Many customers are already using SAP ERP and update their systems with SAP enhancement packages regularly every couple of years with goal adding value to their business and remaining in SAP maintenance timelines.

SAP have improved enablement for data protection and privacy with NetWeaver 7.50 from SAP.

A foundation for ERP customers transition to SAP S/4HANA is EHP8

(SAP Enhancement Package 8) which offers and easier conversion to S/4HANA, with NetWeaver 7.50 as the basis for EHP8 and S/4HANA.

Now with SAP enhancement package 8 companies can create a business case to justify the upgrade.

EHP8 New Functionality and Innovation

  • 500,000 New ABAP Programs
  • ~ 8000 New SAP Notes
  • 1330 + (Accumulative) Business Functions, With ~240 New Functions
  • Specific to EHP8 32 New Business Processes

EHP8 is packed with new functionalities. There are 32 innovative processes that run through different industries, LoBs, HANA and more.

Also, cross-application component versions merge to simplify structure.

Industry Based Innovations, for Retail, Public Sector, Media and Utilities

 

  • Harmonized Processes for Wholesale and Retail
  • Debt Management
  • Enhancements in SD and MM

 

LoB-based Innovation

 

  • Finance – SAP Treasury Management
  • Commodity Management – Enhancements in Commodity Pricing
  • R&D Engineering – Engineering Record Development
  • HCM – Renewal Organizational Management and People Administration

 

HANA Optimization and Fiori-like Apps for the Oil Industry

 

  • Faster decision-making through real-time visibility into stock positions and improved simulation functionalities
  • More effective reporting through immediate access to up-to-date
  • Schedule information
  • Optimized inventory levels through better visibility

 

Harmonized Processes for Wholesale for Fashion Management

  • Harmonizing and optimizing processes
  • A single, shared global inventory with common master data concepts
  • Multi-channel planning and procurement, enabled ATP and order
  • Allocation addressing shortages and priorities

 

  • SAP S/4 HANA Introduction – Why?

 

SAP S/4 HANA is the next-generation business suite product that provides innovated and tightly coupled solutions that support end-to-end business processes integration between SAP S/4 HANA core components and SAP software-as-a-service (SaaS) cloud solutions such as SAP Ariba, SAP Success Factors, SAP Fieldglass, Concur, SAP Hybris, SAP Cloud for Customer, SAP Financial Services Network, and other third-party solutions like Vertex for tax calculation.

Fig.1 Integration path of SAP S/4 HANA, on premise and cloud editions

SAP offers two different deployment options to integrate SAP S/4HANA, namely SAP S/4HANA, on premise edition and SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition.

Currently, there are three different offerings available as part of the SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition:

 

  • SAP S/4 HANA, cloud marketing edition
  • SAP S/4 HANA, cloud project services edition
  • SAP S/4 HANA, cloud enterprise edition

 

These also offer pre-packaged integration best practices content and engineered services for SAP S/4HANA and to the existing cloud solutions.

  • SAP S/4 HANA, On-Premise Edition Integration

Depending on the customer requirements the SAP S/4HANA, on premise integration scenario offers a business scope including SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management processes as well as integration best practice content with SAP’s SaaS cloud solutions and third-party applications using SAP Process Orchestration, Web services, or SAP HANA Cloud Integration.

SAP HANA Cloud Integration (HCI) is SAPs cloud integration middleware and is a SaaS product that provides standard integration content delivered by SAP to integrate SAP Success Factors, SAP Ariba, SAP Financial Services Network and SAP Cloud for Customer with SAP S/HANA on premise systems or even SAP ERP.

The SAP S/4HANA, on premise edition can be used as an install-based system or hosted on SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud. Customers can leverage it either by downloading the packaged best practices from the SAP Service Marketplace or via engineered service. The best practices can be deployed on the customer landscape or hosted in the cloud.

