Former SAP CEO Bill McDermott called the launch of S/4HANA “ the biggest launch in 23 years, if not in the entire history of the company.” And even enterprises are having a positive outlook towards S/4HANA. According to a recent study by the Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG), 56% of the respondents were planning to move to S/4HANA. This is primarily attributed to the plethora of benefits S/4HANA brings along.
With a faster in-memory database, real-time analytics, faster processing power, and much more capabilities, S/4HANA surely does justice to Bill’s words. If you’re looking to upgrade to S/4HANA, but are confused about the upgrading process, here are a few things you should know regarding the whens and hows to upgrade to S/4HANA.
When to move towards S/4HANA?
SAP has already announced its 2025 deadline to end support for non-HANA systems. Migration to the HANA database, thus, becomes necessary if enterprises want to continue to take advantage of SAP’s offerings beyond 2025. The sooner you start, the quicker you can benefit from S/4HANA. A delay in migration to S/4HANA can result in scarce resources and an increase in the migration cost. Small companies can take anywhere from 6 to 9 months for the migration and implementation of S/4HANA.
Hence, it is advisable to migrate to S4HANA right away. SAP S4HANA can enable your enterprise to move forward and take care of all your existing as well as emerging ERP needs. It can help you increase your business scalability if you’re looking to expand your business. With increased reliability and efficiency, your workplace can become even more productive with SAP HANA S4. Additionally, real-time analytics can help iron out any inefficiencies you may currently be facing.
SAP S4 incorporates Fiori UX that can help increase the enterprise-wide user adoption of SAP. Fiori UX enables a smooth user experience, whether it be on a desktop, laptop, or mobile device. Coupled with cloud support, your enterprise data will be available to you and your employees 24*7 on the device of your choice.
However, the main advantage of S/4HANA resides within its speed capabilities. With an in-memory database faster than other offerings of SAP, S/4HANA can make data available to you at the speed of light. S/4HANA can envelop all your enterprise needs efficiently and cost-effectively, if you switch, and switch quickly.
How to move towards S/4HANA?
Now that you’ve made your mind to embrace S/4HANA, finally, how do you switch to it? Here are the things to keep in mind when you take your initial steps towards S/4HANA:
- Check system requirements and compatibility
You should check whether your machine meets the minimum requirements for S/4HANA. It includes a minimum of 8GB of RAM, but 16GB would be preferable and at least 100GB of free disk space. Additionally, the systems need to be AS ABAP-only. Dual-stack systems aren’t compatible with S/4HANA. In such cases, you should split your system, if you want to migrate to S/4HANA. Once you ensure that your machine meets the minimum requirement, you can proceed with the further steps.
- Upgrade via software Update Manager tool
The upgrade process can be single-step or multiple-step depending upon your current software. If you’re already using SAP’s HANA database, you can directly upgrade to the latest version of S/4HANA. S/4HANA 1902 is the latest version available for enterprises improving upon quality management, service management, and transport management features, to name a few.
For enterprises on any other database such as ECC, HCM, SCM, SRM, etc. you’ll first need to switch to the HANA database. It includes data migration from your current framework to the HANA database. Once you’re on the HANA framework, you can upgrade to the latest version of S/4HANA, as mentioned above.
Upgrading to S/4HANA can be a complex and confusing process if you do not have the necessary expertise of working with S/4HANA. You can feel free to contact us if you require assistance in upgrading to S/4HANA. Our expert will get in touch to schedule a live demo at your convenience.