SAP S/4HANA Reviews

Our company implements the solution for customers in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. We manage transformational projects that include selection, upgrade, or replacement of systems that require ERP solutions. 

Our biggest implementation was for a chemical company's software hub that was custom-built on an AS/400 mainframe and they wanted to move to an ERP system.  After a six-month package selection process, we chose the solution combined with extensions provided by an implementation partner that added specific functionality and narrowed down customizations. 

Across all of our projects, there are 5,000 users of the solution. 

The finance solution and procurement functionalities are good. 

Items that impact the TCO should be improved because the solution is very complex to integrate and keep running. 

Integration with a portal or front end is needed. For example, the online collaboration part of SAP with vendors lacks functionality. Integrating with sales or service processes with a CRM or cloud for customers uses three different SAP systems. Customers typically choose Salesforce instead because the SAP system is not good.

There is a very large learning curve for different domains from an end user perspective. Some things are easy to understand and other things are complex. Users receive cryptic error messages when they do things that they do not fully understand. 

I have been using the solution for seven years. 

The solution is stable with no complaints from customers. 

On occasion, users get cryptic error messages that they cannot resolve themselves. Someone else has to assist which results in downtime from the IT side and that has a negative impact on business performance. 

Implementation partners handle issues with support staff and response times are very high. Support staff know the product in most cases and are good. 

It might take time for implementation partners to be notified of issues and then reach out to support for assistance. This support chain is expensive because the customer is invoiced based on the number of total support hours needed.

I rate technical support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

The initial setup requires advanced knowledge and can take two to three days. In some cases, setup can take several days before demo mode is available.  

Implementation partners handle setups and our company handles project management and quality assurance from the customer's perspective. 

Customers do not manage the complex environment on their own but rather depend on service providers such as Deloitte or Capgemini. The price of operational support only makes sense or is efficient in instances with two or three FTEs. 

The solution often does not survive our shortlist round because it is very expensive when compared to other products. It is only appropriate or selected for very specific use cases and types of companies. 

In some cases, the solution is ten to twenty-five times more expensive than competitors like Dynamics because it requires licensing, cloud environment costs, and contracts for maintenance and support. 

Our company recommends various ERP systems depending on use case and customer environment. We have worked with Dynamics 365, NetSuite, Unit4, N4, Baan, and Vision. We work on transformation trajectories for customers who use ERP systems and want to replace, upgrade, or do a greenfield approach.

The solution is a good fit for use cases where customizations are required on top to cover sector-specific business needs, as opposed to custom greenfield implementations of Dynamics 365 with much custom development. The solution reduces the amount of customization that needs to be implemented.

Use cases for domains with no vertical solution built on top are not a good fit for the solution. 

The solution is complex to learn and user acceptance of NetSuite is ten times faster.

It is difficult to rate the solution. For some customers, it is a seven and for others it is a one out of ten. It really depends on the sector and fit gap between needs and business processes. 

There are many cases or exceptions where the solution is not a good fit, so I rate it a four out of ten overall. 

I do pre-sales, or sell the SAP solutions to the customer. I need to know the requirements and match the SAP solution. I am not an expert on SAP HANA or SAP S/4HANA

The most valuable feature of SAP S/4HANA is the innovational process. We are able to receive more efficiency or accuracy than previous versions.

SAP S/4HANA could improve by making the interface easier to use.

I have been using SAP S/4HANA for approximately eight years.

SAP S/4HANA is a stable solution.

The scalability of SAP S/4HANA is good. Thousands of people can use this solution at one time.

We have many clients that use or plan to use this solution. We have global clients across the world in multiple countries. They need to focus on their central finance, reporting, and rules of governance.

I rate SAP S/4HANA a nine out of ten.

We are implementing SAP S/4HANA for our customers.

We are dealing with firms who are into manufacturing, retail, and pharmaceutical.

Nowadays, people are choosing the cloud solution only, and are probably going with AWS or Azure. It varies from case to case.

In terms of the features I have found most valuable, I don't think that there is any lack or any gap process-wise. SAP is a very good tool.

