Introduction to SAP S/4HANA
System Applications and Products (SAP) SE
- It is the market leader in enterprise application software.
- It is a German multinational company that pioneered ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software.
- It is one of the world’s largest independent software manufacturers, with 400,000 customers in 190 countries.
- SAP lets companies streamline processes, use live data, predict customer trends, and connect entire businesses.
SAP History
The following shows a short history of SAP through the years:
| YEAR |
DESCRIPTION |
| 1972 |
SAP was founded for the development of real-time data application software. |
| 1981 – 1982 |
SAP R/2 was introduced |
| 1986 – 1989 |
SAP R/3 was developed, and SAP was presented at the CeBIT Hanover. |
| 1993 – 1994 |
A partnership with Microsoft was established by connecting SAP R/3 with the Windows NT operating system. The IBM Corporation started using SAP R/3. |
| 1995 – 1996 |
SAP joined the Internet, and SAP R/3 can be used online |
| 2002 |
It is its 30th anniversary, becoming the 3rd largest independent software provider. |
| 2005 – 2006 |
The release of SAP ERP was announced. |
| 2009 |
SAP Business Suite 7 was launched to optimize business performance and reduce IT costs. |
| 2011 |
The first SAP in-memory computing product was implemented, resulting in the SAP HANA platform. It made data access possible in seconds. |
| 2013 |
SAP Business Suite moves to SAP HANA, becoming the fastest-growing product in the history of enterprise software. |
| 2015 |
SAP S/4HANA was introduced. |
SAP S/4HANA
- It is the next-generation Business Suite and the biggest innovation since SAP R/3.
- It is the digital core of the company that enables digital transformation.
- One of the advantages of SAP S/4HANA is real-time simplification. A typical booking transaction with 15 tables
could be compressed to four (4) tables using SAP S/4HANA.
SAP Fiori
- It is a design system and a user experience (UX) layer that allows business app creation with a consumer-grade
user experience. It makes casual users into SAP experts with simple screens that run on any device. SAP Fiori
provides a user interface for SAP S/4HANA.
- It has three (3) application types:
- Transactional apps that are used to access tasks like Create, Change, or Display Process with
guided navigation;
- Analytical apps that give a visual overview of business data and
- A factsheet with a view of the essential information about objects and contextual navigation
between related objects.
Data Types
- Organizational Data are data that are part of the organizational unit,such as the company code, plant, storage location, and distribution channel.
- Master Data such as person, material, customer, and vendor can be stored for a long time and rarely changed. It represents logically grouped data like customer master, material master, vendor master, and general ledger accounts.
- Transaction Data is the system record of the business event wherein, depending on the business event, different master data and organization data will be referenced.
- For example, during a sales order business event, the following data is stored:
- Organizational: Client, Company Code, Sales organization
- Master: Customer, Material, Pricing
- Transaction: Date, Time, Person, Amount
Cloud vs. On-Premise
- SAP S/4HANA can be accessed on the Cloud and On-Premise.
- The Cloud Edition has a subscription licensing deployed in the private cloud maintained by SAP. SAP also provides system and control maintenance.
- The On-Premise edition is under traditional licensing with customer control of deployment and maintenance.
Optimization Levers
- Efficiency focuses on accelerated execution, automated process steps, and digital out-tasking.
- Effectiveness is speeding up action, de-layer processes, and raising process intelligence.
- Agility focuses on process flexibility, organizational flexibility, and assimilating process innovation.
Transition to SAP S/4HANA
Here are the possible scenarios when a company transitions to SAP S/4HANA.
- New Implementation
- New implementation of SAP S/4HANA for customers migrating a legacy system. It is known as the greenfield approach.
- System Conversion
- Customers who want to convert their current system into an SAP S/4HANA system.
- Landscape Transformation
- Customers who want to consolidate their landscape or selectively transform data into a SAP S/4HANA system.