This Blog is mainly on SAP Exam Questions and Selected "How-to" SAP processes

Thursday, June 8, 2023

SAP ECC users reluctant to move to S/4HANA

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SAP ECC users reluctant to move to S/4HANA

Until today, there is little evidence of the acceleration of migrations that would be needed to meet SAP's 2027 target to terminate mainstream maintenance support for ECC. After 2027, SAP will still offer extended maintenance until the end of 2030, but with a 2 percent premium for software support fees," the global research organization said. In the industry, there is a constant discussion on what ROI and benefits to migrate to S/4hANA; and not only as a corporate decision but from the Mass Users perspective on what are the benefits of S/4HANA. This is because many existing long time ECC Users were already not happy with the ECC system; and S/4HANA is often seen as just another IT project where Users will have to put in the "Extra efforts" again on-top of their current work loads which at the end may not bring in the benefits.

Some articles about the reluctance from ECC users to S/4:

Failed S/4:

Many "Experts" have written about benefits of S/4HANA

The initiatives like 
AI (Artificial Intelligence), ML (Machine Learning), Big data, IoT, and development initiatives like "Predicative Maintenance", Those "Big words" ALL sound wonderful BUT are there really "Pragmatic"!

For the IT department, Implementing Team to make a convincing selling point of S/4HANA over ECC has not been easy in the past 8 years, but the following are several possible arguments from what my little exposure to S/4HANA applications:

1) "EM" (Experience Management) direction
SAP started the initiative of "Experience Management (XM)" a few years ago. The purpose is to use the "EM engines" to Connect experience data and operational data to understand what a customer or an employee wants. The "XM" solution direction is part of the "HXM" solution started a few years ago in 2018. 'SAP UX' is used to deliver personalized, fast and easy user experiences. This is helped by various technologies such as SAP Fiori and SAP "EM" engine.
Drive Business Outcome through Employee Experience (click to video)
How Employee Experience initiatives and SAP Fiori work together (click the video)
Deliver an Integrated Employee Experience (click to video)
What is SAP Fieri Apps (click to video)

2) On-line Real time reporting
Customers who have been using the ECC with BW knows that on-line real time connection of the 2 may not necessary be possible all the time. Therefore the OLTP (On line transaction processing) system and OLAP (On line analytical processing) system is not necessary synchronized all the time. However, SAP S/4HANA promises seamless integration between OLTP and OLAP system and the HANA Analytics does provide on-line Real time reporting and analysis of Transaction data done in S/4 Backend or FIORI data entries. 

3) Mobile solutioning and Work flow (via the Simplification imitative in S/4)
Flexible Work flow will likely be one of the Mainstream developments to encapsulate the User Experience in various SAP modules:
Example: Flexi Work flow in MM-Purchasing Approval (in contrast to the Release Strategy) allows "simplified" setup of Approval for Purchasing Documents and User assignment. Workflow of approval request are sent directly to the User "Fiori App" without programming effort. 
https://froggysap.blogspot.com/2023/06/mm-purchasing-purchase-order-workflow.html

4) The Simplification initiatives
The Simplification initiatives in SAP, in my opinion aren't really a Marketing Gimmick as many examples product or processes have take on the initiative to present processing of scenarios in an innovative manner, and the following are examples:
etc.
The new INNOVATIVE initiatives released for the different SAP modules via the "Simplification" directive of S/4 are worthwhile to be looked at like the above 2 examples in PM
PM Innovations - 
    "Report and Repair Malfunction" via FIORI App
    "Maintenance Request" via FIORI App
    "Asset Explorer" via FIORI App
    Simplified FL and EQ creation via FIORI App
    Templates from LTMC for PM Master data upload to SAP
    "Inspection Checklist" to Plan and process checklist for EQ and FL
    etc
It is highly recommended for the Customer Project Manager to get the implementation partner to provide a concrete list of Innovations from each SAP module (FICO, MM, PP, SD, PS, PM, QM, EWM etc) and how these innovations would benefits the users from each module.

5) FIORI and Excel
One of the well received FIORI initiatives is the provision of download capabilities to Excel without too much efforts. As user can now easily download report listing published to FIORI to an Excel report. 
Upload Invoice via Excel xls or cvs (click link to the APP)
Upload Journal Entries via Excel xls or cvs (click link to the APP) 
Upload Production Forecast via Excel xls or cvs
Since the available FIORI Apps are already available and there are some positive acceptance by the Users, we hope SAP to continue to create FIORI Apps with Excel upload, download capabilities for many more scenarios in the future. 

6) "Overview" Analytics
The "Application specific Overview" FIORI Page enables business users to perform their daily tasks quickly and effectively without the need to open many different reports and transactions. Information is displayed on set of actionable cards. Users can therefore focus on the most important tasks, enabling faster decisions and immediate action. For example as below:
Procurement Overview Page (click link to the APP)
Inventory Analytics Overview Page (click link the APP)
Quality Engineer Overview Page (click link to the APP)
Quality Technician Overview Page (click link to the APP)

7) Capitalizing the FIORI development tools
SAP Fiori is a design system that enables IT users create business apps with a consumer-grade user experience, turning casual users into SAP experts with simple screens that run on any device. SAP FIORI tools comes with a set of extensions for SAP Business Application Studio and Visual Studio Code that makes it faster and easier to develop SAP Fiori elements applications.
While SAP continue to develop and roll-out FIORI Apps that offer the "UX" experience. My opinion is for all customer IT teams to study and capitalize on the FIORI development tools in order to create Applications that offer "UX" to the Mass Users. 
Example videos on this subject: 
Modernize SAP Fiori app development using SAP Fiori tools (click to video)
SAP Fiori and SAP UI5 (click to video)
SAP Business Application Studio (click to video)
Intro to SAP Fiori App Development (click to video)
Free style Fiori Application Development (click to video)
etc.
Some argue that FIORI app is another "oversell" of another SAP initiative, and when looking at some FIORI app examples that I have to agree with that. BUT, some "creative" FIORI developers really did came up with Apps that are useful and showcase that "User Experience" motive SAP so keen to sell today. 
What I would suggest to the Project Manager is to request the Implementation Partner to list out these "USEFUL" INNOVATIVE Fiori Apps by Module and demonstrate their potentials.  

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