Updated: December 21 2022
The SAP Enterprise Management Layer (EML) is based on SAP Best Practices. It will accelerate SAP S/4HANA ERP implementation projects saving time and money. (This is the new name for the service formerly called SAP Model Company for Multinational Corporations). Why a blog about these SAP Best Practices? Because they are an important “foundation” and are positioned by SAP in a majority of our new implementations. SAP believe that customers and partners can achieve significant savings using this content to accelerate the start of a project.
The Enterprise Management Layer is available for SAP S/4HANA Cloud private edition and SAP S/4HANA on-premise. In all cases, it is possible to take the configuration into a development system and hence a QA system and production system in addition to sandboxes. See my
blog on SAP S/4HANA deployment options.
If you are not familiar with SAP Best Practices you should read this blog first.
https://blogs.sap.com/2019/06/03/what-is-the-difference-between-sap-best-practices-and-sap-model-com...
More detail on Enterprise Management Layer see this links:
https://blogs.sap.com/2021/08/17/enterprise-management-layer-for-sap-s-4hana-faqs/
https://rapid.sap.com/bp/#/browse/packageversions/BP_OP_EML
SAP provides SAP Best Practices and some other partners and organizations provide their own “template” solutions for SAP. Why is the Enterprise Management Layer unique and why is it your best choice when starting with SAP S/4HANA? Here are 10 reasons.
1 Multi-country
Some template solutions are built for just one baseline country e.g. USA. This means that you must localise the configuration for each country in your project scope adding cost to your project. SAP Best Practices are available for SAP S/4HANA in 43 countries and 25 languages. Just select which countries you need. It includes many localisations for statutory requirements in each country. These are typically for finance business processes. For a good overview of all localizations included in the SAP Best Practices and EML look at the useful Excel summary called “Localization Overview” in the EML BPX page:
https://rapid.sap.com/bp/#/browse/packageversions/BP_OP_EML
2 Assemble to Order
SAP Best Practices are built to work together. They are compatible (or inter-operable). This allows SAP to assemble them to order. You can get a combination of a multi-country baseline solutions in one instance.
3 Fast
SAP can set up for you very quickly: within 2 weeks. This means that your organisation does not need to “activate” SAP Best Practices and up-skill people on how to do this.
4 See Scope before you Buy
You can look at detailed documentation of the scope items before you purchase it. Just look at the SAP Best Practice scope items in the Best Practice Explorer:
https://rapid.sap.com/bp
5 Choose your Scope
Includes a large set of scope items from the SAP Best Practices including many LoBs e.g. finance, sales, procurement, production planning, quality management, warehousing and supplier management. EML also has extra optional countries and scope not available in SAP Best Practices.
6 Multi-Language
The content is currently available in 20 system languages.
7 Intercompany Processes
Currently the SAP Best Practices do not contain intercompany processes as standard. These are a very common business requirement and can be time consuming to set up. The Enterprise Management Layer provides a model solution with scope items for intercompany processes between two countries. You can then replicate this solution to other countries. EML includes other extra scope items not available in SAP Best Practices.
8 Parallel Accounting and Currencies
When you get the content you can select your Group GAAP and two local ledgers for local GAAP. This is a common financial requirement in many projects. You can also select one group currency and local currencies per country.
9 Select your Fiscal Year Variant
When you get the content you can select a group fiscal year variant and a local fiscal year variant in the second local Ledger. Some organizations require this and it not possible through activating SAP Best Practices on your own.
10 Fiori Apps
The content provides S/4HANA Fiori apps that are ready to run. These give you the latest SAP user interfaces that appear in the SAP Best Practice business processes.
The content based on SAP on-premise Best Practices. Like other content, it is updated at least once a year. The main update comes about a quarter after the latest version of the SAP on-premise Best Practices.
I hope you found this blog informative.
Amin Hoque
Application Architect at SAP Services UK
