The only thing that could be improved would be the complexity of the initial setup.

It is my understanding — and not my experience — that they were having problems around the supply chain management. Some of the clients who bought it may have had some problems getting things to work properly, but whether it was the product or the users, I am kind of fuzzy on that. The claim was there was an issue with the supply chain management on the manufacturing side. There were a few hiccups that some customers may have experienced with the newer S/4HANA solution. I think all of that has been resolved over the past year. I have not looked back at that issue much recently, but that is because I have pretty much written off that I am ever going to fall back into that particular space in my business as I go forward.  

The user experience has some room for improvement. S/4HANA covers various scenarios based on the best business practices, but users complain about its user experience. It is not a user-friendly ERP solution. I rate the current UX seven out of 10.

One thing that could be better in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, especially in the public cloud, is how easily you can make changes. Clients, especially those with a lot of existing processes, feel a bit restricted in adapting the system to their specific needs. 

There is room for improvement, especially in the financial and costing parts. In a specific scenario, it becomes complicated when you have different valuation types for materials, and you try to create a costing model. It's a bit challenging to cover all the aspects.

In future releases, there are two scenarios I would like to see addressed: handling different materials and the pricing model. 

Another area of improvement is the support provided by this solution. It takes a long time to receive support on certain issues.

The solution could improve by adding a planning model, such as BPC. Additionally, if we need to make changes in the profit center it has to be done manually. It is not connected to the cost center.

In terms of S/4HANA Cloud itself, we don't like the rate they charge us. It's pretty expensive. Maybe it's because of the individual instance that we paid for. I don't know whether this is also applicable for other commercial S/4HANA Cloud assistants, but for our training system, there are many bugs or things which didn't work in practice.

We didn't know how to figure it out, and if we posted any of those incidents to the SAP community through the SAP portal, usually SAP would ask what kind of license we had. It's not easy to facilitate the solution between us and SAP, so we have had to leave those issues open.

A challenge with SAP S/4HANA is that the proposition by SAP does not match the value realization. For example, SAP proposes more value for the cloud offering with RISE with SAP. This same approach should also be realized to the fullest extent for SAP S/4HANA.

The user interface of SAP S/4HANA Cloud needs to be improved because it is not as good as other applications.

S/4HANA isn't ideal for managing contracts and subscriptions. There isn't a feature to notify us when a contract for a service we need is approaching its end or a product is no longer supported. You need a separate solution for that.

SAP S/4HANA public cloud could improve by adding more features because the current set is a bit limited. I need more options for enhancing the system, especially compared to the features available in the on-premise version. Additionally, the initial setup can be quite complex and still requires deep SAP expertise.

It is a complicated solution. So it should be easier to use.

We'd like to have more of a low-code platform. 

I'm not missing any features at this time. 

There is room for improvement in SAP S/4HANA Cloud, particularly in enhancing the application's response time. While it is not problematic, any improvements in this area would be beneficial. Additionally, despite the availability of the BTP for integration, there is a potential for increased flexibility. A more adaptable environment from SAP in terms of integration would be highly valuable for optimizing processes and workflows.

There isn't anything I would want to improve on. It's a good solution.

There is a difference between the real-time synchronization of any application or the solution that's provided by the OEM. SAP is providing releases or notes frequently, so it's an ongoing activity. SAP is constantly providing small, small patches to upgrade everything. The release strategy is based on the OEM. It works fine for us, this approach.

The pricing is high.

In terms of analytics, there are some improvements that can be made. I'd like SAP to function more on mobile apps. I'd like to see the majority of our supervisors and managers, who don't have to sit at a desktop all day, but need to attend meetings and seminars, have the ability to access the product from their mobiles. It would make life much easier to have that access at your fingertips.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud's customization can be improved. 

SAP S/4HANA Cloud can incorporate basic procurement, material management, and HR-related functionality like in other cloud-related services, such as SAP Ariba. The incorporation of these additional features could be a very good offer.

