SAP S/4HANA

Frequently Asked Questions November 2015

EXTERNAL

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

2

The purpose of this document is to provide an external audience with a selection of frequently asked

questions and answers about SAP S/4HANA, the next-generation business suite from SAP.

DISCLAIMER: The contents of this document, and SAP’s strategy and possible future developments,

products, and/or platforms directions and functionality are all subject to change and may be changed by SAP

at any time for any reason without notice. The information in this document is not a commitment, promise, or

legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or functionality. This document is provided without a warranty

of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability,

fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. This document is for informational purposes and may

not be incorporated into a contract. SAP assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in this document,

except if such damages were caused by SAP’s intentional or gross negligence. All forward-looking

statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially

from expectations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements,

which speak only as of their dates, and they should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

What is SAP S/4HANA? .............................................................................................................................................................................. 5

What does the name of SAP S/4HANA stand for? ................................................................................................................................... 5

What are the key benefits for a customer to move now to SAP S/4HANA? ......................................................................................... 5

What are the SAP S/4HANA deployment options for customers? ......................................................................................................... 7

How is SAP S/4HANA available to the market? ....................................................................................................................................... 7

What is the current business scope of the SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition?................................................................................... 8

What is the business scope of the SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition? .......................................................................................................... 9

What is new in SAP S/4HANA? ................................................................................................................................................................ 10

What does the term “Materials Management & Operations” mean? ................................................................................................. 10

What is the scope of SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management, key area Materials Management & Operations? ............................ 10

What are SAP S/4HANA Line of Business solutions? ............................................................................................................................. 11

What SAP S/4HANA industry solutions are available? .......................................................................................................................... 11

What is the product map and roadmap for SAP S/4HANA? ................................................................................................................. 11

Which SAP S/4HANA edition do you recommend for my enterprise? ................................................................................................. 11

Where can I find customer SAP S/4HANA enablement material?........................................................................................................ 12

Where can I find Partner SAP S/4HANA enablement materials? ......................................................................................................... 12

How can I try SAP S/4HANA?................................................................................................................................................................... 12

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to SAP S/4HANA Finance (formerly known as SAP Simple Finance powered by SAP HANA)? ...... 13

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to SAP’s existing portfolio of cloud solutions? .................................................................................. 13

Is SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition a public cloud offering? ....................................................................................................................... 13

How does the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud service relate to the SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition? ....................................................... 13

Is SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition multitenant? ......................................................................................................................................... 13

How does SAP HANA Cloud Platform relate to SAP S/4HANA? ............................................................................................................ 14

Does SAP provide prepackaged integration for SAP S/4HANA to the existing cloud solutions from SAP?....................................... 14

What is SAP Activate? .............................................................................................................................................................................. 14

What is the benefit to the data model for using an in-memory platform? ......................................................................................... 15

Do SAP S/4HANA and SAP Business Suite share the same data semantic? ......................................................................................... 16

Will SAP continue to deliver innovations to SAP Business Suite customers on any DB? .................................................................... 16

Does SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA still exist? ................................................................................................................. 16

What is really new in SAP S/4HANA compared to SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA? ....................................................... 16

What is the fundamental difference between the SAP Business Suite code line and the new SAP S/4HANA product code line? . 17

What is the typical journey for an existing SAP Business Suite customer? ......................................................................................... 18

What is the typical journey for a net-new customer? ........................................................................................................................... 18

How can SAP partners support the move of a customer to SAP S/4HANA? ....................................................................................... 18

What happens to existing modifications when a customer moves to SAP S/4HANA? ....................................................................... 19

What happens to existing legacy interfaces if a customer moves to SAP S/4HANA? ......................................................................... 20

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to and coexist with the existing SAP landscapes?............................................................................. 20

Can a customer choose to run the traditional SAP user interface and custom screens or is SAP Fiori mandatory? ....................... 20

What is the pricing model for SAP S/4HANA?........................................................................................................................................ 20

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

4

Are SuccessFactors, Ariba, Concur, SAP hybris Marketing, and other cloud solutions from SAP included in the SAP S/4HANA product license?.............................................................................................................................................................................................. 21

Will customers that have licensed SAP Accounting powered by SAP HANA get a credit? ................................................................. 21

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to s-innovations? ................................................................................................................................. 21

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Business One? ........................................................................... 21

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to SAP BW? .......................................................................................................................................... 21

Where can I learn more? ......................................................................................................................................................................... 21

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

5

To help customers run simple, we are breaking the limitations of the past. On February 3, 2015,

SAP announced a new business suite, fully built for SAP HANA, with all that only SAP HANA can do

today. SAP S/4HANA is a new product and our biggest innovation since SAP R/3.

