SAP implementation consultant at 0
Consultant
Provides good performance, processes, and integration with modern technologies
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution's most valuable features are performance and processes."
  • "The solution’s pricing could be reduced."

What is our primary use case?

Many companies are currently going for SAP S/4HANA because the maintenance for their SAP ERP or SAP ECC will be over the next year. Even their extended maintenance will be over by 2028. Some companies have gone for mergers and acquisitions and want common processes across their entities. Hence, they chose a good ERP system like SAP S/4HANA.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable features are performance and processes. Following its integration with cutting-edge modern technologies like SAP BTP, the solution is now better positioned to cater to most of an organization's functions.

What needs improvement?

The solution’s pricing could be reduced.

For how long have I used the solution?


Buyer's Guide
SAP S/4HANA
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about SAP S/4HANA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution has provided good stability to some of our customers. The stability of the solution during one of the big projects we did in 2022 was phenomenal.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

About 90% of our customers work with SAP S/4HANA.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's technical support team is fast and knowledgeable.

How was the initial setup?

The solution’s initial setup is straightforward.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend the solution to other users. It is generally a good option to migrate from non-SAP to SAP solution. Using a comprehensive product like SAP S/4HANA provides many benefits, such as best processes and integration with other technologies.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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PeerSpot user
Shubham Desale - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at Inteliwaves
Consultant
Offers business enterprise planning and enterprise resource management
Pros and Cons
  • "One of the things I like about it is its well-integrated and secure nature."
  • "So, there is room for improvement in pricing. HANA is not a simple product; it's quite complex by design."

What is our primary use case?

It's mainly for business enterprise planning and enterprise resource management.

What is most valuable?

One of the things I like about it is its well-integrated and secure nature.

What needs improvement?

Considering it's not a small product, improving pricing would be helpful.

So, there is room for improvement in pricing. HANA is not a simple product; it's quite complex by design.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for five years. So initially, I worked with DC for two years. After that, it became a mix. It's not straightforward. I started with PCC, then spent some time with HANA, and then switched to CCB. Currently, I am working with HANA.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. It's quite stable, but given that it's a cloud solution, there are ongoing updates and new components in every quarter. So, we get four updates annually. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution. In my organization, we serve many clients, so there are numerous users. We have around ten customers. We are a service-based company.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service and support are good and knowledgeable. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

It's somewhat straightforward but can be a bit complex, after all Fortune 500 companies also use this solution. It depends on the specific use case.

What about the implementation team?

It's available for both on-premises and cloud deployment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Our customers do need to pay for licenses. It is expensive.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend using this solution to other people as well. Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. Currently, the solution is adapting to the cloud. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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Buyer's Guide
SAP S/4HANA
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about SAP S/4HANA. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
771,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Shylaraj AK - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Architect at a construction company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
Stable with a straightforward setup and good documentation
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution can scale well."
  • "We would like to see more DevOps capabilities in the future."

What is most valuable?

The POD applications are very useful to us. There are a few POD apps which we are using for the different business scenarios. They are quite interesting.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. The documentation is very good.

The solution can scale well.

The solution is stable.

What needs improvement?

It's been just one year that we started using this product, due to the fact that we need to have different integrations as well to other systems. With S/4HANA, when SAP started, everything worked in a single SAP system. Slowly then it's been delegated or divided into multiple SAP systems. That's why we have around 25 different SAP products running in our landscape. Yet, at the same time, S/4HANA is the core. It's the core component.

Going forward, I believe more systems could be consolidated into S/4HANA. We need to reduce the number of SAP systems running in our landscape. S/4HANA has the capacity to host many other SAP products, therefore we can discontinue some of the SAP products. Currently, we have now the Global Services, the Governance, Risk, and Compliance, and Enterprise Portal, BW, Supply Chain Management, Warehouse Management, et cetera. If SAP could consolidate many of the systems so that we can reduce the number of systems, that would be ideal.

The solution can be a bit expensive.

We would like to see more DevOps capabilities in the future.

The solution would benefit from offering more serverless features in the sense that when you deploy SAP, it's a pretty big deployment and you have a lot of dependencies or you are closely tied up or you have a dependency with the hardware vendor and the hardware providers and the certified hardware and items like that. At the same time, all these deployed components and these files are possible to deploy without a server as well. Slowly SAP is providing some of the features so that you can deploy this in containers and so you don't have any dependency on the running hardware. That way, you can restart the systems without any downtime or the end-users will not feel the difference. Aspects like that need to be improved. 

We do have here monthly maintenance due to the fact that sometimes we need to recharge the system and we have seen from the end-users there will be certain downtime as well. If there is no dependency with the hardware and if it goes serverless, then we can have zero-downtime maintenance.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution for the past year or so. It hasn't been that long.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. At the same time, it depends on where you deploy your systems. If you deploy your systems in Azure, then it would be using the scalability of Azure. If you deploy in AWS, it uses the scalability of AWS. If you deploy in a virtual private environment, then it depends on where you deployed the system. At the same time, it depends on being compatible with all these different hyper-scalers. For the most part, it goes pretty well with the different platforms.

