What needs improvement with SAP S4HANA?

In future releases, I would like to see more availability zones and VPCs so customers have more freedom to choose. Also, more training so customers can utilize the training enablement.

There is a need to improve the migration process. I think that clearer guidelines on implementation for faster data migration need to be improved a little bit, as transforming the legacies to SAP S/4HANA is complex. When there are business requirements, the business needs to work closely and understand that data migration and cutover activities need to be improved to meet the production goal.

It would be very good to merge the SuccessFactors or other solutions with S/4HANA to make it one suite. They could have a single dashboard for all types of products. I have many embedded solutions.

SAP improves the tool every quarter. I received a certification for cloud products from SAP. My company is also trying to improve the tool's knowledge base. The tool needs to improve its interface and functionalities. The tool should be more well-integrated or inclined towards AI or AI developments like chatbots or ChatGPT.

There are certain limitations of the cloud version for customization. The cloud version offers various deployment options. If it's managed by SAP, no changes are allowed. If the customer manages it, they can make some changes, but not drastically. There are limitations on the extent of these changes. For the on-premise version, it's mostly there. However, there are certain things like the strict adherence to LOBs (Lines of Business). They don't always operate in isolation, and S/4HANA may not always be a perfect solution. For example, material creation and vendor management are separate LOBs. But procuring materials happens from vendors, and those vendors also become entities in your system. Ideally, there should be a way to intermix these LOBs. Currently, you have to use different T-codes for each, which makes sense, but there should be ways to integrate or cross-utilize them.

There is room for improvement in areas such as security features within SAP S/4HANA, which could further enhance the overall usability and effectiveness of the platform. To make SAP S/4HANA better, there's a focus on enhancing responsiveness and reducing operational costs. This includes improving automation within the system to address strategic needs and accommodate users who primarily speak English, which is an ongoing effort.

There are areas for improvement. SAP needs to consider both global and regional requirements. For example, India has unique tax implications and regulations. They shouldn't have to rely on extensive customization for basic things because the standard features don't align with India's needs. More standardized features tailored to India or Indian customers and partners would be helpful, especially concerning tax regulations. For example, India has different income tax rules [GST], but many things are not standardized in SAP. SAP broadly focuses on the global requirements of the top ten countries and may not prioritize India's specific rules and regulations. If they consider these and include them as standard features, it would be easier for customers in India to implement SAP quickly. So SAP should consider tax parameters for India.

The product could be improved in several key areas, particularly in API granularity and ease of configuration. It is typical for new technology to initially lack the full functionality of older systems, as seen in every development cycle. In the Business Technology Platform (BTP) context, certain granular configurations available in S/4HANA, such as output determination, are not as easily replicable through current APIs. Previously, configuring outputs for delivery at a detailed level was straightforward. For example, one could easily specify output settings for regular deliveries. However, replicating this process in an API-driven workflow is currently more complex and less intuitive for business users. Additionally, there is no simple way in the new technology to verify if an output was successfully created and sent to a partner.

The analytics part of SAP S/4HANA needs to be improved. The analytics feature provides decent warehousing and reporting capability, but the AI/ML components of analytics need improvement. Almost all current versions of different SAP family products either lack AI capabilities or are rudimentary. A plethora of third-party tools exist that can bring AI/ML capabilities to SAP S/4HANA, but such capabilities should be natively provided in the product.

Consultants need to always remain updated with the latest technology and features from SAP S/4HANA. The licensing of SAP S/4HANA needs to be improved.

It would be beneficial if the pricing structure could be made more flexible and adaptable to suit the needs of different organizations. Besides this, the scalability also needs improvement. I believe support could be improved by providing more specific and detailed answers rather than generic responses.

Extensions to SAP S/4HANA have room for improvement, especially in integration with low-code/no-code platforms. Creating these extensions through Fiori transactions is more tedious than customers would like. Although the SAP build process has become more linear, further improvements could provide a huge benefit.