What is SAP S/4HANA?

SAP S/4HANA is the next-generation business suite. It is a new product fully built on the most

advanced in-memory platform today – SAP HANA – and modern design principles with the SAP

Fiori user experience (UX). SAP S/4HANA delivers massive simplifications (customer adoption, data

model, user experience, decision making, business processes, and models) and innovations

(Internet of Things, Big Data, business networks, and mobile-first) to help businesses run simple in

the digital economy.

What does the name of SAP S/4HANA stand for?

SAP S/4HANA is the short form for SAP Business Suite 4 SAP HANA. It brings the next big wave of

SAP innovation to our customers, similar to the transition from SAP R/2 to SAP R/3.

SAP S/4HANA is a new product with a new code line architected for maximum leverage of the

unique in-memory platform SAP HANA.

What are the key benefits for a customer to move now to SAP S/4HANA?

SAP’s vision and strategy is to help customers run simple in the digital economy. To deliver on this

mission, we are redefining how enterprise software creates value.

SAP S/4HANA is designed to drive instant value across lines of business and industries with the

ultimate sophistication: simplicity.

From a business value perspective, this means that SAP S/4HANA creates unique opportunities to

reinvent business models and drive new revenues and profits. First, enterprises can now easily

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

6

connect to people, devices, and business networks to deliver new value to their customers on any

channel – the Internet of Things and Big Data become accessible to any business. Second,

enterprises can dramatically simplify their processes, drive them in real time and change them as

needed to gain new efficiencies – no more batch processing is required. And finally, business users

can now get any insight on any data from anywhere in real-time: planning, execution, prediction,

and simulation – decisions may be made on the fly with a high level of granularity for faster

business impact.

From an IT value perspective, this means that SAP S/4HANA creates unique opportunities to

simplify the landscape and help reduce total cost of ownership (TCO) with SAP HANA as the great

simplifier. First, enterprises can now reduce their data footprint and work with larger data sets in

one system (for example with industry or application function re-integrated that was standalone

before), to save hardware costs, operational costs, time and reduce complexity. Second,

innovation is also made simple with leveraging an open platform (SAP HANA Cloud Platform) to

drive advanced applications – for example, predicting, recommending, and simulating – while

protecting existing investments. Third, business users can leverage a simple and role-based user

Internet of Things

Business networks

Social networks

Devices

Big Data

People

Process Enriched

Scalability I Real time I Prediction I Simulation

Live Data Granular I Responsive I Accurate

User Empowered Instant insight I Contextual information I Personalized

experience

Segment of 1

Lot size

of 1

No

latency

Traditional SAP value play

SAP S/4HANA value play

At s

cale

Leading-edge processes Integrated system

Digital transformation of business models

Digital Core Digital Economy Digital Transformation

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

7

experience based on modern design principles which minimizes training efforts while increases

productivity as it combines information from various sources at the point where decisions are

made. We also support customers with simple configuration: setting up the system and during its

use. And finally, enterprises get choice of deployment: cloud, on premise, and even support of

hybrid scenarios to drive quick time-to-value and reflect current reality of customer solution

landscapes.

Key facts about SAP S/4HANA:

Smaller total data footprint

Higher throughput

Faster and real-time analytics and reporting

Less process steps

Extensive workload capacity

Open environment via SAP HANA Cloud

Platform extensions

Predict, recommend, simulate

SAP HANA multitenancy

All data: social, text, geo, graph, processing

New SAP Fiori UX for any device (mobile, desktop, tablet)

Choice of deployment: on premise, cloud, hybrid

Fast deployment via configuration capabilities

SAP S/4HANA is only built on SAP HANA because, as of today, only the SAP HANA platform can deliver such level of massive simplifications and innovations.

What are the SAP S/4HANA deployment options for customers?

SAP offers on-premise, cloud, and hybrid deployments to give real choice to customers. SAP

S/4HANA also gives customers the option to fully leverage the new SAP HANA multitenancy

functionality as provided by the SAP HANA platform.

How is SAP S/4HANA available to the market?

SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition, and SAP S/4HANA cloud edition are available for customers in

all industries and regions.

SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition follows a yearly innovation cycle and SAP S/4HANA, cloud

edition follows a quarterly innovation cycle.

In November 2015 (1511) updates have been released for both SAP S/4HANA, on-premise and

cloud edition.

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

8

What is the current business scope of the SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition?

We worked closely with our customers to identify where digitized operations could provide the most value. The result is a massive wave of simplification and innovation in the core that covers critical business processes in finance, sales, service, sourcing and procurement, manufacturing, supply chain, asset management, and research and development, and human resources. The visual below highlights the business scope of the next update for the SAP S/4HANA on-premise edition planned on November 2015: in blue, the simplifications and innovations that are part of SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management; in grey, the simplifications and innovations that are outside, and natively integrated, the scope of SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management.