If I can highlight one point that could be improved, when we talk about other ERPs, like Oracle, nowadays these ERPs provide free integration with other ERPs. For example, there is an API for banks integrated into every tool and every product form requires that bank integration in order to give real time data into the ERP. But SAP is charging a lot for that particular bank integration scenario and I think it should be free because other ERPs are providing this feature built in to the ERP. People always ask us about the integration and how much it will cost to go with that solution, so people are thinking about this.

I have been working with SAP S/4HANA for more than four years.

SAP S/4HANA is stable. It is more or less a very, very smooth and seamless product. Day by day they are increasing their technology features and they are keen to resolve the issues. India has a complex business scenario and SAP is thinking about that and resolving the issues day by day.

SAP S/4HANA is scalable, but it is scalable for those who have money. In terms of  boutique firms, nowadays they are also thinking about how to move themselves into big ERPs. But because of the cost, most of the boutique firms are choosing Microsoft Dynamics. Because of the price, SAP is not likely the highest product to be chosen, and I think SAP should think about that because if they want to benefit their customers or to increase the size of their customer base, they have to think about pricing as well.

If somebody is asking for the two module support, it is only going to require up to two main servers, but if they are saying that we are providing you proper support and proper IT for the project then it is going to be up to four people. In India or in any country, people are pressing to do the freelance thing. The answer to this question depends on the scalability.

Customer support is good. It's very nice. There are no more issues with that. When I post SAP tickets that I mark as high priority they always ask why is it high? It should be high, medium or low. From their perspective, these tickets should be  medium or low because high priority should be replied within 24 hours. If I raise any complaint in SAP as a very high priority it should be resolved within 24 hours.

They always come up with this complaint. I faced this issue in my last project. If it is a critical thing from my business side then I need to put that remark as a very high priority. I don't know why they always question that high priority. We always want to deliver the things on a timeline. That's why we put that kind of a remark when we raise any ticket to SAP.

The initial setup is straightforward. I am using SAP for more than six years, meaning SAP ERP, not SAP S/4HANA. So it is straightforward for me. But for those who are boutique and are now going from a small ERP to a bigger ERP like SAP or another one, for them the initial setup is complex.

The implementation will take six months. It covers every process and integration for the standard part. The time depends upon if they want to integrate more tools and more processes, then it could be up to nine months. If they want a vanilla system to be implemented it is going take six months, a standard which every ERP takes if I compare with Oracle. I am not talking about any other ERP, like a homegrown ERP.

There are three phases if somebody is going to implement the SAP. There is a pre-implementation part, there is the ongoing implementation, and then there is the post implementation part where we include the support, as well. We are also doing the quality review, but it is the same as if I'm doing the implementation and we want a particular person for a particular module. Let's take the example if somebody is implementing four or five modules in SAP - for every module we require a senior guy and a junior guy so that he or she can deliver the things on a timely basis. Because it requires teamwork, the integration of every module requires up to around 10 people for any implementation, including the project manager.

I am talking only about the implementation part. Project support or the pre-implementation part is a different thing.

In our company we have our own team for SAP implementation because we are a partner with SAP. We do hire outside people, but not from SAP. We are hiring the manpower from a third-party. If the project size is very large and we need to cover things in a short period, we prefer to hire other resources so that we can finish according to the timeline which is important for every product platform. That's why if we do the things according to the timeline they give us good feedback and the word of mouth comes into the picture and they share it with other people who then reach out to us.

Regarding ROI, in India there are more startup firms and ROI is only an issue for people going for SAP to get funding because it's a very good tool and more business tycoons are looking for those companies who are using SAP. So in my experience, if somebody is using SAP there are more chances for ROI.

SAP licenses are more costly than others. But now SAP provides flexible models for licenses for users who are in a higher position or only have to give approval or check things.

On a scale of one to ten, for me SAP S/4HANA is an eight.

We use SAP S4HANA for our main backup processes. Most of the backups processes if for sales, supply, accounting, and financial. 

I like the user experience and usability of SAP Fiori, which is one of the main features that we are using.

The initial setup could be better. They can make the process a little easier. The functions that we require will be available in the next release. We specifically need a new model, and I think we have some versions to implement. I already read on the SAP website that some functionalities we are waiting for are available in this new version.

