SAP S/4HANA and solutions of the SAP Suite: strategy and roadmap

Hello,

I’d like to share with your a few line on the questions we in SAP S/4HANA Outbound Product Management get very often: what is the strategy and roadmap for SAP solutions like SAP HR, SAP PLM, SAP SRM or SAP CRM. In this blog I will cover all of those solutions one by one, so always watch for the latest update.

SAP S/4HANA and SAP solutions: deployment roadmap (click to enlarge)

1. Strategy and roadmap for SAP S/4HANA and SAP HR

What is available today for SAP S/4HANA and SAP HR, starting with the latest SAP S/4HANA June shipment? (see my other blog on the cloud edition). Parvathy Sankar from SAP SE has provided me with detailed information that we’d like to share with you.

The recent blog by David Ludlow gave a clear direction for SAP S/4HANA. We’d like to mention the implementation options customers have today for HR. Today, we have SuccessFactors Employee Central connected today to SAP S/4HANA cloud edition. SAP is providing productized integration between the two applications. For example, customer can send the cost centers from S/4HANA to the SuccessFactors. We also send the employee data, organizational assignments, cost center assignments and payroll postings to S/4HANA. As an example, project and engagement management utilizes employee information Commencing with a project and work package creation, staffing and assigning costs, procurement, creation of sales order, billing and finally project accounting, this scenario acts as a step-by-step project management solution As a part of project cost tracking, employees can automatically have access and manage their activities in timesheet that will be the basis for the billing and invoicing for projects.

What are the different implementation options SAP ERP HCM customers have today?

If the customers are ready to move to the SuccessFactors, they can start with a migration. For those customers who want to phase out the transition, we have different scenarios available. For the customers running SAP ERP together with on premise HCM on the same instance, they can move to S/4HANA on premise together with the SAP HCM and continue to leverage HR data in the rest of the modules of S/4HANA. Those customers who today run SAP HCM separately from ERP can connect the SAP HCM to S/4HANA on premise. However, SAP ERP HCM will not be simplified –HR started with user experience Renewal earlier. These features will continue to be available including the FIORI self-service applications for employees and managers.

Will the HR user experience be different for the SAP S/4HANA customers?

SuccessFactors started the journey to harmonize user experience and adopt Fiori design principles, and will continue this over the next releases. As an example, it is planned to have Workqueue usability on Fiori / SAP UI5 in the next 6 months. The Employee Profile in SuccessFactors already has a FIORI like user experience since 2014.

What is planned with the SAP S/4HANA on premise release planned for Q4 2015?

We will release a closer integration with the S/4HANA OnPremise to enable HR data from SuccessFactors and SAP ERP HCM to be used in the new functionality in November release of S/4HANA. We are very excited about this as this enables the whole enterprise to take advantage of a strong consistent foundation of HR data – information about people as well as organizational view.

Find more details on the SuccessFactors roadmap check here.

2. Strategy and roadmap for SAP S/4HANA and SAP Product Life cycle Management (SAP PLM)

What capabilities are available today with the SAP S/4HANA cloud edition 1506?

In the S/4HANA cloud edition, SAP Project System supports already various project accounting scenarios. In SAP S/4HANA, cloud project services edition for example, the new Release Billing Proposal Fiori app is available to support resource related billing scenarios of customer projects in Professional
Service. In SAP S/4HANA, cloud enterprise edition, customers can leverage PLM functionalities to create Work Breakdown structures for hierarchical project financial control purposes, as required for internal product development projects.

What is the intended PLM scope for SAP S/4HANA on premise planned for Q4 2015?

First of all, SAP has made a huge investment in SAP PLM over the last 24 months, and offers a rich portfolio of solution that helps customers accelerate their PLM efforts. SAP answer to today’s market requirement is called SAP Connected Products. SAP Connected products delivers a product innovation platform that effectively manages, translates and integrates customer-driven engineering innovations throughout the enterprise and into the market by orchestrating all business functions and xBOM requirements. Just to name a few innovations added recently with SAP Connecter Product for Engineeringm Design or Project management: Visual Engineering, Product Lifecycle costing, SAP Engineering Control Center, and SAP Portfolio and Project Management (SAP PPM).

SAP’s goal is to make the transition from the SAP Business Suite and the recent innovations described above to SAP S/4HANA as simple as possible. SAP will enable a smooth migration and ensure all business processes can be covered as before. Second, SAP plans to transform the current on premise solution step-by-step towards a FIORI User Experience and plans to allow customers to follow that technology path step-wise.

