SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition

SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition Overview

• SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition is a ready-to-run cloud ERP solution.
• It delivers industry best practices and enhancements.
• This helps customers stay competitive and achieve business goals.
• The solution is suited for small to mid-sized businesses.
• It suits businesses that need minimal customization.
• Businesses should be receptive to adopting predelivered best practices.
• Processes get improved with enhancements between releases.
• Major upgrades are in August and February each year.
• Enhancements and upgrades get automatically installed by SAP.
• Customers can easily manage their SAP S/4HANA Cloud systems.
• Tools tell them the impact on their system during and after release upgrades.
• The Release Assessment and Scope Dependency tool assesses the impact.
• The Test Automation Tool re-tests processes after a release with automated scripts.
• SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition is a fit for larger customers in a two-tier ERP structure.
• This is when combined with SAP S/4HANA on premise or SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.
• Sustainability and AI capabilities are built into standard business processes.
• Customers gain a clear understanding of their organization's environmental impact.
• They can also run analyses on their business data.
• The SAP Fiori Launchpad aids non-developers to make customizations.
• This is through low/no-code extensibility applications.
• End users can learn new software through tutorials and support.

Solution Scope and Business Process Story

• Businesses need to buy, sell, and keep track of money flow.
• Core tasks are covered by business processes from Finance, Sales, and Sourcing and Procurement, or Administrative ERP.

Finance LoB's Procure to Pay process

• A business forecasts purchases for upcoming quarters to determine the budget.
• The Sourcing and Procurement LoB identifies needs from suppliers.
• The business purchases items and pays the supplier.
• The business receives the goods.

Sales LoB's Order to Cash process

• Orders are received from customers.
• Orders are confirmed and goods are delivered.
• Payments are posted in the Finance LoB to accounts receivable.
• Revenue is adjusted accordingly.
• The Sales LoB handles customer returns.
• Returned goods are inspected and restocked for future sale.
• Additional processes in the Service LoB create a service order.
• This occurs when a warranty claim needs a service.

Finance LoB's Record to Report process

• Period-end closing happens at the end of each month.
• Accounts are set back to a zero balance.
• Additional financial accounting tasks record transactions.
• They reconcile bank statements, and manage tax payments.
• Accuracy of all financial statements is ensured.
• Future plans are made by maintaining the budget.
• Potential financial requirements are forecast based on different scenarios.

Service-Centric Industries

• Core processes covered in Administrative ERP happen when services get sold.
• Selling consulting services is covered by the Professional Services LoB.
• Selling technical services, like technician visits, are covered in the Service LoB.
• Sales LoB will generate leads before a service is sold.
• Processes in the Professional Services LoB setup the project.
• Suitable staff with the right skills are found.
• If services or materials are needed from a third-party, the Sourcing and Procurement LoB helps.
• All tasks are delivered and staffed resources submit reports.
• The project manager tracks project margin to ensure profitability.
• The customer pays in installments.
• In the Finance LoB, after completion, final payment is made and revenue is recognized.
• The project manager uses analytical applications to evaluate the project.

Product-Centric Industries

• Design, production, and delivery are handled in-house when selling products.
• Pharmaceuticals or pre-made baking mixes use process manufacturing.
• Cars or mobile devices use discrete manufacturing.
• Process manufacturing has ingredients combined that cannot be separated.
• Discrete manufacturing has materials assembled into goods that can be separated.
• A new product begins with processes in the R&D Engineering LoB.
• They forecast the demand and design the product.
• A materials list is created and handed to the Manufacturing LoB.
• Material requirements planning identifies required materials.
• The Sourcing and Procurement LoB sources materials from suppliers.
• They order and pay for the materials and receive them into the warehouse.
• Materials get picked for sub-assemblies in the Manufacturing LoB.
• The final assembly puts the pieces together.
• Asset Management LoB maintains machinery assets.
• Finished goods go through a quality check.
• Goods are then stored in our warehouse.
• Warehouse management processes handle logistics that falls under the Supply Chain LoB.
• The Sales LoB receives sales orders, whether direct or through third-party platforms.
• The Supply Chain LoB delivers the final product.
• Transportation management transports goods.
• The customer sends payment and follow-up sales tasks are handled.
• The customer’s returned goods are inspected and restocked.
• If defective, the cause is identified, and the product is salvaged before discarding.
• The Service LoB responds to warranty claims if there is a warranty.