We have been using SAP S4HANA for just six months. We just converted the ECC to S/4.

SAP S4HANA is a stable solution.

SAP S4HANA is scalable, and we're running this solution at some banks we have here. It's easy to scale, but it takes a couple of months to do it.

Technical support is good. it's very nice because we have both local support and international support on their website. I think it's good.

The initial setup isn't easy because it takes six months to deploy the project. I think we also discussed it for almost a year before implementing it. 

I would advise potential users to plan extensively before they start. It's very important.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give SAP S4HANA a nine.

I am a system integrator. We recently implemented it for a customer, and they are finding it easy to use.

We implemented the remote version of S/4HANA on Azure, and it is working well for the customer.

My customers use it for all functions, including finance, sales, and Oracle. 

They are using it for all six core functions: 

• Source to pay
• Record to report
• Order to cash
• Procure to pay
• Plan to produce
• Core finance. 

They also use it for other pharma operations.

The cloud-based feature of Microsoft Azure has been very valuable. It is easy to implement and use, saving the customer a lot of effort on infrastructure. The product is also very stable, and the customer is comfortable with it.

The customer has worked with previous products, and this one has brought a lot of comfort in terms of infrastructure handling. The infrastructure is managed by a different team, and the users are also comfortable with the interface. So far, they are happy with the product.

The product is user-friendly. The user interface, now called Fiori, is very stable. The product also has a lot of interfaces available to interact with cloud products, and it supports all kinds of integrations, so the amount of customizations needed from customers is greatly reduced.

The infrastructure resources are also effectively used. It is very optimized; used in a very optimized manner. The maintenance and handling of the infrastructure are very well taken care of with S/4HANA on Azure.

The interface could be improved with more Fiori applications. There are still a few applications in SAP GUI. I think SAP is working on this, but it will take time. 

Additionally, the admin interface could be improved. Since the admin is not directly an end-user, it may not be in focus, but if the customer's team is managing it, it would be helpful. 

Bringing all the admin applications into one place would be very helpful for customers to lock this down and use it internally for management.

In future releases, I would like to see a centralized admin interface. A lot of admin activities need to be done at different places. Apart from that, the pain development and change management for developments could be improved. 

Some features are not yet available in the new interface, so bringing those in would make it easier for customers to manage from the admin side.

I've been working with this solution for the last five to seven years. I work with the 2022 feature pack zero.

Since SAP brings new versions, I would rate the stability nine out of ten as of now.

So far, the performance is fine. No major hiccups or conversations have been reported that would cause the product to fall into any category of material issues. 

All stability and performance-related aspects have been taken care of. We have positive feedback from the customer side in terms of performance and stability.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. Scalability is quite flexible. With the solution on Azure or other cloud products, scalability options are very flexible. The backend hardware technologies have improved on the cloud side, so many options are available now.

In my last five years of experience, all the customers I've seen are on S/4HANA. I've hardly seen anyone use older versions. New customers are all getting on S/4HANA.  

Our customers are mostly enterprise-level businesses. 

The technical support from SAP is quite mature. It's been five to seven years, so the product is now getting into the maturity phase. The product support team is quite capable of solving issues on time.

Positive

For me, the initial setup is very straightforward. It may not be easy for the customer, but for the integrator, it is.

So, I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, with ten being easy. 

There were some generic issues in development, but the support from SAP was good, and they were resolved. All products will have some issues. The product support is good enough to resolve them on time.

Deployment time:

Implementing it for all the functionalities within the given scope took around one year, including various phases like development, quality assurance, and production. It depends on the scope, but with the current scope, including all planned interfaces and project management, it will be manageable.

We (my company) are system integrators. 

Deployment process:

We start with development, where all customizations are performed. It's then moved to the testing system for various tests like regression, unit, user acceptance, performance, and integration testing. 

Once approved and verified by the customer, it's taken to production for deployment. Then, there's minimal functional and engineering testing, followed by live production testing done by the end users. If everything is clear, we go live.

Since customers are adopting it and finding it valuable, in comparison to others, I can give the pricing a five out of ten, with ten being expensive and one being cheap. It's not too expensive and not too cheap.

