Principles , features , Directions , methodology , market trend and restrictions with SAP S/4 HANA 1511 release

[Mrinal_K_Roy]

S/4 HANA was launched in February’2015 with its initial business innovation as ‘Simple Finance’ with expectation of next innovation for ‘ Simple logistics’ in Q4’2015.  SAP released S/4 HANA on-premise edition for 1511 in Nov’15 and it appears that SAP is re-designing the most of its applications and business functions on the following

Principles

• HANA capability (In memory database with ‘On the fly’ calculation, Combination of Row and column based data structure , simplified data model with no aggregates & indexes, real time & high volume processing , Elimination of locking , increased throughput) in
  • Finance (No need for reconciliation of FI & CO with One line item table as single source of data)
  • Production planning (Reduced cycle time for MRP with no need for long running batch jobs )
  • Inventory management (Real time alerts , reduced safety stock)
  • Procurement (Real time calculation of procurement KPI)
  • Material valuation (Multi currency usage , multiple valuation methods)
  • Period end financial closure (Much faster declaration of financial results for interim analysis and to stock exchange & share holders)
  • Reporting  in all business functions (Real time with simulation & predictive analysis  due to OLTP & OLAP capability in same system)
• Fiori (Intuitive user experience) in
  • Order management for Sales representative (Sales order fulfillment cockpit for identification of issues and its resolution)
  • Procurement for Procurement clerk (Single cockpit for purchasing approvals with all information)
  • Planning for Material planner (Simulate supply alternatives)
• Unifying other applications to core ECC
  • Features of existing applications (like SCM, CRM, PLM, GTS etc) and newly acquired cloud solutions (like Ariba, Success factor etc) are being made available in ECC (being terms as ‘Digital core’).

Features

Below slide is presented in session with partners on 13^th Nov.

Following links & notes may be accessed for further details on released features.

http://help.sap.com/s4hana_op_1511

2189824 - SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511: Release Information Note

2214213 - SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511: Restriction Note

2214409 - SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511: Compatible Add-ons

PDF attached to note 2214409 states that the applications (GTS11.0 , MDG 8.0 etc) have been added on to digital core , it also says that certain products (like EWM9.3 , Rail car mgmt 6.17) ‘will not be released’ as Add ons , we need to see what it means actually or SAP’s plan on these products with S/4 HANA. However, it is quite clear that SAP will release many ‘Add on’ in future releases for native integration with ECC on S/4 HANA .

Directions

ECC Core is now being named as ‘Digital core’ and most of the ECC modules (FI , CO , SD , PP , MM , LE , QM , PS , PM) are being adapted to cloud . As it appears CRM , SRM , SCM applications have been moved to Core for ‘On premise’ and C4C , Ariba and IBP have also been added as cloud solutions as extensions to core. List of functionalities for these extensions are not yet clear.  However, it is quite clear that SAP is working towards

• Strengthening core ECC (now digital core) with simplified data model and Fiori
• merging features of different other applications in core ECC (Digital core) as expected in blog in URL SAP S/4 HANA Simple logistics expected to combine features of multiple SCM applications

Also find that ECC WM has not been adapted to cloud, does it mean SAP will not do any further development in ECC WM (as declared earlier) and EWM (also available in cloud) will be natively integrated with digital core ?

Change of name of product

SAP changes the name of the product as the product evolves and the same has happened with Simple Logistics too. SAP has now renamed Simple logistics as S/4 HANA Logistics which will comprise

• S/4 HANA Sales
• S/4 HANA Manufacturing
• S/4 HANA Supply chain
• S/4 HANA Sourcing and procurement

New methodology

SAP also launched new methodology ‘SAP Activate’ for new implementations, system conversions, landscape transformations for best practices & guided configurations with agile project delivery. It is the successor of the ASAP 8 methodology for on-premise and SAP Launch methodologies for cloud solutions.

Market  trend

S/4 HANA can only be deployed in HANA database and that is a real threat to other database manufacturers. Refer URL http://news.sap.com/sap-hana-must-be-hurting-oracle. There are 22000 customers using SAP. There are active discussions in Pre-sales / project discussions on migration to HANA database at least a first step. SAP says that 80% migrations are being done by SI (System integrator) and hence that is a huge opportunity for SI in next few years.

Restrictions / Limitations

Present edition of 1511 does not support all functionalities and all country versions / localisations. Refer the blog in URL Transition to S/4 HANA – Pre-checks and whether migration or new implementation for details.

SAP has retrofitted only a part of whole functionalities to S/4 HANA and it will take some time in years to complete it. But S/4 HANA really looks promising for ALL (Customers, partners , consultants) and huge opportunity for ALL to leverage on its benefits .