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

9

Customers can now drive end-to-end digitized operations across their key business functions via a fully digitized enterprise management solution named: SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management. SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management solution represents the solution covering all mission-critical processes of an enterprise. It represents our foundational solution natively built on the SAP HANA platform and designed with SAP Fiori UX. SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management covers all core business processes (e.g. order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, plan-to-product, and request-to-service) and core capabilities such as core finance as well as a variety of more specialized line of business and industry capabilities. It will also deliver native integration with SuccessFactors Employee Central for world-class HR functionality as well as into the Ariba Network to help our customers fully leverage the power of the buyers’ network.

What is the business scope of the SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition?

The next update to the SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition is planned in November 2015 following the quarterly innovation cycle. SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition currently covers specific business scenarios for the marketing line of business and the professional services industry as well as the most essential scenarios to run an entire enterprise in the cloud with a digital core such as finance, procurement, sales, inventory management, project system, and product lifecycle management, plus integration with SuccessFactors Employee Central, Ariba Network, SAP hybris Marketing, Field Glass (planned) and SAP Jam. Three offerings are currently available as part of the SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition:

SAP S/4HANA, cloud marketing edition – for the marketing line of business

SAP S/4HANA, cloud project services edition – for the professional services industry

Streamlined Procure to Pay

Supplier Management

Sourcing and Contract Management

Operational Procurement

Inventory and Basic Warehouse Management

Invoice and Payables Management

Accelerated Plan to Product

Production Planning

Manufacturing Execution

Inventory and Basic Warehouse Management

Product Development and Project Control

Maintenance

Optimized Order to Cash

Order and Contract Management

Inventory and Basic Warehouse Management

Receivables Processing

Enhanced Request to Service

Service Master Data Management

Service Management

Service Parts Management

Service Agreement Management

Quality Management and Compliance

Cross Application Time Management Employee Central Connectivity

Core Human Resources

Accounting and Financial Close Cost Management and Profitability Analysis Core

Finance

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

10

SAP S/4HANA, cloud enterprise edition – for a full ERP business scope – cloud enterprise edition is the equivalent to the Enterprise Management on premise offering

What is new in SAP S/4HANA?

In November 2015, SAP delivered the 1511 update, a massive wave of simplification and innovation in the core, SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management. With this delivery, enterprises can drive unprecedented business value with innovative use-cases - in core financial and operational areas such as in logistics – taking full advantage of a simplified data model and a responsive user experience.

Key simplifications and innovations include:

Optimized working capital with new accounts payables and receivables cockpits

Decreased stock buffers with simplified data model in inventory management for real-time, high-volume processing

Increased visibility with real-time stock and material flow insight

Reduced manufacturing cycle time with streamlined material flow for internal requirements – material requirements planning (MRP)

Augmented reactivity with real-time monitoring of production orders regarding flow and critical issues

Improved operational decisions with easier simulation of supply alternatives

Lower procurement costs with standard integration to the Ariba Business Network

Better customer service with new sales order fulfillment cockpit to help identify bottlenecks and issues instantly

What does the term “Materials Management & Operations” mean?

The term SAP Simple Logistics (sLOG) was an internal SAP Project Name. The represented functionality can best be described by the term “Material Management & Operations (MMO)”. This term is an umbrella term, not a formal produce names, used to describe the combination of multiple lines of business including Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Sourcing & Procurement, and Sales.

What is the scope of SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management, key area Materials Management & Operations?

Innovations in Materials Management & Operations fall into three categories. The first category is a role-based user experience, with a new Responsive design. The UIs run on any devices, desktops, tablets, smart phones, and even smart watches and have been redesigned for exception-bases issue handling. The second category is a set of innovations are in the SAP S/4HANA Core, which has been modernized by simplifying & optimizing the technology footprint, and by collapsing Online Transaction Processing & Online Analytical Processing to make the functionality more relevant and designed for data-driven businesses.

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

11

The third category is the elimination of functional redundancies which have been built into the Business Suite over the years. The user benefits from a superior solution.

What are SAP S/4HANA Line of Business solutions?

The SAP S/4HANA Line of Business (LoB) solutions are solutions that combine the core capabilities included in the SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management solution (on-premise) and SAP S/4HANA, cloud enterprise edition with each LoB solution in our portfolio (on-premise and cloud). Examples include SAP Cash Management for finance; SAP SuccessFactors solutions in human resources; the Ariba Network in procurement, and SAP hybris Cloud4Customers solutions in marketing and commerce and sales/services. The new branding reinforces the completeness and diversity of SAP solutions. For example, SAP S/4HANA Finance (formerly SAP Simple Finance) scope is unchanged and covers the entire portfolio of finance solutions across SAP ERP Financials, SAP solutions for enterprise performance management (SAP EPM), SAP BPC, SAP solutions for governance, risk, and compliance (SAP GRC), SAP solutions for business intelligence, Ariba, and Concur. Some of these solutions are licensed separately.