I would like to see improvements in the graphical user interface and core modules in SAP S/4HANA. Even after 20 years, there haven't been developments in these areas. The purchase order, sales order, and core modules like CRM have remained unchanged. The financial data and modules have also stayed the same. Fiori is available but hasn't brought many changes to the core modules. I'd like to see more features in the core ERP module to make it affordable and manageable for small and medium-sized companies. Big companies can handle additional modules like CRM, but smaller businesses struggle to afford and maintain these. The solution's implementation cost is high.

The platform could improve by simplifying the analytics processes, which currently require significant preparatory work outside the platform. This aspect can be cumbersome and detract from the otherwise streamlined experience. I would like to see the inclusion of more integrated tools that allow for direct analytics and calculations within the platform itself. This would reduce the need for extensive data preprocessing, which is currently a necessity.

The solution’s pricing could be reduced.

During parallel preparation of go-live processes, SAP B1 and S4H transactional data alignment can be difficult to track. The approach is to have the same sales order amount and quantity to compare the correctness so both sides are matched, according to FI concerns. For project purposes, we need to figure out if there is any solution or approach when considering data migration for sales orders and purchase order imports. Any resolution for an add-on program to validate reports can be useful.

The product’s pricing could be improved. It needs a high CPU and memory to analyze and compute that data. Thus, it should be natively supported from the cloud platform. We should get the bundled image so installation and configurations are not done manually. All those should come as a bundle learning package. A virtual machine could exist to make everything available on a single deployment. That will save some time for any project timelines.

The support and price of the solution need to be improved. The solution should incorporate some new innovations.

The scalability could be better.

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.

SAP offers a lot of products now and all the capabilities are available from one service provider. However, the knowledge needed for the implementation of these capabilities isn't widely shared and so product knowledge in the market isn't comprehensive. This makes it challenging to fully take advantage of all the capabilities. We would like to have access to tutorials. The integration could be made a little simpler in terms of design and implementation. SAP should integrate easier with other third party systems. Industry specific retail or FMCG related industries can't directly rely on SAP with respect to the POS integration or the eCommerce integration.

The migration to SAP S/4HANA is hard.

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.

If S4HANA has more AI and machine learning, it will be better and easier for reporting and dashboarding. Its pricing could be better.

Small businesses that have a small user base find this solution too expensive. I would like to see the price come down.

The Capex and Opex could be improved. It would be nice if they cut back on the cost. Otherwise, it's a very good product.

This is a very costly solution.

SAP S4HANA could improve by having a more seamless easier integration, faster integration. The overall implementation timelines can be reduced by leveraging Agile methodology

I'm not a big fan of SAP S/4HANA because it needs a lot of hardware. It is really fast, but it needs a lot of hardware. The hardware for S/4HANA is too expensive.

The resource usage could be improved - it's memory-hungry, so mid-range servers struggle to run it.

An area for improvement would be integration with different kinds of legacies. In the next release, I would like the product to be prepared for blockchain technology and the best way to communicate with social networking.

While the solution contemplates a competitively priced model, its pricing could be cheaper.

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

SAP S4HANA is not suitable for all-size companies. If you have a small company there are better fit solutions for your needs.

Thi solution can improve the Bill of Materials (BOM) and production planning. In an upcoming release, the Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) in SAP is very simple, and SAP should extend PLM in the ERP system. Additionally, SAP S4HANA should add more advanced features for monitoring in the database, such as in the Oracle solution.

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.

You will not see convenient user experiences with SAP S4HANA's website or application. It is not mobile-friendly either.

This solution works with the configuration, if the prerequisites are very clear and can be configured it works perfectly. If you need to simulate something, as a predictive tool this kind of simulation is not very accurate and it has limitations. This is something that could improve. In an upcoming release, the allocation process should be revised and improved.

