ORLANDO, Fla. – In his keynote at Sapphire Now 2015, SAP CEO Bill McDermott, called SAP S/4 HANA “a once-in-a-generation platform.”
Designed to help companies become more data driven while simplifying and making the process of analytics more seamless, the technology is the talk of this year’s show. The newest innovation on the platform is the cloud edition.
SAP debuted the latest iteration of the S/4 HANA platform, called SAP Business Suite 4, on Wednesday. SAP News says the software is designed to bring “the next wave of simplification and innovations across core business functions.”
The launch of the cloud-based version of S/4 HANA is designed to let customers do all of their business – including finance, accounting, controlling, procurement, sales, manufacturing, plant maintenance, project system and product life cycle management – in the cloud.
In a press release, SAP News said: “In addition, it gives customers the opportunity to deploy real hybrid scenarios — combining on-premise and cloud solutions — for unprecedented IT flexibility and accelerated business innovation.”
“SAP S/4HANA is now available on-premise, in the cloud and even allows true hybrid scenarios,” Bernd Leukert, member of the executive board, products and innovation at SAP said. “This is unique in the industry. Customers can rely on a modern digital business foundation to reimagine their business, on-premise or in the cloud, at a large scale.”
The technology is built on SAP HANA’s advanced in-memory platform and designed with SAP Fiori user experience. The S/4 HANA product has already been adopted by 370 customers worldwide.
“Many companies are at a crossroads with their IT and business process innovation,” Joshua Greenbaum, principal of Enterprise Applications Consulting said of the applications for the platform. “They need advanced capabilities and new user experiences and they need to connect formerly disparate business processes, and siloed applications into a coherent, holistic enterprise.”
He believes the S/4 HANA, cloud edition, provides this with its “low-disruption, high-value foundation.”
The next step for SAP is to help subscribed customers with the adoption process. Issues that must be addressed include predefined migration, system conversion in the cloud, guided configuration and deployment packages to drive quicker time to value.
Companies such as Google, Wal-Mart, Facebook and Semiens all have plans to implement SAP S/4 HANA, and have proclaimed their dedication to the platform at Sapphire Now 2015.