What SAP S/4HANA industry solutions are available?

Both SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition and SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition are open to customers of all industries. As expected, the functional depth and support of specific industry scenarios is larger for the on-premise edition than for the cloud edition, as the latter one focusses on more standardized and streamlined processes. Both in the cloud and on-premise edition support for industry-specific solutions is planned according to market prioritization. Current status of planned innovations is outlined in the external SAP S/4HANA roadmap on Service Marketplace here.

What is the product map and roadmap for SAP S/4HANA?

SAP customers and partners can access the detailed product map in the respective repositories and

the roadmap on the SAP Service Marketplace here.

Which SAP S/4HANA edition do you recommend for my enterprise?

The SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition is designed for enterprises across industries that need a deep and broad level of functionality combined with a high degree of flexibility in configuration and customization. Existing SAP customers can use the SAP S/4HANA Business Scenario Recommendation tool, a self-service tool designed to help you identify the most valuable digitized business scenarios for your enterprise The Business Scenario Recommendations report will use your current SAP software usage information and generate from a personalized report that will be e-mailed to you within five days to learn how SAP S/4HANA can help enhance your company’s current performance and competitiveness. Access the SAP S/4HANA Business Scenario Recommendation tool here.

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

12

The SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition is designed for enterprises across all industries that need a standardized cloud offering primarily covering the core business scenarios of an enterprise or specific business scenarios of lines of business - combined with a fast innovation cycle (quarterly). In addition, the SAP S/4HANA editions offer the opportunity for customers to deploy real hybrid scenarios - combining on-premise and cloud solutions - for unprecedented IT flexibility and accelerated business innovation.

Where can I find customer SAP S/4HANA enablement material?

The customer journey to SAP S/4HANA has been enriched to provide end-to-end support to business and IT audiences. SAP offers both educational and training materials to enable our customers on their digital transformation journey with SAP S/4HANA. We recommend our customers make use of the following enablement materials: SAP S/4HANA Customer Adoption Journey Map: This interactive, 5 step journey map outlines how customers can establish a digital core and drive time-to-value with our top SAP S/4HANA digital offers to existing SAP Business Suite customers and new customers. It includes our top business and IT audience assets. SAP S/4HANA openSAP Courses: There are SAP S/4HANA specific courses available via openSAP, these include: SAP S/4HANA in a Nutshell, SAP S/4HANA – Deep Dive and SAP S/4HANA – Use Cases. SAP Community Network and especially there the SAP S/4HANA Cookbook: This living online ‘cookbook’ includes functional capabilities, transition options, extensibility, adaptation, integration information as well as education & service offerings by SAP.

Where can I find Partner SAP S/4HANA enablement materials?

Partner specific enablement materials about SAP S/4HANA are available on the SAP Partner Portal SAP S/4HANA Training & Education page.

How can I try SAP S/4HANA?

SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition trial: A free 14-day cloud edition trial system is available to help you experience the value of simplicity across key business scenarios: project manager scenario, cash manager scenario, general ledger accountant scenario, accounts receivable accountant scenario, accounts payable accountant scenario. You can access the cloud trial on: www.sap.com/s4hana-trial SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition trial: Explore SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition with a 30-day trial and evaluate digitized business processes—such as order-to-cash or procure-to-pay—across your key enterprise functions. You can access the on-premise trial on: www.sap.com/s4hana-trial

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

13

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to SAP S/4HANA Finance (formerly known as SAP Simple Finance powered by SAP HANA)?

The SAP S/4HANA Finance (originally branded SAP Simple Finance) solution marked the first step

in our SAP S/4HANA road map for customers. The solution has demonstrated the value of

simplification (for example, no indexes, no aggregates, and no redundancies) and instant insight in

Finance. SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition leverages the full scope of SAP Accounting powered by

SAP HANA included in SAP Simple Finance. The SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition is intended to deliver a

similar scope.

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to SAP’s existing portfolio of cloud solutions?