SAP S4HANA Cloud's production planning screens could be improved. In the next release, I would like SAP S4HANA Cloud to include a project team management tool.

We have to deploy add-ons integrated with the B1 when we are on the cloud option, and we face challenges with web integrations. Right now, when we attempt web integration, some of the ports are not open. There are infrastructure issues like IP conflicts and switches that need to be redefined. 

Integrating SAP with other products like payroll solutions should be smoother. I wish there were some tools a consultant could build according to the client's requirements. For example, say I want to process debit and credits. In SAP, we have to follow SAP terminologies and patterns. I need a template to deploy my structure according to the client's requirements. There is no structure available in SAP that a consultant can mold.

This product is implemented in 35 domains across multiple organizations with different structures, so there is a bottleneck in multiple segments. The consultant needs different models to help with the financials. 

I'd like to share my experience during the migration from SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA in the cloud. My primary challenge in this migration was the requirement to open a ticket for every request during the project phase, not during operational or post go-live phases. Despite this, I must acknowledge that overall, SAP has proven to be very reliable.

To clarify the issue, after migrating to SAP S/4HANA, I opted to host my SAP solution on the private cloud by converting the license to SAP Cloud. The drawback I encountered during the project phase was the insistence on opening a ticket or service request for any issue or query I had within the project's activities. Looking ahead, I hope that SAP streamlines and simplifies this process for future customers, making it more user-friendly and efficient than my experience.

SAP S/4HANA Cloud vs Oracle: In Oracle, for example, you can easily install even Oracle 19c or the latest version in your laptop. You can test it, get it certified, and even look for the application, but it's really difficult to install Hana. It's really difficult to reach any testing environment. It's difficult to test the version.

I'm struggling to hire in my team. While I was with Oracle for 15 years as a senior manager for their support solution center in Smart Village, I didn't face that much of a struggle in hiring like what I'm facing now in SAP. This is because Oracle (like Microsoft) made their products available for downloading, testing, etc., but for SAP, it's difficult.

I've had sufficient time to evaluate ByD. It is going on the right track in terms of improvement: technical-wise and featurewise. There's nothing you need to improve in this solution's performance. There's nothing major in its essential or core features: in the FI or supply chain or procurement through the cloud. It's doing a great job.

Testing is the main thing I'd like to see improved.

An additional feature I'd like to see on SAP S/4HANA Cloud is the production application or module. For small to medium businesses, there's only a finance module and the standard non-finance module, e.g. supply chain, but there's no production planning. That is a factor. We need to use the smaller version of production planning with the smaller version of quality management. I hope to see this feature in the cloud application.

The integration with third-party vendors could improve.

The pricing is way over any of the other ERPs, and the bank integrations are not perfect. There are a lot of costs for other implementations and integrations with Salesforce and other systems. Rather than being a fully-fledged system on its own like most of the other ERPs, it relies too much on developed integrations by the implementation partner.

In terms of additional features, the parent portal is a major miss out. There are no HR systems. I don't think any ERP is complete without an HRMS offering, but that's a separate system in SAP. It's missing in the public edition, and only in the private edition, it's available as an optional add-on. It's a huge limitation in the ERP system, and it was almost a deal-breaker for us.

The scalability of the solution could improve.

I'm just discovering SAP S/4HANA Cloud right now. Although, in the next release, I would like to see a feature where it allows integration with more platforms.

The product can be improved by including a module for after-sales service modules. Those modules should make it easier for the people on the floor to register the refund and exchanges because, currently, the setup is too chaotic. Currently, in the after-sales service, people working in the call centers are taking care of a specific SAP session, which is always full of problems. So they should look closely and see what's wrong with that and why it is not always working because we often have problems and errors in those modules.

The scalability of SAP S/4HANNA is an area that could be improved.

Their revolving AI should should be better improved. 

SAP promotes the cloud, but customers are worried about the security of their data. SAP suggests they have SAP S4HANA with RISE, which is a private cloud environment, but it is difficult to sell many of the customers on the cloud concept because of the privacy issues. Customers definitely look for how their data can be protected in a larger organization.