Key Stakeholders

Terminology

• "Customer" refers to an SAP software purchaser or someone assisting the implementation.
• "Partner" refers to an organization working to build, sell, service, or run SAP solutions.
• A partner employee preparing an SAP solution is a service partner.
• SAP also implements solutions and relies on the partner ecosystem for expertise.

Stakeholders

• The Discover phase of SAP Activate has customer executive sponsors with the business's case.
• They worked with a salesperson and completed the Digital Discovery Assessment.
• CTO, CIO, or similar roles are common.
• Customer executive sponsors have a counterpart from the partner or SAP.
• Communication from the customer executive sponsors in the change management plan is important.
• A customer System Admin should be identified and communicated to SAP early.
• Assigned as the IT Contact, they gain the permission role.
• This role grants administrator access to support applications.
• It also grants ability to provision the customer's purchased systems.
• The signer like CTO or CIO will be granted the IT Contact role.
• The SAP S/4HANA Cloud implementation begins with project team in the Prepare phase.
• The priority in the Prepare phase is to provision systems and provide access to team members.
• A partner/SAP implementation team has at least one expert per LoB for the customer.
• At least one project manager, and a lead configuration expert exists to help.
• Ideally, there are two partner/SAP experts per LoB.
• Finance is a big LoB.
• Professional Services is one of the smallest LoBs.
• The customer team has a project manager and a change management team with the service.
• Someone from the partner or customer manages communication and training tasks during and after go-live.
• Difficulty adopting business processes will negatively impact the SAP S/4HANA Cloud system.
• The Explore phase has Fit-to-Standard analysis workshops for each LoB.
• LoB experts from customer organization are added to the extended team.
• Partner/SAP LoB experts demonstrate each business process.
• Workshops are start to finish with the Digital Discovery Assessment in the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Starter System.
• The workshop purpose is for users to learn SAP S/4HANA Cloud,
• The second purpose is for the customer LoB to review each process, provide feedback and fit the needs.
• The last purpose is for the Partner/SAP experts leading workshops to gather config values from the customer.
• Building customer LOBS relationships is important, with focus on inviting them to complete UAT after configuring them in the Realize phase.
• Mandatory UAT is required before moving into the Deploy phase.
• Customer LoB experts are responsible for day-to-day activities in workshops to provide feedback.
• The customer's extended project team adds members and integration, customization, and data migration tasks get completed.
• Custom integrations need developers on the customer side for where integrations live.
• Partner/SAP consultants handle in-app extensions in SAP S/4HANA Cloud using Fiori apps.
• Side-by-side extensions live in customer's BTP system with two extension options.
• The options are SAP Build (low/no-code) and BTP (classical code-based).
• Tackling side-by-side extensions is most cost-effective for customers through their own developers.
• The partner/SAP team needs data migration contacts within the customer organization to grant access to migrated data.
• The change management team trains consumer end users to onboard them.
• This is to ensure a transition from old to the new SAP S/4HANA Cloud system in the Deploy phase.
• The extended team includes customer LoB process experts, and other supporting experts involved in integration and customization.
• Partner/SAP consultants lead LoB-specific workshops.
• Workshops collect configuration values, standard practices, integration and customization requirements.
• An Organizational Change Management expert is involved in each workshop to identify change that impacts each LoB.
• Assessing the change impact is essential to determine training requirements to ramp up employees (L3 stakeholders).

Roles and Responsibilities

• Executive sponsors on the customer and partner/SAP projects make up the steering committee.
• The steering committee is responsible for coordination including critical decisions, budget, and decisions that affect the entire organization.
• The steering committee is also the last level of escalation.
• Project managers setup the SAP S/4HANA Cloud implementation project in SAP Cloud ALM for manageable roadmap delivery.
• The managers report status updates using SAP Cloud ALM.
• A customer system admin and a SAP configuration expert provision systems and grant permission to team members.
• Business (LoB) configuration experts lead workshops with customer LoB experts and document important information.
• To get Requirements in the ALM the LOB will:
• Enter config Values
• Define Business role customizations
• Build key user in-app extensions using the SAP Fiori apps in SAP S/4HANA Cloud
• Define output management customizations
• Customize relevant analytical apps
• Migrate relevant data
• Setup SAP Best Practices
• Setup/Run test automates in the Test Automation Tool
• Additional technical experts assist integration, side-by-side extensibility in SAP Business Technology Platform, or data migration.