S/4HANA Cloud to Enable Digital Business Model
In our last blog, we covered on the Digital business model and how technology is the biggest enabler. The key take away is that the building block towards creating a digital business model is having a robust technology platform.
Blog 1 : You can read the first part here.
What are the considerations when selecting a technology platform to support Digital Business model?
> INNOVATION:- Continuously evolving platform with the best-in-class features, Embedded analytics, and AI/ML capabilities
> INTEGRATION AND EXTENSIBILITY:- Modular, Scalable, Easy integration to third party applications
> STANDARDIZED PROCESSES:- Complete coverage of industry specific next practices
> TOTAL COST OF OWNERSHIP:- Quick Implementations, Timely and automatic upgrades, Pay per service and Subscription based consumption models
Let us see how RISE with SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud addresses some of the very important considerations to move to a successful Digital business model
Innovation
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are no more just fancy words used in a board room, it is here and now. S/4HANA Cloud Process intelligence helps in making data-driven decisions for measurable outcomes (e.g., increases profits, reduced Leadtime). SAP Conversation AI can be leveraged to convert tasks into an intuitive user conversation. Intelligent Robotic Process Automation can automate redundant tasks thus contributing to your bottom line. SAP offers a vast repository of use cases which can leveraged during the implementations.
Integration and Extensibility
One of the important elements in digital business model is to provide a development platform which can used by developers, partners to develop solutions. One of the major dampeners with the current ERP architecture is that the new solution has to be developed in ERP system which make the landscape complex and expansive.
Businesses are apprehensive about quick scaling of their businesses or Integration with Third Party systems worrying about the effect it may have on their core business processes thus losing first mover advantage.
S/4HANA Cloud integration suite helps businesses to integrate and extend their business process by keeping their core clean through In-App extensibility or Side by Side extensibility with SAP native products or third-party applications by the partner eco system. Close to 500 APIs for the S/4HANA Cloud and Prebuild extension scenarios cover most business needs.
Standardized Processes
S/4HANA Cloud is the most comprehensive ERP covering every core business process and can be natively integrated with SAP’s suite of Industry specific solutions. The process supports new business requirements to support customer in the digitalization journey is embedded in the solution
The Picture below provides business processes that are cover as part of S/4HANA cloud solution
SAP also supports Localization and Regulatory Compliance in 43 countries and is supported with 27 languages. This list is growing.
User Experience
FIORI is the design language of the S/4HANA cloud with ready to use mobile, intelligent, consistent, and integrated applications which will help your business improve user satisfaction thus increase productivity and work from anywhere in post pandemic world. It can also scale your business quickly with its UI flexibility and rapid development of custom applications.
Security and Compliance
The biggest road blocks an organization faces when selecting an otherwise seemingly obvious choice of a Cloud ERP like S/4HANA Cloud is the Elephant in the room “Security and Compliance”. Security is built into the solution, right from the implementation methodology to the deployed SAP Product. S/4HANA Cloud is developed in secure cloud software development centers considering threat modeling, code scans and security assessments. It has leading security and data privacy protection features including authorization concepts and read access logging. Contracts with SAP are comprehensive considering all local regulations and the practices undergo independent audits with certifications from third parties. S/4HANA Cloud Data centers are distributed strategically across the world and eliminate the probability of data crossing regulatory boundaries. The SAP Trust Center continuously innovates and improves on security and compliance practices.
Total Cost of Ownership
Best practices and pre-Configured solutions with the ACTIVATE methodology brings down implementation timelines significantly. The Cloud Approach ensures little to no investment in infrastructure completely moving the consumption model to a subscription. Timely upgrades and Automatic Testing tools significantly reduce maintenance costs. Intuitive and Mobile UX increases throughput and reduces training costs. A benchmark study done by SAP indicates a 33 % reduction in TCO for the S/4HANA Cloud when compared to a more rigid on-premise ERP. Also, there is no vendor lock in extending the solutions with customization and add-ons
In the next blog we shall see how you can expand your business model using the S/4HANA Cloud? Stay tuned!
