In my role at Revelation Software Concepts I regularly brief the relevant analyst community on our SAP change control automation software roadmap. Quite often, due to our specialized knowledge I get asked my thoughts on SAP’s strategic directions and on various SAP Applications.
During my most recent series of analyst briefings I faced numerous questions around the topic of SAP HANA, S/4 HANA and SAP Cloud. What I learned this time is that analysts are very keen to understand SAP customer attitudes to S/4 HANA and what their plans are to transition.
So, what are we seeing SAP customer’s doing in transitioning from SAP ERP to S/4 and how can a change control automation software like Rev-Trac help?
Transitioning to SAP HANA
We are seeing customers firstly getting their feet wet by migrating their BW Applications onto SAP HANA. This seems to give them a feel for how the HANA DB operates, what some of the differences are and, of course, how to manage the DB migration.
The next step, which is an SAP recommended option for transitioning, we are seeing customers take is the transition of ERP6.xx onto the SAP HANA DB.
What we are not seeing just yet, is a stampede towards S/4 HANA or much happening regarding implementing the SAP S/4 HANA Finance add-on, another SAP recommended incremental step, although we do have insight into several customer’s long-term plans to do so.
And how does Rev-Trac help?
Rev-Trac and the Transition
Here is a quote from a recent customer and IT Manager at a major US city municipality. “In hindsight, had we implemented Rev-Trac before our HANA migration project, it would have saved us countless hours”.
Another customer, who did get to use Rev-Trac during their HANA migration project, mentions saving ‘135 developer days’ through use of the Rev-Trac auto retrofit capability. They also cited Rev-Trac as a main component in achieving their migration within the tight timeframe.
What is your company’s SAP S/4 HANA transition plan? Do you have one or not yet? Either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how your company plans to go about it.