We are deploying the solution in different countries. Currently, we have close to 10,000 users working in SAP. Yearly, we do the deployment in multiple countries. In two months, we deploy in one more country. There will be another 200, 300 more users will be coming. By the end of this year, there will be 2,000 more users. Currently, around 10,000 users are using this application.

How are customer service and technical support?

The SAP S/4HANA technical support is mainly with the service provider. When you deploy SAP, you have different support teams. Most of the time, you will have a service provider or a supplier that you would be associating with. You will have a kind of application management or infrastructure management support with that vendor. For example, IBM, Capgemini, Accenture, DXC. They are the different vendors. However, then you get the OEM support via the SAP Support Portal for product-related issues. That support has got different priority levels based on the importance. Generally, we know how the SAP support works and it's acceptable. We're satisfied with the level of support provided overall.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup isn't too difficult. It's pretty straightforward for the most part. SAP has got some good documentation and there are different migration scenarios and implementation scenarios you can work with. With the help of documentation, things are pretty straightforward. 

What about the implementation team?

Most of the time, you do the SAP deployment or the migration with a partner. SAP has got certified partners to help with the implementation.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

SAP has got different license mechanisms. It depends on how many SAP products you run and then how do you negotiate with the SAP teams and what kind of offer you get. At the same time, generally, everyone says SAP products are a bit costly. 

Some of the SAP systems are licensed based on the number of CPUs that are being deployed, and some of the SAP products are licensed based on the number of primary users, and some of the SAP systems are based on the database footprint. Different SAP products have different license mechanisms, so there should be a person who is knowledgeable about SAP that can understand and then review the licensing agreement and get the right SAP product - and perhaps help negotiate the price.

What other advice do I have?

We are customers and end-users.

We have around 25 different SAP products. We are using SAP S/4HANA in our company.

The production and the test systems are deployed in the virtual private cloud on-premise, and we have sandbox development and quality systems are deployed in the Azure public cloud.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Media Strategist at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Has great scalability and allows us to get all our processes flowing together
Pros and Cons
  • "We're able to get all our processes flowing together. We're able to make all of our business processes talk to each other."
  • "It should have more support. Documentation and support for mobile apps can be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for our financials and ERP.

How has it helped my organization?

It has got all our data more scalable, and it made it more workable for us. So, we're able to make things run faster, especially when our developer team was doing data modeling.

What is most valuable?

We're able to get all our processes flowing together. We're able to make all of our business processes talk to each other.

What needs improvement?

It should have more support. Documentation and support for mobile apps can be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

So far, it has been good. We had some problems with our customizations, but everything seems to be running fine.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its scalability is fine. We plan to increase its usage and use it extensively.

All people who are using it are in IT. Some of them are in the finance department.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is good. They were pretty knowledgeable.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We're new to that. We didn't use anything.

How was the initial setup?

It was kind of complex because we didn't know the difference between the SAP Business ByDesign and SAP S/4HANA. It wasn't clear. SAP just has too many versions, and it was like, "Oh, give me a break, and tell me what to get."

For its maintenance, we have at least five people. They're in IT with different roles.

What about the implementation team?

We used a consultant. Our experience was good.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We're not sure yet. I think it was six figures a year, over 100,000. It has straight-up licensing fees.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it an eight out of 10 because it has got great scalability. It has worked so far.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Functional Consultant at Cognitus Consulting
Consultant
Ability for remote access is a key feature in streamlining our processes
Pros and Cons
  • "The Fiori design is a valuable feature."
  • "Documentation could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

I'm a senior functional consultant and we partner with SAP. 

How has it helped my organization?

Previously, when a sales person had to register a deal, it meant logging onto Windows to look at the deals, now it can all be done from a mobile phone. That's a huge benefit for us. 

What is most valuable?

The best part of this solution is the Fiori design. 

What needs improvement?

The documentation for this solution can definitely be improved and I'd also like to see more support, more numbers of Android or iPhone apps.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This solution is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is highly scalable. We've scaled it more than 75% of what we initially had. We regularly scale and there's no excess consumption of resources or major tweaks required when we're scaling up. We have around 500 end users and we have a team of five or six people responsible for maintenance, including a system administrator. We use this solution extensively and will continue to expand our use of it. 

How are customer service and technical support?

We had a good experience with technical support. They know what they're doing and the response time was good. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used SAP ECC. We switched because they discontinued maintenance of ECC and this is a new solution altogether. It didn't make sense for us to continue with SAP ECC.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was moderate on the complexity side. Not too complex, but also not so easy. The deployment was done in-house and took several months. 

What other advice do I have?

