S/4HANA implementation is always complex because you need to configure it to work with your infrastructure. SAP only provides the license, not hardware, but they will connect you with a partner like HPE or IBM.

It's extremely costly if you ask for SAP to implement it, but you can deploy through some vendor like HCL, TC, Infosys, or Capgemini, and then you need to enlist a hardware partner. 

The complexity also varies by industry. If it's a small industry with $40 million of revenue annually, the business processes will be simple. However, deployment is tricky for heavy manufacturing, energy, etc.

None of the large-scale implementations of SAP S4HANA are straightforward. The ecosystem can be made a little better, to drive faster and simpler implementations, and reduce complexity.

The initial setup is fine since we have good documentation for reference. The deployment requires four hours to complete.

It is easy to install. Our clients deploy it on the cloud or on-premises.

The setup is complex. We were given instructions but setup was not easy. 

The initial setup is very straightforward. However, we required very specialized expertise to implement S/4HANA as it requires customization for the customer. It takes anywhere from six months to twenty-four months to implement, depending on the landscape of the customer.

It is simple to implement SAP S4HANA. If you are already in this type of environment, then the transition is not very complex. However, if you do not then it can be difficult.

It does not matter what ERP you are using, whether it is Oracle, SAP, Microsoft Dynamics, or others, and even locally made or customized solutions, it is always the change management that takes all the effort. It is never technology that comes in between as the bottleneck because whatever technology you choose, configure, design architect, it does the job. The issue is the mindset of people, how to change people, how to train them, how do you make them efficient, how they will become more fluent and adapt to this change? That is the challenge, it is never technology that falls in place as a bottleneck.

Depending on various factors, the initial setup can be completed in as little as six to nine months or it can take as long as one and a half to two years.

The initial setup can complex.

The initial setup is not complex; it's more at a medium level. Not too easy, but with the right knowledge, you can configure it.

Setup is complex. SAP is the biggest ERP on the market. We like to say it's the Rolls-Royce of ERPs. So it can't be deployed without a minimum of 10 to 20 consultants, plus approximately the same kind of resources on the business level.

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. 

On a scale of one to ten for initial setup, where one is difficult, and ten is easy, I rate initial setup as ten since it is very easy.

The deployment process took about ten months. We need six people for implementation, which includes one or two system architects to handle the technical field, while the others are mostly business consultants. For maintenance, we have a team of about 20 people to support our customer base.

The complexity of the setup depends on the organization. If the organization is using ECC then the setup is straightforward. If the organization is using another product like Oracle or Microsoft Dynamics, it is a big change migrating to SAP S/4HANA.

The size of an organization and volume will also impact the complexity of the setup. A mid-size organization would require an in-house team for maintenance. This maintenance is important as lack of specific activities or tasks could cause mishaps in the entire system. 

The installation and cloud configuration was straightforward.

We had some issues with the installation of the solution. The implementation partner we were using was in India and they could not travel to where we are in Saudi Arabia because of the Covid-19 pandemic making resolutions difficult. Additionally, the communication was difficult. However, this was not the fault of SAP S4HANA.

The initial setup of SAP S4HANA is a very complex and time-consuming process. If you want to implement all modules then it will take more than 10 days.

The initial setup is easy for someone familiar with the solution.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

The initial setup was very straightforward.

Setup is easy. It takes at least six months to deploy.

The initial deployment is difficult, and migration is hard when big data is involved. For a medium company, the initial deployment can take six to seven months, or maybe even one year to get it done perfectly.

For maintenance, you would need two or three people for a medium company.

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.  

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.

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

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

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.  

Its initial setup is straightforward, but the rollout is quite challenging when the customization starts.

The difficulty level of the initial setup depends on the person's skills. If you know the basic knowledge of the database, then it will be easy, otherwise, it will be very difficult.

This product is straightforward to set up.

The installation is a complex process compared to other solutions. The setup can be even more complex by adding areas of the organization you want to the solution, such as LAN networks, licenses, and infrastructure.

Deployment was quite difficult several years ago but now it's improved greatly and is quite straightforward.