 

  • SAP S/4 HANA, Cloud Edition Integration

 

Other than the on premise edition, SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition is designed for enterprises that need standardized cloud integration offerings that cover the core business scenarios and the line-of-business cloud solutions. For the cloud edition, the main integration technologies are SAP HANA Cloud Integration and Web services.

Based on the selected scope and subscription model, customers can leverage the fully integrated, secured, and managed SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition by SAP. In most cases, the required customer integration scenarios are provisioned, configured, and activated from SAP Cloud Operations and SAP Cloud Service Center, or SAP provides self-configuration user interfaces so customers are able to configure the solution.

The current SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition already covers specific business scenarios for the marketing line of business and for the professional services industry. The enterprise edition includes: finance, accounting, controlling, procurement, sales, manufacturing, plant maintenance, project system, and product lifecycle management. The content is integrated with SAP cloud solutions such as SAP Success Factors Employee Central, SAP Ariba, SAP Hybris Marketing, SAP Jam, SAP Financial Services Network, and third-party integration with Vertex for tax calculation. Three offerings are currently available as part of SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition:

 

  • SAP S/4 HANA, cloud marketing edition – for the marketing line of business
  • SAP S/4 HANA, cloud project services edition – for the professional services industry
  • SAP S/4 HANA, cloud enterprise edition – for a full ERP scope

 

Furthermore, SAP HANA Cloud Platform (HCP) serves as an extension platform for SAP S/4HANA. Customers and partners are able to build specific capabilities extending the scope of SAP S/4HANA by integrating non-SAP solutions or developing new capabilities using the whitelisted APIs.

 

  • Why Does SAP Process Integration Matter and How Does SAP HANA Cloud Integration differ from SAP Process Orchestration?

 

Imagine you own an on premise HCM application. It is up and running in your system landscape and you want to innovate and integrate your HR business processes or master data with SAP Success Factors cloud-based applications. Similar to any A2A integration, you need to ensure that data and processes are integrated accurately and reliably. Furthermore, HR employees might need to access data from different HR applications, such as replicating employee data from SAP Success Factors Employee Central to an SAP S/4HANA application or cost center data from an SAP S/4HANA financial application to SAP Success Factors Employee Central. Depending on the deployment model, the integration of both on premise and cloud-based applications can be realized through Web services, the on premise SAP Process Orchestration, or SAP HANA Cloud Integration middleware and ensure that data and processes are secured, mapped, and transferred properly.

SAP HANA Cloud Integration is not the only product for which SAP provides integration middleware. The integration content offered by SAP for SAP HANA Cloud Integration can be viewed at https://cloudintegration.hana.ondemand.com. SAP offers many standard integration capabilities and content for SAP Process Orchestration. However, SAP HANA Cloud Integration is not only the standard content. The management and monitoring of this integration content is offered by SAP in the cloud environment. SAP is therefore responsible for the hosting, configuration, and monitoring of integration scenarios. This involves a new service offering for which interaction with SAP customers is very important. It relieves the customer of hosting, configuration, and monitoring the integration environment. A huge difference with SAP Process Orchestration is that the standard content offered must be hosted, configured, managed, and monitored by the customer.

Conclusion and Recommendations

 

  • SAP S/4HANA provides a choice of deployment options for on premise and cloud editions.
  • SAP S/4HANA is closely integrated with cloud solutions from SAP, such as Ariba Network, SAP Success Factors Employee Central, and Concur.
  • SAP S/4HANA offers integration technology options based on the deployment selection: SAP Process Orchestration, SAP HANA Cloud Integration, and Web services.
  • SAP S/4HANA is easy to integrate because it leverages preconfigured best practices, guided configuration, and on boarding either for the cloud or on premise deployment model.
  • SAP S/4HANA is designed with SAP Fiori UX and integrated user experience with simplified usability on any device

Michael Renshaw is a leading SAP Program Manager offering invaluable experience to clients who are looking to upgrade their SAP ERP solutions or who want to decide on the S/4 HANA route cloud or on premise based. He works closely with SAP and SAP clients.

SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies.