S/4HANA an offering from SAP is designed to accelerate businesses the world over with comprehensive digital transformation. It is a next-generation business suite in the digital world. Built on an advanced in-memory platform, SAP HANA and even gives personalized user experience with SAP Fiori. This can be deployed as per the demand of the enterprises. Businesses can opt for on-premise installations or an installation in the Cloud. It is made to offer value creation across all the department of the organization. Its predictive models provide instant, real-time insight for better decisions.  The entire architecture has been modified for the lower cost of ownership. The process has been refined for achieving optimum performance. This has increased the workforce engagement and the customer experience has in turn been enhanced.

SAP HANA Cloud Capabilities:

SAP HANA Cloud Platform is an open Platform as a Service (PaaS). It offers customers in-memory capabilities, core platform services, and unique business services for building collaborative, mobile based applications. It is designed to have an “X-factor” for the enterprise of tomorrow in this age of the digital transformation. It offers flexible solutions to complex problems and gives choices of various deployment models, frameworks and applications. The embedded analytics is in the form of predictive service and streaming analytics to have real-time insight into routine enterprise activities on a daily basis. Business services such as data quality service and tax service allow for faster development of applications. The SAP HANA Cloud platform provides other capabilities which include data and services, DevOps, integration services, machine learning, mobiles, runtime, and containers. Considering that machine learning and AI are closely linked and factoring in the tech mogul Elon Musk’s predictions about AI revolutionizing the tech industry forever; SAP HANA’s Cloud Capabilities make it more of a necessity than a choice to stay in the race for market share.

Cloud version of S/4HANA:

S/4HANA Cloud is designed to offer excellent services across the organization with greater experience and ease. It is made to give outstanding experience across different departments of the organization such as finance, sales, purchasing, production and quality management and project management.  All critical business transactions in finance can be done with a predefined scenario in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The sales team will have the option to analyze different sales scenarios, identify problems and review sales orders. It will be easier to make a purchase order and have an invoice. Inventory management, demand forecasting, supplier evaluation all can be executed with great ease through this package.

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The SAP Activate innovation Adoption Network quickens the deployment of SAP S/4HANA Cloud throughout the enterprise. It offers smooth and fast execution methodologies for various deployment models. The SAP Activate helps in reducing the total cost of ownership for enterprises by taking less time in deployment. The SAP Activate Framework is designed as “Discover, Prepare, Explore, Realize, Deploy and Run” in that respective order.  The term discovers here means to understand and analyze the benefits of adopting the SAP S/4HANA Cloud during the free trial. Prepare simply means to do the initial planning of deployment, finalize plans and finalize the team for this purpose. Explore involves going through various needs of the organization and trying to provide services as per enterprise need. The Realize phase is done by integrating all business process and system environment. The Deploy phase is about moving the business operations to the new system as smoothly as possible. The Run phase includes continuously adopting the solutions throughout the organization; add new users and activating any additional functions if needed.

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The top five value areas of SAP S/4HANA Cloud are, the faster return on investment, increased business agility, lower total cost of ownership, improved governance and compliance and more intelligence Cloud ERP.

Faster Return on Investment:

The enterprise needs to focus on the action that increases the value of their goods and services. They need solutions that could help them realize their business potential and deliver quality services in lesser time. As per Mckinsey survey, the IT industry’s future value proposition, 2017,  50% of executives believes that in five years IT’s critical function will shift from support to enterprise value creation. In the same survey, only 12% of all respondents believe that their IT infrastructure is as per the current digital evolution across the business. In this scenario, S/4HANA Cloud provides benefits like faster time to value creation, increased in automation with digital assistant and rich user experience. It is a Cloud solution that provides faster and efficient service for IT and various associated enterprises. The focus is to accelerate the IT infrastructure as per the changing business requirement for all key responsibility areas in the different departments. SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers the benefit of two-tier deployments i.e. for subsidiaries and divisions across the organization. The aim is to reduce decision taking time with the help of machine learning and achieve zero touch processes with SAP co-pilot digital assistant. This development is going to reduce training time and help in faster user actions and decisions. There is also an effort to improve the productivity of employees with increased use of the predefined solutions for repetitive tasks.

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Increased Business Agility:

The digital age has completely transformed the way the businesses are to be run. The assembly line method during the industrial revolution was suited more for one mode of operation such as maximizing economies of scale–and this is gradually becoming obsolete in the digital age. The businesses in the current day market need a platform where they can evolve speedily with the changing requirement of the businesses. As per SAP performance benchmarking 2017, there is 16% higher business satisfaction among the organization where IT facilities are integrated as per their business needs. The organization of today needs to be smart and develop a culture of innovation throughout the organization. With this in mind, S/4HANACloud has been designed to meet the demands of changing innovation and enterprise need. It offers infinite possibilities, seamless integration and faster innovation.  It provides varieties of Cloud deployment models like hybrid Cloud with the option of on-premise setup. It also supports mergers and acquisitions, feasibility analysis, business process consolidation, and integration of IT system. It offers the facility of scaling up Cloud requirement as per the needs of the organization. The process of integration from SAP to non-SAP has become simpler. The system can be integrated as per the need of the individual customer with little impact to the existing system.  Customer service has been improved with faster delivery of service and waiting time for the customer is significantly reduced due to minimal time and effort required to keep the application updated. The new features and services are added instantly to meet the business need of the customers.

