SAP S/4HANA Cloud interest increasing

S/4HANA Cloud is SAP’s SaaS version of its future-generation ERP platform.

The character of SaaS software program permits it to be updated consistently, and S/4HANA Cloud follows a quarterly release timetable, with new functions additional in just about every release.

SAP does not offer distinct figures on how many prospects subscribe to S/4HANA Cloud, but it promises that the number of consumers is growing. The most up-to-date version — SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2008 — went dwell at the beginning of August, with new functions for challenge-based mostly revenue recognition, supply chain demand from customers stock management and billing for experienced solutions.

In this Q&A, Jan Gilg, SAP president of S/4HANA, discusses the present-day condition of S/4HANA Cloud adoption. The COVID-19 disruption was a component in the most up-to-date release, as advancement teams experienced to negotiate the new fact of remote or residence work. This did not affect the release roadmap, Gilg mentioned, and all the updates that were being promised were being included in the release of S/4HANA Cloud 2008.

What’s the present-day standing of S/4HANA Cloud adoption? Have there been substantial new customer wins?

Jan Gilg: Immediately after Q2, we are now at a lot more than fourteen,600 S/4HANA certified prospects and seven,four hundred are dwell. Which is a blend between on premises and cloud. We do not split out the figures, but we see substantial maximize in the number of cloud prospects, and I consider also through COVID now, you can find a obvious change toward personal cloud, but also general public cloud is growing.

Is there greater fascination in the SaaS S/4HANA Cloud due to the fact of COVID-19?

Gilg: 1 attention-grabbing point that we’ve seen is that use truly went up for present prospects in the cloud through COVID. We’re not certain why that was, but people are functioning from residence and logging in to the program a lot more than ever. We’re viewing a whole lot of inquiries in cloud in standard. To start with, from a commercial standpoint, prospects are understandably shying away from significant upfront commitments appropriate now and they are on the lookout a lot more for a membership model. So that is unquestionably the dominant model at the minute that we’re viewing.

On the complex side, the promise of fast implementation and standardization is unquestionably desirable. It is really particularly desirable for net-new prospects that are commencing from scratch and want to glance into a SaaS answer. For the put in foundation, it can be nonetheless on the fence due to the fact of customizations that they have. Usually, they never want to get started the complete transformation still, but they want to standardize [on the cloud] at some issue in time. You will find also a minor little bit of a divide right here the place put in prospects are choosing personal cloud whilst net-new are heading general public cloud.

How are put in prospects deploying S/4HANA? Are they totally replacing on-premises units or possibly employing S/4HANA Cloud in hybrid environments?

Gilg: We see all various eventualities, frankly. We see a whole lot of our greater prospects like Colgate and some others glance into those people kind of subsidiary or hybrid eventualities, the place you run either a subsidiary or possibly a distinct M&A [obtained business] on the cloud. We see that rather a little bit, but we also see that largely higher midmarket businesses go with the entire program into SaaS. If you chat about the Fortune five hundred or Fortune one thousand businesses, most of them are nonetheless on the lookout into personal cloud and on-premises established ups.

What’s the breakdown of deployments that are general public cloud as opposed to personal cloud?

Gilg: Mostly, the put in foundation is focusing on personal clouds, and we never see as a great deal net-new heading into personal cloud. That truly matches what we see from analysts that the sector is clearly heading into the SaaS cloud and that is what we see when we chat to new prospects and some of the fast growth businesses. They’re all on the lookout into totally SaaS ERP options. In our put in foundation, you can find rather some fascination in the personal cloud, but they typically also imagine about carrying out this possibly for a component of their business enterprise and acquire the opportunity to continue to keep a part general public but continue to keep the main in a personal cloud. At the finish of the day, it can be all about the business enterprise worth. The pure complex conversion is typically some thing that is not ample and then businesses are on the lookout for the low-hanging fruit and the place they can leverage and capture worth appropriate away by carrying out this move, even nevertheless it may not be a complete move into SaaS.

How is S/4HANA Cloud evaluating with the level of competition, like Oracle Cloud and some others?

Gilg: From my standpoint, Oracle Cloud is truly the primary competitor in terms of the breadth of what it features. We just noticed the IDC MarketScape appear out and we’ve been rather a great deal head-to-head with them in the chief quadrant from a capability standpoint. It is really very near from my issue of see. I never know Oracle in detail, but from what I hear speaking to prospects and so on, I imagine it can be very similar. Then you have businesses like Workday that are very potent in HR. They’re receiving into finance, which is truly a lot more like what we phone the admin ERP or economically driven ERP place. But I consider we have exceptional features in finance, and through the integration into SAP SuccessFactors, I consider we have a truly potent proposition now in combining those people. It is really nonetheless technically — and likely commercially — two various options, but they have been built-in finish to finish from the consumer knowledge all the way down to the complex level. We continue on to work on that, and in the cloud, I can see that this could be provided as a single answer at some issue in time, specially combining HR with SuccessFactors and S/4HANA Cloud.

The final version of S/4HANA Cloud included the integration of Qualtrics. Will this continue on now that SAP has resolved to spin Qualtrics off?

Gilg: Indeed, it can be unquestionably heading to continue on and specially for what it did in terms of item knowledge for S/4HANA by itself. We are accumulating responses for S/4HANA Cloud from what our prospects and the implementation associates mail us. What we have completed internally is to mix that with use facts, which we are accumulating anyway from our cloud units, and made some rather attention-grabbing correlations there. For case in point, we can see the correlation between responses that was sent in and combine particular events in the lifecycle, no matter whether it can be an enhance or no matter whether it can be a number of concerns like a bigger quantity of tickets. We’ve commenced to build some correlation right here and item management is actively on the lookout into that. So, we are truly employing [Qualtrics] as a tool and it can be surely some thing we want to also make obtainable to prospects. On leading of that, we’ve made a entire collection of use circumstances that we want to embed in the item by itself and ship to the customer, not only for them to give responses on S/4HANA Cloud, but also for them to leverage it in their business enterprise. That will continue on despite the announcement. We’ve rather a great deal aligned our roadmaps with Qualtrics with each other, and we’re heading to continue on marching down this route, which is rather promising.