SAP History and Evolution

• SAP SE is a market leader in enterprise application software.
• It is a German multinational company.
• SAP pioneered ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software.
• SAP has 400,000 customers in 190 countries.
• SAP enables 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 R/3 connection was established with the Windows NT operating system through a partnership with Microsoft. IBM started using SAP R/3.
• 1995-1996: SAP joined the Internet, enabling online use of SAP R/3.
• 2002: SAP celebrated its 30th anniversary and became the 3rd largest independent software provider.
• 2005-2006: SAP ERP release was announced.
• 2009: SAP Business Suite 7 was launched to optimize business performance and reduce IT costs.
• 2011: The first SAP in-memory computing product was implemented, creating the SAP HANA platform and enabling data access in seconds.
• 2013: SAP Business Suite moved to SAP HANA, becoming the fastest-growing product in enterprise software history.
• 2015: SAP S/4HANA was introduced.

SAP S/4HANA

• SAP ERP is the standard ERP solution for companies globally.
• It supports and optimizes business processes.
• It collects logically related transactions within identifiable business functions.
• SAP's goal has been to develop an integrated management system that meets the digital transformation era's requirements.
• SAP S/4HANA is the next-generation Business Suite and largest SAP innovation since R/3.
• It allows digital transformation.
• SAP S/4HANA offers real-time simplification.
• SAP S/4HANA Data Model Principles: Data storage in denormalized form, single data source, removes redundant data storage, and processes aggregation and analytics on the fly.
• Traditional database architecture increases data aggregation performance, and requires more effort to update redundant data.

SAP ERP and S/4HANA Usage

• SAP ERP is designed for companies of all sizes in various industries.
• SAP S/4HANA caters to large, enterprise-level organizations.

SAP Fiori

• A design system with a user experience (UX) layer simplifies business app creation.
• It turns casual users into SAP experts with simple screens on any device.
• It provides a user interface for SAP S/4HANA.
• It has three application types: Transactional, Analytical, and Factsheet.
• Transactional apps access tasks like Create, Change, or Display Process.
• Analytical apps give a visual overview of business data.
• Factsheets give a view of essential objects and contextual navigation.

Data Types

• ERP systems include organizational, master, and transaction data.
• Organizational Data: Company code, plant, storage location, and distribution channel.
• Master Data: Person, material, customer, and vendor data stored long-term and rarely changed.
• Transaction Data: The system record of the business event, referencing master and organization data.
• Example of data stored during sales orders: Client, Company Code, Sales organization, Customer, Material, Pricing, Date, Time, Person, Amount.
• Transactions generate data sets when a business transaction executes.
• A "document" is the record of the business transaction and contains predefined information from master data and organization entities. Examples: sales, purchasing, material, and account documents.
• Document flow and order status allow status setting at any time and is revised with each change.

Cloud vs. On-Premise

• SAP S/4HANA can be accessed on the Cloud and On-Premise.
• SAP S/4HANA can be used hybridly without losing integration.
• Cloud Edition: Subscription licensing in a private cloud maintained by SAP with system and control maintenance.
• Cloud Edition: Automatic participation in quarterly innovation upgrades and has current release cycles.
• On-Premise Edition: Traditional licensing with customer control of deployment and maintenance.
• On-Premise Edition: Hardware and data are privately controlled at the company location.
• On-Premise Edition: Cloud edition 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 is speeding up action, de-layer processes, and raising process intelligence.
• Agility focuses on process flexibility, organizational flexibility, and assimilating process innovation.

Optimization Levers for Real-Time Inventory Management

• Business: Real-time inventory management, real-time product availability, increased inventory turnover, reduced batch size, faster operational reporting, and fewer stockouts.
• IT: No separation of data entities, 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

• Companies can transition to SAP S/4HANA through new implementation, system conversion, and landscape transformation.

New Implementation

• Scenario: New SAP S/4HANA implementation, known as the greenfield approach, for customers migrating from a legacy system.
• Benefits: Reengineering process simplification, predefined migration objects and best practices, reduced time to value and customer total cost of ownership (TCO), and rapid adoption of innovations.
• Project duration parameters: Number of data migration objects (Material, Customer, Vendor, etc.) and volume and complexity per data migration object.
• Process: Installing SAP S/4HANA and an initial data load from the source system.
• Tools: SAP Data Services (SAP DS) for On-Premise and SAP Landscape Transformation (SAP LT) for Cloud.

System Conversion

• Scenario: Converting a current system into an SAP S/4HANA system, showing the database, SAP NetWeaver, and application transition in a single step.
• Benefits: Migration without reimplementation, no disruption to existing business processes, and reevaluation of customization and existing process flows.
• Transition requirements: Number of systems and source database size (technical) and the number of company codes, ledgers, and operating concerns (functional) as project duration parameters.
• Before conversion: Prioritize add-ons and other solutions for compatibility and validate components and customer code.

Landscape Transformation

• Scenario: Consolidating landscape or selectively transforming data into a SAP S/4HANA system.
• Benefits: Selective data transformation allows a phased approach and focusing on parts of the business with the highest ROI (return on investment) and lower TCO; system and landscape consolidation with harmonized/simplified processes and unified master data leads to lower TCO.
• Transition's parameters: Selected sub-scenario (system consolidation, selective migration, central finance), number of systems to be consolidated, and selected data volume.
• For Consolidation: Clients are combined from different source systems into one new or existing SAP S/4HANA system using the SAP LT tool.
• For Selective Data Transformation: Chosen SAP applications like central finance, are migrated using the SAP LT tool.