Lower total cost of ownership:

Organizations are ready to make investments in their IT infrastructure that would scale up their business prospects. They are investing in order to have a strong and robust digital presence. This not only brings them closer to the customers, but also increases their market share. They are looking for cost-effective solutions to have a good return on investment. As per Forreste, Global Business Technographics Software Survey, November 2016, 73% of organizations say the lowest total cost of ownership is the deciding factor for them moving to a Cloud service. The key to providing excellent customer services are to provide quality service at low cost. This can be achieved by lowering the cost of production. SAP S/4HANA Cloud offers benefits like rapid deployment, efficient operations, subscription based model and simplified architecture. The Cloud solution offers deployment within a week, which saves a significant amount of cost involved in deployment. The cost charges for training and support are also minimal which could be reassigned internally for critical tasks. The different models present gives an analysis of different scenarios instantly after going live. The pay as you use model subscription reduces the cost of initial investment and there are no upfront costs. Since there is no huge one-time investment, so the funds saved could be used for other urgent business needs. The facility of a virtual infrastructure for customers reduces ownership and maintenance costs. The time and resources spent to handle infrastructure and various platforms are minimal. The entire Cloud solution can be easily deployed, maintained and configured with a minimum cost of investment.

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Improved Governance and Compliance:

Today, the organizations in the marketplace have to provide efficient services at low cost to maximize their return on investment.  They are keeping their data as much as possible on public Clouds. As per McAfee’s Cloud survey, Building trust in a Cloud sky, 2016, 74 %  of organizations stated that they keep some or most of the sensitive data on public Clouds. More and more data are kept on public Cloud so to prevent data loss or data theft is crucial for the organization. In general data, theft breaks the trust of the customer and reduces the brand value of the company. Companies are looking for Cloud solutions which could provide data security and protection from hacking. SAP S/4HANA Cloud benefits provide legal and regulatory compliance, security in the Cloud and proactive governance of Cloud. There is a local regulatory compliance related to accounting rules, tax support, etc. There is a quarterly release of reports related to local legal matter to ensure that organizations stay up to date on compliance regulations. The legal requirements related to data protection and data privacy are addressed effectively. There is also a facility of built-in disaster recovery. The governance and compliance of the Cloud solution are improved through continuous monitoring. There is an observation of Cloud services to protect it from attackers and taking proactive action for any critical failure. The cost charged for providing these services are kept minimal.

More Intelligence Cloud ERP:

Digital transformation is the need of today. New businesses require simplified digital solutions that are comprehensive with a facility of continuous innovation as per the changing needs of the business. According to IDC research, by 2020 at least 50% of new IT spending will be Cloud-based, whereas non Cloud business applications will be reduced by 20%. IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Cloud 2017 Predictions, December 2016 in the period of 2015-2020, the public Cloud spending will increase by 21.5% CAGR which is $203.4 billion by 2020. Also, a report from IDC, Worldwide Semiannual Cloud Services Spending Guide, July 2017 states that more than 85% of enterprises will shift to multi Cloud strategy. SAP S/4HANA Cloud benefits provide intelligent innovation with machine learning, self-service with contextual analytics, and comprehensive business coverage.  Intelligent services are developed upon machine learning algorithms for example integration of SAP Cash Software Application for matching of the invoice and give prediction results back to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. There are many mini built-in modular programs which helps in the key decision-making process, offers optimum utilization of resources, and improves return on investment. There is an elimination of repetitive tasks and automotive suggestions are given based on different predictive models. There is a facility of SaaS solution that includes supply chain, finance, procurement, sales. The standard operating procedures have made for global deployment.

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Conclusion: The Future IS Cloud!

The rapid pace of development is bringing many changes in today’s technology landscape. There are many buzz words like big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, etc. which are currently dominating the tech-space right now Cloud computing is chief among them. The future belongs to the Cloud. Organizations are ready to tap the benefits of Cloud with Cloud-based strategy being first in the priority list of enterprises today. It reduces operating costs and improves the utility of their services. For gaining a competitive advantage such enterprises are ready to invest in SaaS (Software as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). Cloud strategy will enhance customer service, minimize cost and bring new sources of revenues for the enterprises. Organizations are shifting their important business processes onto the Cloud to leverage the benefits of speed and simplicity. The Cloud will be used as a medium to deliver critical services to the customer in the future with enterprises, especially small-medium enterprises shifting to the Cloud. As per Gartner, Market Guide for Service-Centric Cloud ERP solutions, published in December 2016 shows that at least 50% of organizations will be implementing Cloud SaaS strategies by 2025. The same survey says, 20% of the IT market will be related to Cloud by 2020. Gartner also predicts that by 2020 the worldwide public Cloud service market is projected to 383.3 billion dollars. Such data make it evident that the future is all about Cloud, and anyone who does not hop on to the Cloud will be left hopelessly behind.