By Thomas Saueressig
Business innovation goes hand in hand with business process innovation. Intelligent enterprises connect business processes end-to-end for better outcomes.
Only seamless processes across the entire value chain that impact whole ecosystems create the kind of experience our customers expect in the intelligence era. This requires an intelligent nucleus as the backbone of those business processes - a modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) system deployed on premise, in the cloud, or in hybrid scenarios.
All over the world, our customers are taking note of the flexibility and the benefits SAP S/4HANA offers. In fact, according to the findings of a global study conducted by market research firm IDC surveying 300 of our clients, it's not a matter of if companies will adopt SAP S/4HANA anymore, but when.
Across a multitude of industries, IDC found that 73 percent of the surveyed businesses were planning to deploy and 18 percent are currently deploying SAP S/4HANA. In the study, nine percent of the companies stated they already have SAP S/4HANA in production. Customers were also asked about the planned timeline for their transition to our leading ERP system. According to the survey, 54 percent of SAP customers say they will make the switch within three years.
With almost half (43 percent) of the polled SAP customers planning to consolidate several ERP systems into one, IDC found that SAP S/4HANA is mission-critical to their businesses because it optimizes their digital transformation strategy; improves agility, visibility, and innovation; and reduces costs and time-to-process information.
To find out more about the IDC survey and why SAP customers are migrating to SAP S/4HANA, read the IDC Executive Summary, sponsored by SAP, "SAP Customers on the Move to SAP S/4HANA," here.
Businesses such as Naturipe, a fresh berry grower across North and South America, is one example of a customer that underwent a "system conversion," or brownfield migration, to SAP S/4HANA and found that the benefits of a real-time ERP were realized quickly. Within just four months, Naturipe managed to move to the new core ERP.
The ability of SAP S/4HANA to provide organizations with speed, agility, innovation, and scalability is part of our strategy, and supports our customers' journey to the Intelligent Enterprise as well. Customers from around the world are already using intelligent ERP to run their businesses in new ways - and reaping the rewards. When meeting with customers, increasingly they are telling us how an intelligent ERP system powered by SAP S/4HANA as the nucleus is addressing today's challenges and tomorrow's opportunities with flexibility, speed, and insight.
Here are a few voices that show the value our customers gain from transitioning to SAP S/4HANA:
- "Our legacy systems were out of date, and we were spending too much time supporting customized development. With SAP S/4HANA, our processes are automated and standardized across divisions, so our people can work more effectively and with greater transparency." - Carolyn McMahon, director, Honda Australia
- "With SAP S/4HANA, we can realize the benefit of real-time access to real-time data to make real-time decisions. We can be more innovative and efficient as we transform our business and prepare for the future." - Kim Perry, vice president, Finance and Information Technology, Alacer Gold Corporation
- "Creating value in the consumer products industry is about turning data into actionable insights and foresights. SAP S/4HANA lets us manufacture and stock based on an algorithm-led principle rather than by intuition. With faster, more efficient business processes and a tightly aligned value chain underpinned by real-time data, we are turning agility into competitive advantage and are becoming a new age digital enterprise." - Viswanath Padmagirison, head of Business Transformation & Technology, Future Consumer Limited
- "Through the smooth integration of data from SAP S/4HANA with the analytics features of SAP Analytics Cloud, HOERBIGER has found a long-sought information management solution, becoming a truly intelligent enterprise that thrives through analytics-driven insights." - Teja Ullrich, senior vice president, Corporate IT, HOERBIGER Wien GmbH
Every business is different. We support our customers to make the right decisions for their specific requirements and to define their individual innovation paths. You can learn about the tools our customers are already using to successfully move to SAP S/4HANA here.
And we will not stop there. We are keen to learn more about both the opportunities that lie ahead for our customers and the business challenges they face. We regularly engage with local groups of customers to get their perspective and share our innovation roadmaps. Because today, no organization alone can manage the complexity of today's business -- it's whole ecosystems that innovate and move ahead to a new era.
Become part of this movement and define your journey together with us!
Thomas Saueressig is president of SAP Product Engineering.