Additional costs to the licensing fees include maintenance or integration costs, depending on who manages it for the customer. Maintenance and support costs are general support costs for all products.

The product is mature and implemented in various industries. It's a very well-renowned and established product. They can go ahead and implement it. It depends on how they choose the integrator and the support for this product. 

The product is very stable, and finding integrators and support will not be difficult.

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

This product is the ERP. I'm on the procurement side. Therefore, I leverage it for purchase orders and finance and have all the processes together.

It is better than the previous SAP solution.

It's stable. 

You can integrate it with other tools. 

I cannot recall coming across any areas that were lacking. 

Starting out on the solution can be a bit complex and difficult. I'd like to see them simplify the process of integration. It's very complex, even with the new solutions within SAP.

I started using the product two years ago.

It's a stable product. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable and the performance is good. 

We have 23,000 people using the solution. 

I'm on the user side. I'm not on the IT side. I don't have insights on scalability.

I've never contacted technical support. I can't speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

I can't speak to the initial setup process as I was not a part of the team that handled that.

I wasn't a part of the implementation and am unsure if any outside parties were used or if everything was handled in-house. 

I'm not responsible for the licensing arrangements. I can't speak to the exact cost. 

We're an SAP partner.

I'm not sure which version of the product we are on at this time. I'm not IT. I'm on the procurement side.

I'd advise new users to try to set up everything that is related to your processes and set up integration with SAP assistance tools, such as Ariba. Otherwise, in the beginning, it's very complex.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We use SAP S4HANA in a distribution business. We have the main site which purchases all material for management and then it goes through the main warehouses to the distribution sites. Finance controls, sales, and distribution are already there with the treasury added on top of the project.

The solution could improve by making customization easier. The on-premise version is a lot more flexible.

I have been using SAP S4HANA for approximately two years.

SAP S4HANA version 1909 is stable. We have not gone live with 2020 yet.

SAP S4HANA is scalable in terms of infrastructure scaling. The solution does not cover all aspects of the business. For example, there is no final solution from SAP for point of sale. They have no specific point of sales solution, you have to build something to cover this area.

Our project is at a large company with 8,000 employees.

We had an issue with localization, there is some sort of localization for S/4HANA for a specific country. We did not face a lot of trouble with the support. The response was good, but overall it seems the process itself takes too much time. You have to go through specific steps waiting for a reply and then the escalation takes more time. The support could improve their speed.

The SAP cloud itself was not easy to implement any project because it is very hard to do any customization for the business requirements.

SAP S4HANA is expensive and for smaller businesses, it is very difficult for them to have the budget.

My advice to those wanting to implement SAP S4HANA is to make sure they have their blueprint and design. People have specific imaginations but things can turn out differently. Align very well with the business and identify your scope correctly to be sure you are following a solid plan along with the project lifecycle.

I rate SAP S4HANA an eight out of ten.

I am a consultant and SAP S4HANA is one of the products that I work with.

From a technology standpoint, the theory and analytics are fascinating.

When it comes to the delivery of features, I would like it presented in a more user-friendly way. Every year, when a new version is released, it comes with a very thick booklet of 300 or 400 pages and it is a little difficult to comprehend. This is something that should be simplified. A simple comparison between the older and newer version would be very helpful for customers and consultants.

The default UI has been the same for a long time and in my last few projects, I've found that it wasn't fast enough. 

I have been working with this product since version 1511 in 2015, about five years ago.

I am comfortable with its stability.

This product is definitely scalable. 

I would say that it is for medium-sized companies. For smaller companies, the scale of the project might be too large, so they may not be able to harness the complete power of S4HANA.

The support from SAP is excellent. It is very good, compared to other products.

The SAP Marketplace is a good source of support.

I have hands-on experience with a few other products that are on the market.

Compared to older versions, prior to S4HANA, it is very easy to deploy. Starting from a development environment, I say it would take about three to four months to deploy for a mid-sized customer.  

For ERP, I do not recommend anything other than SAP 4/HANA. For other applications such as CRM and planning, I may recommend a different product.

I think that the newest version is great and I think the idea should be to quickly push it to cloud completely.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.