Optimize Your S4 Hana Deployment

With the advancement in adoption of digital technologies, SAP had been at the center of most of the digital transformations taking place globally. With its Digital Core and Intelligent enterprise Framework, SAP had been leading the charge at many global corporations to disrupt the legacy and help them navigate to a modern architecture which aligns with the fast and ever-changing business.

I had the opportunity to get engaged/consult on a few S4 HANA engagements in last few years and here is my perspective on how any organization can leverage the S4 most.

• Master Data Management: One of the core challenges today across all organizations and industries is the reliability of Master data and the processes governing the same. There is no need to emphasize the need of high data quality and therefore a S4 deployment with and exemplary Master data Governance framework will help you achieve a high data quality.
• Keep the core clean: With the combined framework of SAP Cloud and S4 Digital Core, Organizations should look to keep the S4 core clean from custom development perspective and instead look at developing cloud applications on SAP Cloud platform. This will not only help to achieve a lower TCO but also increases the flexibility for custom application functionality and scalability.
• Data Management: One of most talked about challenges in the past was the ability to access SAP data when needed. The S4 core platform (S4, SLT, SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Cloud Platform) addresses that challenge effectively now. The capability to analyze and get real time insights for business is more prominent today and the landscape should be architected in a manner so that you can get the maximum leverage of the data that S4 will hold. What is point of having humongous data if you cannot use it!!
• Focus on enterprise Ecosystem of applications: Gone are the days where corporations used to have an all-out ERP landscape. The norm of today is to embrace opensource architecture, cloud native development along with applications like S4 HANA. While undergoing the Digital Transformation, make sure that you plan/roadmap an ecosystem of applications which should provide flexibility, scalability, and ease of use to the business. The role of Enterprise architecture is very relevant today.
• Consult, Observe and Plan: The transformations cost money, effort, and time. It is wise to look at industry, thought leaders and system integrators and leverage their knowledge and expertise to build your next gen platform.

Again, there is no one medicine for all problems. The needs will be different and hence each S4 story will be different, but what I have mentioned above is something which is very common and most of the companies tries to address these points at some point on their journey to next gen platform.

By Abhishek Kaushal, Solution Architect