With many SAP customers still uncertain about their future roadmap following the release of SAP Business Suite 4 HANA (S/4 HANA), a report by independent support provider Rimini Street has outlined a number of strategic recommendations.
A recent global survey of current SAP Business Suite licensees conducted by Rimini Street showed that only 14 per cent have committed to migrating to, reimplementing and running S/4HANA, with 33 per cent saying they would not be using the platform and 52 per cent saying ‘maybe’.
Of those who said they were either already using S/4 HANA or planned to, their top reasons were ‘simplify business processes’ (68 per cent), ‘speedier HANA database’ (65 per cent) and ‘more attractive Fiori UX’ (53 per cent).
However of the 85 per cent who said were not committed to S/4 HANA, the top reasons given were ‘no strong business case/unclear ROI’ (68 per cent) and ‘unproven, early stage product’ (44 per cent).
In addition to the full findings of the survey, Rimini Street’s ‘SAP Application Strategies for 2015 and Beyond’ report includes a set of recommendations for companies unsure of how to move forward, drawing on insights from leading industry analysts, as well as comments from other SAP customers.
These include a ‘wait and see’ strategy to allow S/4 HANA time to mature as a product and the conversion roadmap to become clear, using a hybrid strategy to maximize existing ERP investments, and planning for cloud-based deployments while maintaining flexibility and lower costs.
The report can be downloaded here.
