New research released by the UK and Ireland SAP User Group has found that 42 per cent of member respondents are looking to implement SAP Simple Finance for their organisation, with 53 per cent attracted by the potential to streamline financial processes, and 30 per cent seeking to capitalise on real-time insights to enable better decision-making.
The survey canvassed the views of 72 SAP organisations in the UK and Ireland.
Amongst the respondents who said they were not currently planning to implement SAP Simple Finance, the most common reasons were a difficulty in justifying cost over benefits (38 per cent), the fact that it would require updates to their existing landscape (19 per cent), and a desire to see more real-life customer usage cases (14 per cent).
Overall, the group showed a strong belief in the value of technology to transform finance, with 72 per cent stated that technology had helped drive efficiencies within the finance function, and the same proportion stating that they had already automated their invoicing function.
“Considering that SAP Simple Finance has only been available since the start of the year, it is interesting to see that many organisations are already looking to implement it. It appears that SAP’s simplification mantra is starting to resonate with customers,” said Philip Adams, chairman of the UK & Ireland SAP User Group (pictured).
“However at the same time, the research has shown that users are still facing challenges in justifying the business case and ensuring their existing SAP landscape is compatible. This highlights there is still work to be done to help customers overcome these obstacles and take advantage of the latest product innovation from SAP.”
Meanwhile, a survey by the German-speaking SAP User Group (DSAG), which has members in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, painted a mixed picture on S/4HANA. Thirty-seven per cent of respondents felt that S/4HANA does not provide added value, 42 per cent are still gathering information, 11 per cent have considered it yet, and only 6 per cent have already started a project.
The survey found that 72 per cent DSAG members were looking for more concrete information on S/4HANA’s functionality, while information about business benefits, license model and conditions under which companies can migrate to S/4HANA was also missing.
“Functionality will decide whether an ERP is successful among customers. It is the key to digitisation projects,” said DSAG chairman, Marco Lenck. “SAP currently does not provide enough of this information.”
DSAG members also reported strong support for the classic SAP Business Suite as a strategic ERP backbone within the company, with 70 per cent saying it was very important, and 22 per cent moderately important. While more than half of respondents thought an S/4HANA instance operated on-premise was either “strategically relevant” or “moderately important”, cloud solutions were much less so, falling within the lower single-digit range.
“DSAG members have developed considerable know-how in the area of the Business Suite, and they are confident that they can use it to depict their processes efficiently and as completely as possible, both today and in the future. Despite innovative products, the future security of the Business Suite must remain in place,” Lenck said.