Implementation is definitely not straightforward. It's straightforward if you have a proper expert in your sub-base team, but it's not installing Windows or Microsoft Excel. It's a corporate enterprise management system, so there are a lot of parameters you need to set up. The installation itself is the easy part, but the configuration for the business use case is complex. Typically, the installation took about one week. For the configuration, making it compliant with the business use cases, and setting up all the security and users, it took months—typically three to six months, depending on the size of the company. 

The team needed for deployment and maintenance depends on the size and complexity of the customer's business processes. It also depends on how far they would like to go with customizations because almost nobody is purchasing such an enterprise solution to use it as a standard. Almost every customer has some specific features they need to get configured, adjusted, or developed in the solution. From that point of view, it will decide the size of your team. 

If you have a small- to mid-size company—one hundred employees, compact business processes—then you can do it in a couple of months with five people. If you have an enterprise company with thousands of employees around the globe, then it takes almost an indefinite number of consultants because it depends on the complexity of your setup. So the minimum team of five could set it up in a couple of months for a small- to mid-sized company, but it could be a team of twenty to fifty people if you have a complex environment. 

For us, the entire process is traditionally straightforward. It's not too complex. We manage it like the other systems in the past and obviously take into consideration any new technology within SAP HANA. However, in terms of setting it up, it's not a problem.

With a big cloud infrastructure, we can set up a system in less than a month. It may take between two to three months to take over the system and put it onto the cloud or on our hardware projects. On-premise it may be longer - sometimes around four months.

How many people you need for deployment and maintenance depends on the number of systems. However, with a team of four to five people we managed to do all the projects. 

For a customer, the complexity, in general, is related to representing their business processes with this solution. It isn't related to S/4HANA.

The installation is straightforward.

We have enough competency in our company that the initial setup is straightforward and we don't face many issues. There may be some complexity but it depends on the configuration.

The deployment model is a mixture of offerings and this choice is based on customer requirements. Sometimes it is a cloud deployment, whereas others are on-premises, and yet in some cases, it is a hybrid model.

We have implementation projects that help the customers start from zero all the way up to the latest version that they can use on their own. If they need existing or ongoing help with SAP, we will provide some kind of support model. We support them in case they have any problems or in case they have some version they need to upgrade.

As we are implementing the solution for our clients, the process is pretty straightforward.

The installation setup requires specific knowledge of the system and how it works. I am not from the technical side myself but I know a lot of configuration is required. It is more-or-less complex depending on the scope of how the product will be modeled for use.  

This is an IT tool so the initial setup is somewhat complex. It's gradually becoming simpler over time and they're developing different tools to simplify implementation and maintenance.

The initial configuration of SAP S4HANA is quite difficult. The time it took for the implementation took seven months.

Setting up S4HANA is straightforward if you have a little bit of expertise, especially on the S4HANA side. You need to understand the appliances and hardware so you can set requirements for RAM as opposed to storage. If you have some experience in server administration, it's not like climbing a mountain; it's a small trip.

The simplicity of the initial setup varies from customer to customer. For us, it was quite complicated because we needed a lot of customization, but in the end, it was ok.

It was not straightforward. I took a lot of time to set up S/4HANA. The installation, implementation, and analysis took more than one year.

The install can be difficult. There's something called secondary sales solutions that is not there in SAP. We need to have third-party tools to integrate to do the automatization. The two parts are missing on the secondary sales solution and automation.

The setup wasn't easy because we had some issues with bandwidth while migrating from on-premise to the cloud. We had to temporarily increase our server for the migration to be successful.

The initial setup is fairly easy.

From a technical management perspective, the initial set up is fine. We have been using the solution for a long time now, based on management's decision to do so. 

The installation and migration can take a lot of time but it is expected. 

The initial setup was straightforward because we used the package solution, with no customization.

The initial setup was very complex.

The installation of SAP S4HANA is easy. The time it takes for the implementation depends on the modules you are wanting to use. It can take anywhere from a couple of months to two years.

The initial setup was quite straightforward because we started with finance.