The next iteration of SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA (SAP S/4HANA) will deliver a “massive wave of simplification and innovation” covering critical business processes across finance, sales, service, marketing, commerce, procurement and sourcing, manufacturing, supply chain, asset management, research and development, and human resources, the company has announced at the SAP TechEd event in Barcelona this week.
The newly announced SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management solution will also enable enterprises to drive end-to-end digitised operations across their key business functions.
SAP S/4HANA solutions for lines of business combine the digitised core capabilities of SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management with the on-premise and cloud solutions in the SAP portfolio for each line of business – such as the SAP Cash Management application in finance; SAP SuccessFactors solutions in human resources; the Ariba Network in procurement, and SAP hybris solutions in marketing and commerce.
“We worked closely with our customers that now evolve in the digital economy to identify where digitised operations can provide the most value,” said Paul Marriott, senior vice president, database and analytics, SAP Asia Pacific Japan. “The result is a completely reimagined core, making SAP S/4HANA the first digital core for digital business in the industry. With this delivery, enterprises can drive unprecedented business value with innovative use cases in core financial and operational areas such as logistics to take full advantage of simplified data models and a responsive user experience.”
The announcement represents the fulfilment of SAP’s promise to extend the utility of S/4 HANA beyond the first Simple Finance solution into the other traditional ERP areas.
Among the improvements and changes are a simplified data model in inventory management for real-time, high-volume processing, streamlined material flow for internal requirements and material requirements planning, new accounts payable and receivable cockpits, simpler simulation of supply alternatives, real-time monitoring of production orders for flow and critical issues, a new sales order fulfilment cockpit, and standard integration to the Ariba Network for easier procurement.
SAP S/4HANA bears the mantle of SAP’s fastest-growing product, signing on more than 1300 customers in the eight months since its February 2015 launch.
SAP recently announced its Digital Boardroom product, which brings together data from the SAP S/4HANA suite and SAP HANA Cloud Platform to provide companies with a way to access and interact with critical business metrics via the SAP Cloud for Analytics solution.