Should my organization join the rush to S/4 HANA?
Most customers already running SAP will be aware of SAP’s HANA and S/4 HANA products, and also that moving to them is a bigger step than traditional ERP version upgrades. Much has already been written regarding the technology and application innovations that SAP HANA and S/4 HANA products provide, however this paper is intended to explore how this can be translated into areas of business value, the factors likely to influence the right time for an organisation to move, and how an organisation already using SAP products can determine the best way to transition.
A commonly expressed view is that the pure technology and IT benefits of moving to SAP HANA and S/4HANA create a sufficient business case to make the move, and that downstream business benefits are an additional bonus that can be explored and enabled over time. Whilst IT benefits may well be real and quantifiable, they need to be sufficiently positive versus other initiatives competing for management attention and funding. For customers running sophisticated and highly customised SAP landscapes, with key operational processes dependent on SAP, the businesses will also be cautious about the potential disruption to their core systems. In addition, whilst the benefits of a hardware refresh and moving to a cloud or virtual cloud model are also significant, some of these benefits can be achieved by applying the latest thinking to an existing SAP hardware landscape.