After 3 days (and nights) in Orlando at Sapphire Now, I wanted to share my 3 major takeaways from Sapphire from a Finance Line of Business Perspective
1. Evolution of the SAP S/4HANA (Finance) conversation
SAP S/4HANA Finance has been a great success at Sapphire Now since Simple Finance was launched during the event 2 years ago. Throughout the year, I have seen an evolution and maturing of the discussion around SAP S/4HANA Finance and how it can support digital transformation. Yet at Sapphire, the discussion moved once again to a different level of detail. This was highlighted in the keynote presentations when Hasso Plattner, shared conversations with customers who told him that they do see SAP S/4HANA as the future. However, they shared that this journey is not something they will start blindly. Customers want more specifics on how to get there and what the future roadmap will be. However many customers have started this journey and where at Sapphire to share their SAP S/4HANA journey this year. Asian Paint’s, CIO Manish Shoski in Plattner’s keynote spoke about their transition to SAP S/4HANA. They now have real time data and had no disruption to the daily work of their business. Learn more here. New York Life also discussed the benefits of having real time data. See the replay here. A common thread through many customer presentations was that although they had realized immediate benefits from SAP S/4HANA Finance, the potential for future innovation with the SAP S/4HANA platform was even more exciting.
This focus by customers on the details could be seen in many of the finance interactive and demo sessions. martin.naraschewski roadmap session on SAP S/4HANA Finance was very popular. The phrase “standing room only” didn’t cover it and the questions at the end of the session were very detailed. Questions were often specific to an individual system configuration or installed components and how they could move to SAP S/4HANA Finance.
I heard a lot of interest in understanding the differences between the SAP S/4HANA Finance versions. (1503 includes just simplified finance, while 1511 includes simplified finance and logistics) So there are currently two tracks).
It was the same in the different planning sessions on SAP S/4HANA, with Kirk Anderson, customers had detailed questions. They wanted to understand the differences between BPC on HANA, BPC embedded model optimized for SAP S/4HANA and which would be the best choice for them. (It depends on your landscape configuration and what is important for your users, real time updates for example).
For central finance, carsten.hilker, despite competing with a thunderstorm, dived down into the details of scenarios. Siemens also covered their assessment of SAP S/4HANA and Central Finance deployment options. Siemens want to gain the advantage of insight across their complex landscape without massive disruption or long implementation cycles. Click here for the replay
One thing that was clear there is not just one path on the journey to SAP S/4HANA Finance. Depending on your business needs and system landscape, it could be an upgrade of an existing system. A move into the cloud. A landscape transformation with central finance at the core. Or the ability to start with solutions on the edge such as SAP RealSpend, the Digital Boardroom and many others. Customers are defining what is important to them and then finding out which path makes sense. To do this they need more details so they can chart their own path to SAP S/4HANA Finance.
My colleague amr.elmeleegy
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