As we move towards digital transformation, it is becoming more and more complex for organizations around the world to collate, compute & analyze data. This becomes even more challenging, when the data is both structured and unstructured. What is inevitable at this point in time is to help the organizations with a cutting edge technology that will help them to not only interpret the data, but also give analysis in a way where organizations are ready for tomorrow, more than today.
However, with markets decided by the thinnest of margins, the customer experience can make all the difference. Providing exceptional customer experiences is not just limited to shift in technology, but it is more about redefining your processes and ensuring greater support for your customers, suppliers, and workforce. Achieving this goal requires a digital reinvention, and for SAP customers, S/4HANA is the answer to the question.
SAP has put real-time business within reach with SAP S/4HANA. This next generation platform unifies the lightning-fast analytic of SAP HANA with transactions, enabling business consumers to gather and process data while simultaneously applying it to consecutive business process, all in real time.
However, every business consumer has one common agenda and that is, how do I get the best of the experience that I can provide further to my customers. The answer is through smart analytic solutions and extensions through S-4 HANA
A very basic question that customers have is what are SAP S4 HANA extensions? They are “applications” that are built to
1. Fulfill functionality gaps in the existing S/4 HANA product
2. Help integrated with other technologies such as IOT, Portal, Mobile Services, Smart Business Applications etc.
3. Add new functionalities. Help extend business processes with special enhancements- without disrupting existing landscape
4. Integrate with other platforms
The next most intriguing question any business consumer has in mind is, how do these extensions help my organization. To understand, it is imperative for customers to know the journey of S/4 HANA. As SAP itself puts it, the journey is SIMPLE – first it covers the functionality of SAP ECC 6.0, including the industry specifics, and secondly new application components are added in collaboration with the customers and the user groups.
There are two ways of extending the core functions of SAP S/4 HANA
(A) In-App Extensions for SAP S/4HANA
Within the core system, adjustments can be made by key users who don’t need any technical developer tools or expertise.
Benefits:
1. Use of SAP Fiori for desktop applications
2. Flexible variants are available for standard processes
3. Tailored reports and forms are easy to create
4. Close integration with SAP S/4HANA
(B) Side-by-Side” Extensions with SAP HANA Cloud Platform
These extensions are related to customers more complex and autonomous business processes. The strategic objective of the extensions is to enrich a company’s own systems from the outside. This can be done with other cloud solutions from SAP, as well as with solutions from SAP partner companies or other third-party providers.
Benefits:
1. Connection of external (and mobile) users through SAP Fiori
2. Standard processes can be enhanced with upstream and downstream process steps
3. It is possible to incorporate external systems and data sources, for example, for big data applications and the Internet of Things
4. Cloud and on-premise solutions can be more closely dovetailed
5. Customers and partners can develop new cloud apps that integrate very neatly with SAP
The catch here is that until 2015, it was only possible to extend on premise SAP ERP systems with SAP HANA Cloud platform. However, over the last year, thanks to the innovation around HANA, companies will be able to use SAP S/4 HANA Cloud edition together with the extension functionalities of SAP HANA Cloud platform.
Sodales Solutions is an award winning SAP Partner organization and the first SAP Certified Partner for Fiori. Sodales has developed strong competency in the areas of Smart Analytic applications and S-4 HANA extensions, which helps our business consumer in giving the right experience.
If you are curious to know what is in store for you, why don’t you join one of our envision workshops. This will give you a broader insight into SAP S/4 HANA extensions and how Sodales Solutions is helping the business consumer across the world by leveraging this cutting edge technology.
Sodales is also offering a beta program of S/4 HANA extension apps so that customers can enjoy a free trial of these apps.
