It’s Not Too Early to Move to SAP S/4HANA

I went on a quest the other day, trying to answer a burning question that had been bothering me for some time: What is the number one misconception in the world?
After an incredibly comprehensive and thoroughly exhaustive search that took me all the way to the second page of Google’s results, I finally gave up. And although my five-minute quest wasn’t successful, I stumbled upon a dozen or so misconceptions that I personally believed were true but turned out to be utter nonsense.

No, I won’t be sharing these misconceptions here; I want to avoid any embarrassment the next time we meet. Instead, I will be debunking unrelated, but equally nonsensical, misconceptions out there about SAP S/4HANA.

I couldn’t find a better misconception to start with other than: It’s too early to move to SAP S/4HANA. There are some out there that bought into the myth that SAP S/4HANA is still not mature (either technology, or scope, or both) and as a result have decided that it’s too early to move or even consider it.

“The dynamics of the adoption curve shouldn’t be confused with the maturity of the new technology itself.”

So let’s straighten this one out. The fact that some customers want to wait before moving to SAP S/4HANA is totally expected and fully respected. There are always going to be a wide spectrum of customers, from early to late adopters and everything in between. This is why SAP has extended its support for SAP Business Suite running on any database until 2025. But the dynamics of the adoption curve of a new technology should not be confused with the maturity of the technology itself.

Yes, SAP S/4HANA is a new product, with a new code line based on a new technology architecture, but it inherits many of the best practices, as well as the deep industry and line of business process expertise that made SAP Business Suite the leading ERP software in the market, with over 35,000 customers. SAP HANA, the underlying database, has been in market for over five years with thousands of live and successful deployments and, in less than a year from its launch, SAP S/4HANA had crossed the 2,700 customer mark with many customers sharing their experiences like Airbus, Swiss Properties, HPE, Wipro , MEMEBOX and many more. From a scope perspective, SAP S/4HANA now covers 10 lines of business bringing it to parity from a business scope perspective with SAP ECC 6.0.  And it’s not all just about SAP. To date, there are over 5,000 partners and resellers supporting the solution worldwide and partnership agreements in place with strategic partners such as IBM, Accenture, and HPE.

“SAP S/4HANA is a new product that inherits the expertise that made SAP Business Suite the leading ERP software”

I can go on and on about how and why it’s not too early to move to SAP S/4HANA but that would be too boring. Instead I want to introduce you to Phil, someone much more entertaining than me. Over a series of short videos, Phil will be busting some of the most popular misconceptions out there surrounding SAP S/4HANA starting with today’s myth.

Make sure to bookmark the SAP S/4HANA YouTube playlist and watch out for my next blog (sometime next week) where I’ll share Phil’s second SAP S/4HANA myth busting video. And if there is a particular SAP S/4HANA myth that has been bothering you just email it to me and I’ll pass on to Phil. He might just take it on in one of his next videos.

One last thing, Phil has some self-esteem issues so please make sure to hit the like button on YouTube to boost his confidence and encourage him to bust more SAP S/4HANA myths.