The interface is an area where improvement is needed. From the interface perspective, there are a couple of products which are definitely available only on cloud, like Ariba. In that case, if there's a public cloud, then they need to go for SuccessFactors. There is a combination of SuccessFactors without Payroll, and then you have your ERP on-premise, S4HANA on-premise with finance and the HCM component of Payroll, so that you can have data protected over there. 

SuccessFactors is a public cloud because they have good connectivity between their systems and the VTP platform. On the other hand, if Ariba is for a very large organization, this is a concern.

For the banking and finance sector, SAP S4HANA Cloud has competition with Oracle.

The price is mainly suitable for larger companies, even then, there may be other, cheaper solutions.

Additionally, this solution is the result of multiple acquisitions leaving room for there to be issues with performance.

The initial setup can be complex, depending on the environment. 

The solution’s reporting could be improved.

I feel the solution is expensive when it comes to what can be obtained with open source software. I have not explored all of its components. The price is higher than alternate solutions. There should be greater editing API capabilities, which could help to reduce the overall cost implementation and the OPEX cost for CAD which the end-user would incur in licensing fees.

While I give the solution points for its usage and ability to be interfaced with other third-party sites, the costs and licensing fees bring down its rating. 

Furthermore, when it comes to the SAP PM material's module, it would be nice to see the inclusion of predictive analytics. This would help with the optimization of maintenance processes. Where batch two is involved it should be able to automatically change the frequency of a preventative maintenance schedule. This would save a person from having to invest in a search for predictive maintenance solutions since this feature would already be embedded or there would be machine learning capabilities.

Moreover, in respect of the RPA processes, a close look at the entire S/4HANA and SAP process will demonstrate, by its nature, the involvement of many clerks, meaning those who do clerical work that involves checking input, entering a particular system, verifying and getting reports. For some processes, the inclusion of soft bots would minimize intellectual assistance and allow for things to be automated. This would reduce the head count of the people who are needed as SAP administrators.

There are other applications which exist that, while employed in the organization, I do not interact with directly. They touch on GIS, which is already embedded and allows for remote identification of assets and interfacing with other process documents. I believe the solution offers this feature, but its implementation takes some effort and it is not very user friendly. Its use requires a certain level of skill-set. This means that when rolled out in the context of an organization which is in the process of upgrading it can pose a challenge to do so without having to incur high costs through the inclusion of parties needed to provide assistance without the use of one's internal results. 

It would be preferable to be able to rely on one's own internal resources instead of needing outside assistance. From a business point of view, it is better to have something and to undertake upgrades, add patches and make changes and modifications. 

It's a huge software, and they need to make it look less complex and more user friendly. They need to work on user stories and user experiences.

Better documentation would be great to have too.

An area for improvement is the UX design, which is not flexible and lacks compatibility with mobile devices. In the next release, I would like to see an improvement in the talent management feature.

The solution's speed and dashboard could be improved. 

The setup offers many integration options but could be less complex. 

The BTP, business transaction platform, could be better. There need to be improvements and more services like to AWS, GCP and Azure services.  

The solution is expensive. That can be an issue for clients. 

The implementation time for S/4HANA Cloud could be reduced. The UI could also be improved.

I'd like to see them shift their focus beyond manufacturing industries because there are other kinds of organizations that could benefit from this product. Public cloud is single-tenant so there are some limitations and restrictions on what can be customized or enhanced. As a result, we advise our customers to use enterprise cloud, on-prem, or other options. Some of our customers complain that the cost is too high and for smaller organizations, it's a large financial investment. 

The only thing I would improve is the overall user experience, particularly the mobile app. S/4HANA is a powerful, scalable platform, but the user experience isn't positive. It's a bit complex. The look and feel aren't attractive, and the mobile experience isn't great.

They can improve the interface. It has a client-server kind of interface, which is kind of old.