SAP S/4HANA is also available with a cloud edition. However, SAP S/4HANA will not replace our

existing portfolio of line-of-business cloud solutions; it will integrate with and expand it. Our

comprehensive offering is planned to allow SAP S/4HANA customers to build hybrid scenarios

between SAP S/4HANA and cloud solutions from SAP, including those from SuccessFactors and

Ariba as well as integration with SAP hybris Marketing, Fieldglass and SAP JAM. This way

customers can leverage the cloud at their own pace, based on their needs, while keeping all the

integration and business benefits of their existing SAP solutions. In addition, SAP S/4HANA is

designed to easily connect with global business networks such as, for example, the Ariba Network

and Concur (planned).

Is SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition a public cloud offering?

Yes. The SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition has all the qualities of a public cloud offering.

Please note that the SAP S/4HANA, cloud enterprise edition provides additional services for

customers that require broader extensions and configuration capabilities in a dedicated set-up.

How does the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud service relate to the SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition?

SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, offered by SAP or partners, provides a private cloud environment for

all SAP on-premise solutions running on SAP HANA, including SAP S/4HANA. SAP S/4HANA on-

premise customers can consider this as a deployment option.

SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition is a public cloud offering that leverages the same infrastructure as a

service (IaaS), data centers, and security qualities as the SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, though the

lifecycle management and solution scope is tailored to the needs of a public cloud offering.

Updates for the SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition are planned on a quarterly basis, to be consumed by

the customer, and managed by SAP in globally available SAP data centers.

Is SAP S/4HANA, cloud edition multitenant?

Yes, SAP S/4HANA cloud editions provide customers the option to leverage the SAP HANA

multitenancy functionality as provided by the SAP HANA platform.

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

14

How does SAP HANA Cloud Platform relate to SAP S/4HANA?

In the context of SAP S/4HANA, SAP HANA Cloud Platform serves as an extension platform and

agility layer. It is possible to build specific capabilities extending the scope of SAP S/4HANA by

either integrating non-SAP functions or building your own capabilities. The cloud platform not only

serves as the development platform but also as the runtime foundation for the developed

solutions. The extensions built on the cloud platform can run with both cloud and on-premise

editions of SAP S/4HANA.

Does SAP provide prepackaged integration for SAP S/4HANA to the existing cloud solutions from SAP?

Yes, this service is provided as SAP Rapid Deployment solutions with SAP S/4HANA and is delivered

with prepackaged integration (for example integration between SuccessFactors and SAP

S/4HANA).

SAP S/4HANA delivers high-volume transaction processing (OLTP) and high volume real-time

analytical processes (OLAP) based on a unified data model without the redundant data layers

typically required by traditional RDBMS based systems. This reduces TCO while providing new

opportunities to increase business value from existing investments.

Examples for redundant data layers are custom-built layers based on database tuning efforts such

as secondary indexes, or application built-in performance accelerators such as aggregate tables or

multiple general ledger versions for different managerial reporting needs.

The massive simplifications of the data model and the data processing layers enable business and

technological innovations on a broad scale across all lines-of-business and industry solutions.

The new application architecture simplifies system landscape architectures and accelerates cloud

deployments on an economical scale.

What is SAP Activate?

SAP Activate is the innovation adoption framework that expedites SAP S/4HANA implementations throughout the customer lifecycle. It offers ready-to-run digitized business and technology processes, guided configuration, and next-generation methodology. SAP Activate supports customers at multiple starting points, including new implementation, system conversion, and landscape transformation.

SAP Best Practices packages provide ready-to-run digitized business and technology processes

optimized for SAP S/4HANA. Leveraging SAP’s expertise and experience for standard processes

helps deliver predictable results and saves time, so you can focus your efforts on innovation.

Our best practices include business processes such as finance and logistics. They are designed

to guide you through the optimal integration and migration scenario, whether you are moving

from a legacy SAP software system or from a third-party database. SAP S/4HANA includes a

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

15

reference solution for running in the cloud or on premise in addition to details for enhancing

processes to fit your needs and integrate with line-of-business cloud solutions.

Guided configuration is the content lifecycle management tool that helps you configure and

test chosen SAP Best Practices. Now you can configure, test, and receive support in data

migration processes that are needed for your selected best practices. You have the option to

add or update your preferred best practices at a later time. Automated updates and intuitive

configuration changes support initial implementation and help you adopt ongoing innovation

more quickly, with minimal disruption, while tracking your configuration history. The result?

Your business users can customize preconfigured business processes – from charts of accounts

to approval thresholds – without IT involvement.

SAP Activate methodology is SAP’s new software implementation methodology that builds on

proven approaches and SAP’s experience to offer a consistent, agile method for any

deployment type – cloud, on premise, hybrid, or mobile. It offers support for initial

implementation and continuous innovation with SAP S/4HANA. The implementation best

practices walk project teams through planning, build, and deployment of their SAP solution.

SAP Activate methodology caters to customer-specific configuration and extension

requirements to reflect each customer’s own business practices while remaining extremely

scalable – nimble enough for smaller engagements and robust enough for larger projects.

