8 Top SAP S/4HANA Benefits for Businesses

S/4HANA is SAP's next-generation enterprise resource management platform, drawing upon the High-Performance Analytics Appliance database management system. The aim of the platform is to modernise the approach to resource management for larger, enterprise-grade businesses, and to leverage critical data insight and operational efficiency. But how does this work in practice? Read on to discover more about eight of the top benefits S/4HANA achieves for businesses.

Integrate New Acquisitions into ERP Systems

An acquisition represents a new opportunity for business owners, placing new products and services within the business's roster and diversifying revenue streams. However, it also brings challenges – how can these new acquisitions be integrated into the business's ERP systems in an effective way? 

With SAP ERP Central Component (ECC), this can be difficult, as businesses need to expend considerable time and resources to set acquisitions up on the central ERP system. With S/4HANA, it's a little different. There is no need to carry out time- and labour-intensive integration processes, as the acquisition ERP data can be stored on the SAP public cloud.

Achieve a Future-Ready Business Model

Acquisitions represent just one of the ways in which businesses evolve and grow. In today's landscape, companies need to be able to respond rapidly to changes in the market, and to alter their business model to meet demand or cater to customer expectations. As supply chains grow more diverse, customers become more demanding, and global shifts accelerate moves towards a hybrid working environment, organisations need to be able to take such changes in their stride.

SAP's S/4HANA offering is designed with this flexibility and agility at its core. The developers recognised the need for businesses to be able to make changes – even core business model changes – swiftly and confidently, and so the platform is designed with these needs in mind.

Automate Repetitive Work

The future is not 'universal automation'. Instead, it is a considered and conscious approach to automation, identifying processes that can be made automatic and focusing manual resources on more suitable areas. The S/4HANA platform facilitates this approach, allowing teams to create automated processes that take repetitive, laborious tasks out of the hands of manual operators.

Automated processes can be built quickly and easily using the platform. S/4HANA's low code application development tools allow automated tool crafting even without coding and development expertise. This accelerates the path to effective automation for businesses using the platform.

Reduce Infrastructure Costs

S/4HANA is designed to eliminate much of the cost associated with regular infrastructure upgrades. Rather than upgrading on-premises infrastructure every few years, users benefit from the SAP public and private cloud environments, where they can deploy resources and data on a managed basis. This is a major advantage for companies looking to reduce their spending on infrastructure.

Businesses find themselves with a greatly reduced storage and deployment load, which in turn means reduced hosting and maintenance costs. This is achieved thanks to functionality like Global Available-to-Promise (ATP) that is built into the S/4HANA platform. Global ATP allows organisations to fulfil customer orders with efficiency and confidence, even across distributed locations and workstations.

Accelerate Data Insight and Understanding

One of the most exciting benefits of the S/4HANA system is that data storage and analysis take place within the same structure. This means the process of deriving insight and understanding from data is greatly accelerated. There is no need for users to handle data storage and analysis in two separate applications. Instead, the S/4HANA platform provides a centralised source of truth that all members of the organisation can refer to.

With data siloing and a multi-application environment avoided, data analysis is not only accelerated – it's also made more accurate. Manual calculations and inputs are eliminated, while cloud storage systems ensure that all data is accessible to all personnel with the necessary clearance level.

Forecast and Predict with Precision

Machine learning and artificial intelligence are key components of the S/4HANA offering, and these elements are utilised to great effect in data processing and forecasting. The system helps businesses to draw upon their own historical data and then collate this with other accessible data points, such as seasonal information and supply chain data, to accurately forecast supply and demand in the future.

These smart components are continually evolving and growing more intelligent. This is removing the guesswork from the forecasting process, leaving businesses with predictions they can rely on.

Increase Efficiency for Financials

S/4HANA works with financial data to provide real-time reports, ensuring that businesses gain accurate snapshots of their current financial situation. This real-time insight offers a major advantage, but the platform goes further than this, harnessing artificial intelligence and machine learning to deliver accurate forecasts for future quarters, facilitating effective predictive accounting.

Features like these revolutionise the accounting process. Business owners no longer need to suffer the stress of end-of-quarter reporting and tax preparation, as the S/4HANA platform is designed to make this easy and intuitive.

Increase Efficiency of Asset Maintenance

Business owners need to be able to stay on top of their assets, securing strong returns on investment whenever they purchase a new asset for the company. To make this happen, an effective program of monitoring and maintenance is required, identifying problems before they arise and scheduling repair and replacement projects when required.

S/4HANA draws upon asset data on an organisation-wide basis, delivering all the insight required to extend the lifespan of key assets. Real-time monitoring feeds back to a centralised vantage point within the platform so that teams can assess the status of assets and make key decisions.

Leverage All of the Benefits of SAP S/4HANA for Your Business

The S/4HANA platform puts a range of benefits within reach of business owners. From powerful automation and data analysis through to forecasting and asset management, operations are simplified and made more effective when the solution is deployed.

Reach out to our team today to discover how the platform will fit within your specific operational requirements and to get started with this solution. Our expert team will assist you with implementation and support you as you get the best out of S/4HANA.