transaction codes
that no longer work within S/4HANA from SAP ECC and new functionality has been added.
As it stands today moving to SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management is not achievable for
everyone, however you could move to SAP S/4HANA Finance.

A clear understanding of how your existing ECC environment works is needed to provide a
detailed review of the current scope of S/4HANA. This will identify gaps and changes that
would be required. Some of these may be show stoppers, halting any move to S/4HANA.
However, for some parts of the new functionality within S/4HANA will add considerable
benefits.

Appetite for disruption

Making such a significant move to S/4HANA will create disruption to your organisation,
however disruption can be positive. S/4HANA enables business transformation which will
provide synergies and benefits.

Providing a true business process review will impact all of your key business departments.
Not only will there be the effort required to support the review but there will also be
change during the implementation. Being able to reduce the overall disruption to a specific
team or department can be seen as more attractive to some. If this is the case you may wish
to focus purely on the finance team and move to S/4HANA Finance, transform the relevant
teams and use the success story to drive change in the remaining operational teams.

Roadmaps are vital

Whilst it is important to understand the options of moving to S/4HANA it is more important
to understand the best route for you based on your current situation. Having a clear
roadmap will provide you with the ability to understand what you need to achieve and
when you need to achieve it by.
Furthermore, it will provide both your IT department and your business users with visibility
of the pending change, so they can be aligned to ensure the move is a successful one.