SAP Activate gives you the comfort to advance quickly and to achieve fast outcomes with SAP S/4HANA, whatever your current configuration. For more information, visit the SAP Activate landing page.

What is the benefit to the data model for using an in-memory platform?

SAP S/4HANA delivers high-volume transaction processing (OLTP) and high volume real-time

analytical processes (OLAP) based on a unified data model without the redundant data layers

typically required by traditional RDBMS based systems. This reduces TCO while providing new

opportunities to increase business value from existing investments.

Examples for redundant data layers are custom-built layers based on database tuning efforts such

as secondary indexes, or application built-in performance accelerators such as aggregate tables or

multiple general ledger versions for different managerial reporting needs.

The massive simplifications of the data model and the data processing layers enable business and technological innovations on a broad scale across all lines-of-business and industry solutions. The new application architecture simplifies system landscape architectures and accelerates cloud deployments on an economical scale.

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

16

Do SAP S/4HANA and SAP Business Suite share the same data semantic?

With SAP S/4HANA, SAP has developed a new product that leverages basic data structures and

elements of the SAP Business Suite for maximum compatibility, non-disruptive migration and

hybrid scenarios. However, SAP S/4HANA provides new business functionality on top of these

data structures natively built on the SAP HANA platform and designed with the SAP Fiori UX

principles.

SAP Business Suite on-premise customers running ECC 6.x can easily deploy this new product

simply by migrating to the SAP HANA database and moving their software stack to SAP S/4HANA,

on-premise edition.

Will SAP continue to deliver innovations to SAP Business Suite customers on any DB?

Yes. SAP remains committed to protect our customers’ investments. We recently announced

that we are extending our maintenance commitment until at least 2025. This is an

unprecedented commitment to customers in the IT industry. We will also continue to deliver

innovations without disruption (through enhancement packages for example) to SAP Business

Suite customers on any DB and on SAP HANA.

However, transformational business and IT simplifications require a transformational platform

and this is why as of today SAP S/4HANA runs only on SAP HANA. It is the logical next step for

our installed base customers and the biggest step forward for 10+ years with full compatibility

with SAP ERP 6.0.

Does SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA still exist?

Yes. For many customers this has been the first step in their roadmap to SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition. It is a proven product with more than 2,000 customers. You can explore the full journey map for a comprehensive overview here.

What is really new in SAP S/4HANA compared to SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA?

With SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA, SAP was the only software vendor in the market

at that time to allow SAP Business Suite customers to bring together transactions and analysis

into a single in-memory platform. This innovation has been extremely successful in the market as

2,000+ customers (existing and new) acquired SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA – in less

than two years – to run their business in real time, making it one of the fastest-growing product

in SAP’s history.

With SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA, our product approach has been to port the

applications on the SAP HANA platform and optimize the code to allow customers the ability to

gain significant performance in their mission-critical business processes and reporting activities,

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

17

and by that, in turn, also improve performance on relational databases. SAP HANA represented a

new database alternative for existing customers, with a simple database migration required to

drive the entire business in real time.

SAP S/4HANA is a new product. With SAP S/4HANA, we are building on the success of the SAP

Business Suite powered by SAP HANA with a completely new and reimagined suite:

SAP S/4HANA is running on SAP HANA for massive simplifications (simplified data model: no indexes,

no aggregates, no redundancies) and innovations (for example, open in-memory platform for

advanced applications predicting, recommending, and simulating)

SAP S/4HANA is natively designed with SAP Fiori UX, offering an integrated user experience with

modern usability and instant insight on any device (role-based, three steps max to get the job done,

mobile-first, consistent experience across lines of business)

SAP S/4HANA is natively connected to the Internet of Things and business networks for real-time

collaboration (planned: machine-to-machine, Ariba Network, Concur) in the networked economy

SAP S/4HANA is natively engineered for providing choice of deployment (on premise, cloud and

hybrid)

SAP S/4HANA is natively born for easy adoption (guided, configuration, and easy onboarding, from

the discovery of the solution through cloud trials to deployment with preconfigured best practices)

In addition, SAP HANA Cloud Platform serves as open extension, agility layer for SAP S/4HANA.

The extensions built on the cloud platform can run against either deployment of SAP S/4HANA:

in the cloud and on premise.

What is the fundamental difference between the SAP Business Suite code line and the new SAP S/4HANA product code line?

The development approach of SAP S/4HANA is to eliminate all artefacts that have been introduced

as performance workarounds for classical row-based RDBMS. These are aggregates and

programmed indexes that contained no semantic value and only provided fast access to sums and

data. On the downside, these created interconnections in the application and complexity in how

to lock the system to avoid conflicting updates in aggregates. Moreover, significant code had to be

developed for lengthy ETL (extract-transform-load) scenarios incurring data preparation and

exception management routines caused by latency.