It's been just one year that we started using this product, due to the fact that we need to have different integrations as well to other systems. With S/4HANA, when SAP started, everything worked in a single SAP system. Slowly then it's been delegated or divided into multiple SAP systems. That's why we have around 25 different SAP products running in our landscape. Yet, at the same time, S/4HANA is the core. It's the core component. Going forward, I believe more systems could be consolidated into S/4HANA. We need to reduce the number of SAP systems running in our landscape. S/4HANA has the capacity to host many other SAP products, therefore we can discontinue some of the SAP products. Currently, we have now the Global Services, the Governance, Risk, and Compliance, and Enterprise Portal, BW, Supply Chain Management, Warehouse Management, et cetera. If SAP could consolidate many of the systems so that we can reduce the number of systems, that would be ideal. The solution can be a bit expensive. We would like to see more DevOps capabilities in the future. The solution would benefit from offering more serverless features in the sense that when you deploy SAP, it's a pretty big deployment and you have a lot of dependencies or you are closely tied up or you have a dependency with the hardware vendor and the hardware providers and the certified hardware and items like that. At the same time, all these deployed components and these files are possible to deploy without a server as well. Slowly SAP is providing some of the features so that you can deploy this in containers and so you don't have any dependency on the running hardware. That way, you can restart the systems without any downtime or the end-users will not feel the difference. Aspects like that need to be improved. We do have here monthly maintenance due to the fact that sometimes we need to recharge the system and we have seen from the end-users there will be certain downtime as well. If there is no dependency with the hardware and if it goes serverless, then we can have zero-downtime maintenance.

The two things that need to be improved are price and customization. These are two dynamic changes that every customer will want.

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.

The theory-side of the solution needs to be improved. They need to come up with a simple way to explain to their customers how to properly use it and perform analysis and move on from there. In the next release, I would like to see more integration scenarios with the cloud, straight out of the box.

The solution isn't lacking any features per se. Clients aren't coming to us and saying "we need this or that." The cost of the solution is quite high. It needs to be adjusted. The integration could be better. They have many different kinds of house platforms, and then it becomes complicated to have integration within all of these different systems.

The common issues being raised right now by the end-users are mostly related to the usability. Especially on the Fiori interface. I think they're a manufacturing company and they're implementing lean manufacturing. They are actually counting the number of clicks and screens that are being used by their end-users so they can have a more efficient and intuitive approach on the Fiori apps. In terms of what features should be included in the next release, there would be too many to mention. I would probably say right now, as part of the planning session, they're going to go through the entire gamut of features where they can improve and where we're lacking in some parts. We're planning to implement a trial for support and warehouse management. But it's a big list right now and I can't think of anything specific. In terms of what could be improved, I would say the usability aspect of it for the users. Additionally, from the corporate perspective, some of the more stringent integrations across modules and also allowing integrations from third-party applications.

This is an integrated system so it is very complex. It is not like Windows or like Microsoft products where you can use Word or you use Excel and it is familiar and easy to use. The interface is something that is very confusing from my point of view. It can and should be simplified. It needs some work on the front end to be more user-friendly and customizable to the user's needs. It is not a very good product from the perspective of ease-of-use. Trying to implement it is like you want to prepare some food. You have raw materials like spices in a pile but there is no recipe as to how to mix them. It is a recipe missing the proportion to mix the spices in. In the case of S/4HANA, that recipe depends on how the organization requires it to operate. A better result depends upon the implementation partner's decisions in handling the wide range of choices offered by the product. If these decisions are not good, once the product is already developed, you may come to know after years of using it that it was not implemented optimally. Then you end up making customizations and work-arounds because of this initial implementation. That is bad practice. Customization and work-arounds will only lead to more complexity. It is a very big product that can not be understood in a short span of time and implemented quickly. Meticulous planning is ultimately important. A lot depends on the implementation partner and if they understand your needs. An implementation partner who rushes in too quickly with a solution can get it wrong and that can cause major problems in the long run.

Every business has some unique requirements which can mean customizations are required. What I'd really like to see is the development of an industry specific solution for the food industry, in particular the supply and demand side that's very critical to us, given that there are issues with products that have a shorter shelf life.

* S/4HANA 1610: We found very less Fiori apps — a few apps not working. * All module Fiori apps need to be tuned.