Diwali 2015 came with a “BIG DHAMAKA” – A BANG!!!
The much-awaited SAP S/4HANA On-Premise edition 1511 is finally available to ascertain.
While the NEWS and EXCITEMENT is yet to sink-in, the details yet to be explored and the nitty-gritty and the restrictions to be reconnoitered, in this blog, I would like to focus on “Functional Benefits and Business & IT Values” of SAP S/4 HANA and the much-looked-for first shipment of “simplified – innovations and optimized” Logistics-Area coverage in release - 1511
FUNCTIONAL Business scenarios:
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•Simplified User Experience – FIORI NEW way of interacting with system. FIORI 1-1-3 rule.
•Real-time Analytics – “ACTIVE BOARDS” – instead of “DASHBOARDS”, LIVE-DATA influencing the Operational Analytics can be directly fetched from “Transactional” system and displayed in Choice of Presentation/ Client
•Smart Business Cockpits – Supports “simulation”, “what-if-analysis” & Predictive Analytics – e.g. MRP Cockpit, Sales Order Fulfillments, Pricing-Simulations and so on.
•Streamline Approvals – HR Leaves, PR/PO Approvals, Finance Approvals – Mobile based – Anytime anywhere, reduces “waiting time” for Approvals and ensures faster flow of decisions
•Reduce Debtor & Creditors Days – Overall Process is completed faster due to (a) faster approvals (b) well monitoring of OPIs & KPIS using HANA-LIVE Analytics and FIORI SMART Apps
•Faster FI Closing – Single source of truth, illumination of FI-CO reconciliation, shorter and multi-iterative FI Closing cycles – ensuring overall faster closing at Period-Ends.
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"s" LOGistics "To-Be-Explored" Benefits –----
•Advance & Enhanced Availability to Promise (AATP) – NEW Price-List item of sLOG. Get best benefit of “Simplicity of ERP ATP” along with “selected flexible enriched functionality of APO gATP” – will benefit cost-conscious “small/medium” business having a single instance ERP and looking for APO kind of functionality in ERP. To my disappointment, this functionality is NOT YET “FULLY” released in 1511 and it looks like the SAP community and clients will have to wait for some more time.
•Reduction / Elimination of locking, increased throughput for standard price utilizing material ledger valuation, streamlining multi currency usage, and multiple valuation methods - – One of the IRREATING issue in current ERP Valuation functionality – is “Locking” while running the Valuation, due to the way DATA was currently stored in ERP (Transactional & Frequently changing data with MASTER DATA – e.g. PRICE in Material Master & stocks in various tables). With SAP S/4 HANA’s Simplified Data-model, this issue is taken care of.
•Faster MRP – beneficial for Retail and CPG, as well as TRADING business clients. No need to wait for “nightly batches” for MRP runs as the system now offers the capably of multi-runs. •Simplified Pricing - “simulate Pricing”, give client-specific-quotations”, faster Pricing-updates – no need to wait for nightly runs – definitely a plus for FMCG and price-sensitive business models.
•Streamlined O2C – Native Integration with Hybris, C4C and other Cloud based network systems and solutions. Within ERP, simplified Rebate-Processing, Advance Returns and simplified Sales Order processing – will benefit various category of business
•Integration sFIN – Tighter integration with sFIN - Initial Support of IFRS Revenue Accounting (IFRS-15), support for the most recent versions of FSCM Credit Management, GTS Foreign Trade, SFIN Revenue Accounting.
•Sales Order Fulfillment – Ensures monitoring KPI and taking corrective actions on time, ensuring Faster “order closing”, and resolution of issues and blocks – be it in Sales Document, Delivery documents, or Billing documents.
•Streamlined Procure to Pay – Native integration with ARIBA - especially beneficial for “End-to-End” Supplier chains.
•Faster Inventory Closings – Visibility into Real-time inventory, shorten the "Physical-Counting and Audit” time and supports more-rapid multi-iterations of periodic-Inventory close, thus ensuring the yearly cycle close in comparatively lesser time.
•Leverage simplified data model of inventory management for real-time, high-volume processing. Decrease stock buffers due to better transparency & insights. Benefit from 40 digit material number extension
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High-level Value that SAP S/4 HANA brings :
Business Value:
•Opportunities to reinvent business models and drive new revenues and profits
•Easily connect to people, devices, and business networks to deliver new value to their customers on any channel – the Internet of Things and Big Data become accessible to any business
•Simplify processes -- drive them in real-time, change them as needed to gain new efficiencies – lesser need of batch processing is required
•Business users can now get any insight on any data from anywhere in real-time: planning, execution, prediction, and simulation – many decisions can be made on the fly with the highest level of granularity
IT Value:
•Opportunities to simplify landscape and reduce TCO
•Reduce data footprint and work with larger data sets in one system (for example, ERP, CRM, SRM, SCM, and PLM in one system). With one common source of live data on one system, no longer face discrepancies between the different systems
•Innovation made simple with an open platform (the SAP HANA Cloud Platform) to drive advanced applications - for example predicting, recommending, simulating.
•Business users can leverage a simple and role-based user experience based on modern design principles minimizing training efforts while increasing productivity.
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Look forward to receive your views and comments on various use cases and business challenges that can NOW be addressed better with S/4HANA
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