This portion of the code did not carry business semantic in itself, but served as “performance

proliferation” in business processes.

With SAP S/4 HANA, these different types of workaround on restrictions based on technical

limitations are no longer necessary, as the latest information and the time travel from the

columnar store can be accessed instantaneously across all inserts and updates and therefore

eliminates the need for any overhead of the index and aggregates.

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

18

What is the typical journey for an existing SAP Business Suite customer?

Moving to SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition for a typical ERP 6.x customer will require a database

migration to SAP HANA followed by the installation of the new code. Both database migration and

new code installation can be completed in one step.

Moving to SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition for a SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA

customer is even faster as only the installation of the new code is required since the SAP HANA

database migration has already been performed.

Both journeys are well proven in the market with several hundred live SAP Business Suite powered

by SAP HANA customers as well as SAP Simple Finance live customers.

What is the typical journey for a net-new customer?

The journey is defined by a net-new implementation of an SAP S/4HANA system with simpler

adoption – example: guided configuration, easy onboarding from the discovery of the solution

through cloud trials to the deployment with preconfigured best practices. We defined three major

scenarios supported by tools and pre-configuration delivered through our SAP Rapid Deployment

solutions:

You can explore the full journey map for a comprehensive overview here.

How can SAP partners support the move of a customer to SAP S/4HANA?

SAP has an established partner ecosystem (value-added retailers and systems integrators) that is

ready to resell and service SAP S/4HANA for our joint existing and new customers to implement

future innovations. More than 50% of the SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA projects were

STARTING POINT A

Deploy new installation On premise Cloud Hybrid

New customer

Up and running with best practices in two days

STARTING POINT B

On premise Cloud Hybrid

Customer with SAP Business Suite (ECC

6.x) on any database

Migrate DB to SAP HANA,

install new code Transfer data to the cloud

On premise Cloud Hybrid

Customer with SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA

STARTING POINT C

Install new code Transfer data to the cloud

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

19

managed by partners and more than 80% of SAP S/4HANA projects are currently managed by

partners.

Partners and SAP will support customers in their journey with predefined migration, system

conversion in the cloud, and deployment packages for quicker time to value. Companies of all sizes

will benefit from the high-quality service and reseller capabilities our partners provide.

What happens to existing modifications when a customer moves to SAP S/4HANA?

In any scenario, the move to SAP S/4HANA is a great opportunity to validate the existing extensions

and modifications and simplify your solution. It is not unusual for customers to realize that 50% of

the extensions and modifications that hamper fast release cycles and require long test cycles were

no longer necessary to run the business.

In general, when moving to SAP S/4HANA, customers can leverage the SAP HANA Cloud Platform

(HCP) to build and operate extensions to the SAP core as well as own applications. HCP is a common

extension platform for all SAP products, offering an SAP Fiori stack, a SAP HANA database, a full-

fledged development environment and even additional choices, such as the integration of open

source solutions. It is the ideal platform for all custom apps which operate in a self-contained way,

are only loosely coupled with SAP S/4HANA or reach to the outside world. This kind of extensibility

is called "side-by-side extensibility" and has the advantage that extensions run in a safe environment

so that innovation packages can be easily applied to the SAP S/4HANA core. The SAP S/4HANA core

system remains “clean” and can be quickly and easily updated when new innovations are added, in

just the same way that consumer mobile apps are updated on a regular basis.

Further, the SAP S/4HANA stack can also be directly extended by partners and customers – in a

process that we call "in-app extensibility".

For on-premise deployment existing customer and partner extensions, and even modifications can

be used. It is only necessary to adapt them according to the simplification SAP has applied to SAP

S/4HANA compared to the SAP Business Suite (e.g. transition of index tables into SAP HANA

compatibility views). All these changes are described in a simplification database which can be

downloaded from the SAP Market Place. Even more, a custom code migration tool exists which

analyses custom code and its usage, resulting in a precise list of extensions and modifications which

have to be reworked.

In the cloud deployment, key user extensibility is the recommended approach for in-app

extensibility. Within the SAP Fiori UX key users can adapt UIs, create field extensions or even

define simple custom business logic at selected places. The underlying SAP S/4HANA extension

framework isolates extensions from the core and thus drives safeguard agility for cloud

deployments. To drive agility, key user extensibility is also available for on-premise deployments.

Existing extensions and modifications cannot be transformed into key user extensions, but a data

migration into key user extensions will be offered.

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

20

What happens to existing legacy interfaces if a customer moves to SAP S/4HANA?

SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition, currently supports the existing published legacy interfaces.

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to and coexist with the existing SAP landscapes?

A single installation can run either SAP S/4HANA or the traditional SAP Business Suite (on SAP

HANA or any DB) but not both at the same time. However, customers can decide to move

separate installations within their landscape individually to SAP S/4HANA and do not need a “big

bang” migration for their whole system landscape. Thus, customers can run in a mixed

environment with some installations running SAP S/4HANA and others the traditional SAP

Business Suite (on SAP HANA or any DB). As SAP S/4HANA and SAP Business Suite are using

semantically consistent data structures, a move to SAP S/4HANA is non-disruptive.

Can a customer choose to run the traditional SAP user interface and custom screens or is SAP Fiori mandatory?

All SAP S/4HANA innovations are intended to be delivered with SAP Fiori UX providing the same

experience on all devices. However, a customer using SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition can still

use the traditional user interfaces.

What is the pricing model for SAP S/4HANA?

For the on-premise version, SAP Business Suite customers need to purchase the SAP S/4HANA

foundation-promotion license to run the new SAP S/4HANA code line.

SAP is offering the following promotion until December 31, 2015:

Existing SAP Business Suite customers have to procure the SAP HANA runtime license for SAP

Business Suite (@15% HSAV = SAP HANA Software Application Value) and will get the SAP

S/4HANA foundation-promotion license at no additional cost until end of 2015.

Existing SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA customers with a valid SAP HANA limited

runtime license for SAP Business Suite (LREA) are eligible for the SAP S/4HANA foundation-

promotion license without additional cost until end of December 2015.

New SAP Business Suite powered by SAP HANA customers have to procure the SAP HANA

runtime license for SAP Business Suite (@15% HSAV = SAP HANA Software Application Value)

and will get the SAP S/4HANA foundation-promotion license at no additional cost until end of

December 2015.

For the cloud, the pricing model is subscription-based. Please contact your local sales

representative for more information.

SAP S/4HANA – EXTERNAL FAQ

21

Are SuccessFactors, Ariba, Concur, SAP hybris Marketing, and other cloud solutions from SAP included in the SAP S/4HANA product license?

SAP S/4HANA integrates with our existing cloud portfolio offerings and these offerings remain

offered under separate license/subscription.

Will customers that have licensed SAP Accounting powered by SAP HANA get a credit?

Yes, all customers that already purchased a SAP Accounting powered by SAP HANA license will get

a corresponding credit for upcoming purchases. For details and conditions, please contact your

local sales representative.

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to s-innovations?

s-innovations was the internal project name for our development program and will not be used

anymore.

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to SAP Business ByDesign and SAP Business One?

SAP S/4HANA, SAP ByDesign and SAP Business One Cloud complement each other regarding SAP’s ERP Cloud solution portfolio. None of these solutions are intended to be replaced by the other. While SAP S/4 HANA Cloud Edition is predominantly leveraged as a large enterprise solution, SAP ByDesign has been optimized predominantly for mid-market companies and subsidiaries of large enterprises. SAP Business One addresses the market segment of smaller customers.

How does SAP S/4HANA relate to SAP BW?

SAP BW will continue to represent the preferred solution for strategic enterprise data warehousing to help customers consolidate data from different sources (including SAP and non-SAP data sources) and get a consistent view across the enterprise. SAP BW has also been optimized to run on the SAP HANA platform: SAP BW powered by SAP HANA. SAP S/4HANA delivers built-in real-time operational reporting capabilities covering all typical analytics use-cases in the context of the suite. Therefore, SAP BW will continue to act as our central enterprise data warehouse solution.

Where can I learn more?

Visit us on sap.com/s4hana and scn.sap.com/community/s4hana for more information and details

on the next generation business suite including use case information, learning resources, technical

cookbook documentation and more.

We also invite you to contact your local sales representative.

14

© 2015 SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or for any purpose without the express permission of SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company. SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. Please see http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx#trademark for additional trademark information and notices. Some software products marketed by SAP SE and its distributors contain proprietary software components of other software vendors. National product specifications may vary. These materials are provided by SAP SE or an SAP affiliate company for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and SAP SE or its affiliated companies shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. The only warranties for SAP SE or SAP affiliate company products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services, if any. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. In particular, SAP SE or its affiliated companies have no obligation to pursue any course of business outlined in this document or any related presentation, or to develop or release any functionality mentioned therein. This document, or any related presentation, and SAP SE’s or its affiliated companies’ strategy and possible future developments, products, and/or platform directions and functionality are all subject to change and may be changed by SAP SE or its affiliated companies at any time for any reason without notice. The information in this document is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code, or functionality. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates, and they should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions.

www.sap.com