Sample Quiz

• System Applications and Products (SAP) SE is a leading enterprise application software company.
• SAP is a German multinational corporation that pioneered ERP software.
• SAP is a global independent software manufacturer with 400,000 customers across 190 countries.
• SAP allows companies to streamline processes, use live data, predict customer trends, and connect entire businesses.

SAP History

• 1972: SAP was founded to develop real-time data application software.
• 1981-1982: SAP R/2 was introduced.
• 1986-1989: SAP R/3 was developed and presented at CeBIT Hanover.
• 1993-1994: SAP partnered with Microsoft connecting SAP R/3 to Windows NT. IBM started using SAP R/3.
• 1995-1996: SAP joined the internet making SAP R/3 usable online.
• 2002: SAP celebrated its 30th anniversary, becoming the 3rd largest independent software provider.
• 2005-2006: SAP ERP release.
• 2009: SAP Business Suite 7 was launched to optimize business performance and reduce IT costs.
• 2011: SAP implemented its first in-memory computing product, leading to the SAP HANA platform which made data access possible in seconds.
• 2013: SAP Business Suite moved to HANA, becoming the fastest-growing product in SAP's history.
• 2015: SAP S/4HANA was introduced.

SAP S/4HANA

• SAP ERP is a standard ERP solution to optimize business processes.
• SAP's goal has been to develop a next-generation ERP package that meets digital transformation requirements.
• SAP S/4HANA is the next-generation Business Suite and is the biggest innovation since SAP R/3, which serves as the digital core for enabling digital transformation.
• One advantage of SAP S/4HANA is real-time simplification.
• SAP S/4HANA reduces a typical booking transaction from 15 tables to 4 tables.
• The S/4HANA Data Model Principles allow data storage in denormalized form, use a single data source, remove redundant data for aggregation, and process aggregation and analytics on the fly.
• This contrasts with traditional database architecture, which uses redundant data for aggregation and requires more effort to update.
• SAP ERP strengthens companies of all sizes.
• SAP S/4HANA caters more to large, enterprise-level organizations.

SAP Fiori

• SAP Fiori is a design system and UX layer that allows business app creation with a consumer-grade experience.
• SAP Fiori simplifies SAP for casual users with simple screens on any device and provides a user interface for SAP S/4HANA.
• There are 3 application types

SAP Fiori Application Types

• Transactional apps access tasks like Create, Change, or Display Process with guided navigation.
• Analytical apps give a visual overview of business data.
• Fact sheets give a view of essential information about objects and contextual navigation.

Data Types

• ERP systems include organizational, master, and transaction data.
• Organizational data includes company code, plant, storage location, and distribution channel.
• Master data, such as person, material, customer, and vendor, is stored long-term and changed rarely.
• Master data represents logically grouped data like customer master, material master, vendor master, and general ledger accounts.
• Transaction data is the system record of the business event, referencing different master and organizational data based on the event.
• During a sales order, the data that is stored includes organizational data (Client, Company Code, Sales organization), master data (Customer, Material, Pricing), and situational data (Date, Time, Person, Amount).
• Transactions create data sets when a business transaction is executed.
• The record of the business transaction is called a "document" and includes relevant predefined information from the master data and organization entities.
• Examples of documents are sales documents, purchasing documents, material documents, and account documents.
• The document flow and order status allow setting the status at any point and SAP revises the status whenever a change occurs.

Cloud vs. On-Premise

• SAP S/4HANA can be accessed on the Cloud and On-Premise and both can be used hybridly without losing the company's integration.
• The Cloud Edition has subscription licensing deployed in the private cloud maintained by SAP, which provides system and control maintenance, allows automatic quarterly innovation upgrades, and includes current release cycles.
• The On-Premise edition includes traditional licensing with customer control of deployment and maintenance with the hardware at the company's location and privately controlled data which has fewer release cycles compared to the cloud edition.

Optimization Levers

• Efficiency, Effectiveness, and Agility are three optimization levers in SAP S/4HANA.
• Efficiency focuses on accelerated execution, automated process steps, and digital out-tasking.
• Effectiveness speeds up action, de-layers processes, and raises process intelligence.
• Agility focuses on process and organizational flexibility and assimilating process innovation.

Application of optimization levers on real-time inventory management based on business and IT:

• Business improvements include: real-time inventory management, real-time product availability, increased inventory turnover, reduced batch size, faster operational reporting, and fewer stock outs.
• IT improvements include: no separation of data entities from different tables, parallel postings and processes, faster reporting, frequent updates, one document table (instead of 26 aggregate tables), and reduced memory footprint.

Transition to SAP S/4HANA

• Possible scenarios for transitioning to SAP S/4HANA include new implementation, system conversion, and landscape transformation.

New Implementation

• A new SAP S/4HANA implementation for customers migrating from a legacy system is known as the greenfield approach.
• Benefits include reengineering process simplification based on ready-to-run business processes, predefined migration objects and best practices with guided configuration, reduced time to value and customer total cost of ownership (TCO), and the rapid adoption of innovations.
• Project duration depends on the number of data migration objects and the volume/complexity per migration object.
• The process involves installing SAP S/4HANA and an initial data load from the source system, using SAP Data Services (SAP DS) for On-Premise and SAP Landscape Transformation (SAP LT) for Cloud.

System Conversion

• The scenario involves converting a customer's current system into an SAP S/4HANA system.
• This shows the database, SAP NetWeaver, and application transition in a single step.
• Benefits include migration without reimplementation, no disruption to the existing business process, and reevaluation of customization and existing process flows.
• Transition parameters are measured by systems and source database size (technical) and company codes, ledgers, and operating concerns (functional).
• Compatibility is ensured by prioritizing add-ons and solutions.

Landscape Transformation

• This scenario is for customers consolidating their landscape or selectively transforming data into SAP S/4HANA.
• Benefits include selective data transformation allowing a phased approach with a focus on ROI and lower TCO and, system and landscape consolidation with harmonized/simplified processes and unified master data for lower TCO.
• General project duration parameters depend on the selected sub-scenario, such as system consolidation, selective migration, and central finance and specified parameters include the number of systems and the volume of selected data.
• For consolidation, clients are consolidated from different source systems into one new/existing SAP S/4HANA system using the SAP LT tool.
• For Selective Data Transformation, selected SAP applications, like central finance, are migrated via the SAP LT tool.