What is planned beyond this for PLM?

SAP is planning to deliver an optimized and simplified version of SAP Portfolio and Project Management for SAP S/4HANA. One of the objectives in the Roadmap is to unify our portfolio of project management solutions. The SAP Business Suite currently contains SAP ERP Project System, SAP Portfolio and Project Management and SAP Commercial Project Management. SAP is taking efforts to find out how a unified and simplified project and portfolio management solution could be offered – both for on premise and cloud deployments.

Find more details on the SAP S/4HANA roadmap for SAP PLM (slide 13)

3. Strategy and roadmap for SAP S/4HANA and SAP Customer Relationship Management

What is the CRM strategy for SAP S/4HANA? Oliver Frick from SAP SE, who is in charge of Product Management for SAP CRM. shared strategic and technical insights with us.

S/4HANA does not come with full CRM functionality for sales, service and marketing, but integrates with existing CRM solutions from SAP, both on-premise as well as in the cloud. The recommended CRM solution for the SAP S/4HANA On-Premise Edition is SAP
CRM 7, and SAP Cloud for Customer for the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Edition. Other combinations are also supported, e.g. C4C to SAP S/4HANA On-premise. SAP hybris Marketing is the S/4HANA marketing solution for both Editions, On-Premise and Cloud.

What are the S/4HANA innovations in CRM?

SAP hybris Marketing is the S/4HANA „simplification“ for SAP CRM Marketing. SAP hybris Marketing is fully HANA optimized with a simplified data model for Contacts and Prospects, and comes with a full new HTML5 UI. It directly shares data with S/4HANA and SAP CRM 7 if deployed on the same HANA system and/or same NW system, with no need for replication or data integration. SAP hybris Marketing also comes in a cloud option, the SAP S/4HANA, cloud marketing edition.

What is the UX strategy for SAP CRM with S/4HANA?

There are a number of Fiori apps in SAP CRM in for the Sales Representative, and more and more Fiori apps will come over time. However the CRM WebUI will continue to be the default UI technology for SAP CRM, particularly for all areas in CRM whereno Fiori apps will be available. But even CRM WebUI based applications can be visually harmonized with the Fiori apps across the business suite applications: a new “Firoi” skin will be available for CRM WebUI that will harmonize color, fonts and graphics of all CRM WebUI based applications with Fiori, and UI simplifications can already be achieved in CRM WebUI through configuration and personalization already today.

What happens to my SAP CRM or SAP Cloud for Customer systems when I migrate my ERP to SAP S/4HANA On-Premise Edition?

Migrating an SAP ERP to S/4HANA On-Premise Edition will not break integrations to existing SAP CRM 7 installations or to SAP Cloud for Customer. Integrations and CRM systems will continue to work as before.

How can I simplify my CRM – ERP landscape with S/4HANA?

The new HANA Multi Database Container (MDC) feature that came with HANA SPS09 allows to share one HANA database system among multiple applications, including S/4HANA, SAP CRM, SAP BW, and SAP hybris Marketing. Upgrading the SAP CRM system to CRM on HANA allows to put SAP CRM and S/4HANA on the same HANA DB, providing fast data sharing and a simplified landscape.

I have a SAP CRM and want to go for the S/4HANA On-Premise Edition. What is a best practice for my SAP CRM?

SAP CRM 7 customers that adopt S/4HANA On-Premise Edition should:

1. Stick to a side-by-side deployment of their existing CRM system: all existing CRM 7 systems are compatible with SAP S/4HANA on-Premise Edition in a side-by-side deployment
2. Upgrade SAP CRM to CRM on HANA
   • Upgrade to CRM 7 EhP3 (EhP4 once available) and HANA database
   • Leverage HANA optimizations in CRM (performance optimizations, ad-hoc reporting, …)
   • Leverage CRM on HANA as the platform for SAP hybris Marketing (share customer data on database level)
   • Potentially share a HANA DB with S/4HANA through the HANA MDC feature
   • Visually harmonize SAP CRM with the “Fiori” (blue crystal) skin for CRM WebUI
3. Adopt SAP hybris Marketing as the “S/4HANA Exchange Innovation” for CRM 7 Marketing:
   • New simplified marketing processes, integrated into CRM 7 (campaigns, target groups, …)
   • New simplified HTML5 UI
   • Fully HANA optimized for high speed and high volume, sharing existing mass data (BP, contacts, activities, …) with CRM 7
   • Incremental adoption possible (marketing process by process)

Next update: Strategy for SAP S/4HANA and SAP Supplier Relationship Management.

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