There are a lot of ERP solutions on the market - Oracle, JD Edwards, and the like, but when it comes to SAP, my experience is that once you implement the solution and you understand how it works, it becomes intuitive to work with. When you upgrade to a new solution or when a whole lot of changes come in, the user experience stays pretty much consistent.

I rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Alaba Ayotunde O. OLUWAYIMIKA - PeerSpot reviewer
It Asset Management Lead at Dangote Industries Limited
Real User
Detailed processes that capture our policies and enable us to implement our policies in SAP
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is the detail in all of the processes. The solution captures our policies and enables us to implement our policies in SAP. There are different models that address our needs."
  • "The Capex and Opex could be improved."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution for ERP in our business. The solution is deployed on-prem. We have a backup on the cloud through Azure.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the detail in all of the processes. The solution captures our policies and enables us to implement our policies in SAP. There are different models that address our needs. We have also implemented SuccessFactors for our performance, which is for capital management.

It's a very vast product. It meets almost all our needs.

What needs improvement?

The Capex and Opex could be improved. It would be nice if they cut back on the cost. Otherwise, it's a very good product.

For how long have I used the solution?

We moved to S4HANA in 2020. We have used SAP for a long time.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable. Once you do the right sizing for the infrastructure that is running on the hardware, on the storage, you are good to go. We are running on Hyper Converged. Most of the time, people get the sizing wrong.

If you run out of resources, you may start to experience some slowness. But once you size it right, they're good to go and there aren't any issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable.

How are customer service and support?

For technical support, we recruited a lot of guys who have experience with SAP. We also have support for users. In-house, we're developing our skills so that we can address the needs of some immediate users. 

For needs that we can't address, we escalate to support. Other organizations provide that third-level support. But the second level has addressed needs from our super users and other users within the organization.

How was the initial setup?

With SAP, you need to have total planning. Once you have the total planning, SAP is easy to deploy. When people complain that they failed in their deployment, it's because they didn't go the extra mile in planning and leaving no stone left unturned. If you plan it well, you'll have an enjoyable and successful deployment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price could be lower.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Anshuman Bansal - PeerSpot reviewer
Head - SAP & Digital Transformation at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Usable in many industries, scalable, and good support
Pros and Cons
  • "SAP S4HANA provides a solution towards a green industry. They keep making a different version of the solution to meet the needs of different industries, such as automotive and utilities."
  • "The solution could have a better user experience. However, they are working a lot on the user experience and they have come up with various applications, such as mobile applications. This was lacking over the last two years."

What is our primary use case?

SAP S4HANA can be used for many things such as financials, accounts payable, accounts receivables, set accounting, management accounting, and banking.

What is most valuable?

SAP S4HANA provides a solution towards a green industry. They keep making a different version of the solution to meet the needs of different industries, such as automotive and utilities.

What needs improvement?

The solution could have a better user experience. However, they are working a lot on the user experience and they have come up with various applications, such as mobile applications. This was lacking over the last two years.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using SAP S4HANA for approximately two years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable.

There are various modules of functionalities available in SAP S4HANA. However, it might be better for us to only use one or two of the modules at first and scale as needed later. 

In one of our implementation, there were 50,000 users using the solution.

How are customer service and support?

The support is very good.

What about the implementation team?

The size of the team needed for the implementation depends on the size of the organization. If the organization is relatively small, we can manage the implementation with one or two skilled technicians, and depending on the complexity of it, it could need more technicians for support.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

There is a license to use this solution.

What other advice do I have?

I would highly recommend this solution to others.

I rate SAP S4HANA an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Vice President, Corporate IT at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Necessitated us tailoring our processes which has increased efficiency
Pros and Cons
  • "Responsive, comprehensive and optimized solution."
  • "Lacking in some customizations."

What is our primary use case?

We are in the food business so the solution helps with our business processes as well as the financial aspect - sales, purchasing, manufacturing - all the core business processes across all these modules. I'm the vice president corporate IT and we are customers of SAP. 

How has it helped my organization?

I think primarily it helped us work out our out-of-the-box best practices which was a huge benefit. It meant that we tailored our processes in line with those of the standard out- of-the-box solution. And I think overall it has given us much more visibility on our processes, on the data that is produced as a reservable process.

What is most valuable?

I think technically it's a very responsive, comprehensive and optimized solution. It's very fast and the S4 version is much more user friendly on the UI side than the previous versions and it basically provides a better experience. Everything is there and it's up to the user to put it to use. 

What needs improvement?

Every business has some unique requirements which can mean customizations are required. What I'd really like to see is the development of an industry specific solution for the food industry, in particular the supply and demand side that's very critical to us, given that there are issues with products that have a shorter shelf life.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for two years. 

What other advice do I have?

My key advice would be to get down your processes first before putting any new system in place. It's important to re-engineer the processes and streamline them before implementing IT solutions, whether it's SAP or any other thing. It's the process side that needs to be dealt with first. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free SAP S/4HANA Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free SAP S/4HANA Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.