A Computer Weekly buyer’s guide

to SAP Hana deployment

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How Hana is
disrupting SAP
hosting services
What differences
from traditional SAP
architecture are
introduced by Hana?

Hana speeds up
customer service
for blinds maker
Hillarys switched
its SAP CRM from
Oracle to Hana to
optimise processes

Tackling the
confusion over Hana
implementation
What are the
challenges around
Hana that are holding
customers back?

SAP’s Hana in-memory data platform promises to transform business processes. In this 11-page buyer’s

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guide, Computer Weekly looks at how Hana is changing traditional SAP architecture, how it has streamlined
customer services for one business, and why there is confusion over Hana implementation
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 BUYER’S GUIDE TO SAP HANA DEPLOYMENT

How Hana is disrupting

SAP hosting services
Derek Prior explains the differences from traditional SAP architecture
that are introduced by the software supplier’s Hana technology
T he new technology required to run SAP Hana will force
sourcing executives to rethink their options for hosting
SAP software where Hana-based systems are needed.
Hana technology introduces some major differences
from the traditional SAP architecture. The Hana architecture only
runs on the Hana in-memory database system (IMDBMS), not
the traditional DBMSs from other suppliers.
This requires much larger amounts of server main memory
because the entire database operates in main memory. However,
the good news is that Hana databases are much smaller than tra-
ditional architecture, due to their high levels of data compression.
The Hana IMDBMS includes its own data replication features,
which affect high availability and disaster recovery operations.
Hana also needs new software tools to manage it and server vir-
tualisation is much less commonly deployed with Hana technol-
ogy today than with traditional SAP architecture.

More expensive
Client feedback consistently shows that larger Hana appliances
are more expensive than traditional servers.
If running on-premise Hana will be too complex or costly, sourc-
ing executives can also evaluate Hana hosted services or consider
public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) deployments.
Third-party SAP hosting providers face substantial engineer-
ing costs in designing new platforms for Hana. SAP applications
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run very differently on Hana compared with traditional architec-

ture. Existing hosting offerings must be redesigned to provide the
large memory operating system (OS) instances that Hana needs.

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How Hana is
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Virtualisation technologies must also be re-evalu- identified more than 170 suppliers offering SAP
hosting services ated against using Hana’s core capabilities. ❯Cleaning up data in hosting. The advent of new, competitive public
What differences Also, SAP’s Hana Enterprise Cloud (HEC) offers Business Warehouse before cloud-based hosting models will create opportuni-
from traditional SAP implementing BW on Hana will
architecture are a managed private cloud. In this model, SAP pro- make migration easier, save
ties for sourcing leaders to deliver cost savings for
introduced by Hana? vides the entire IaaS hosting and Basis managed money and reduce downtime. SAP Hana hosting.
service model for all layers of the stack, except for During the same period when SAP introduced
Hana speeds up any custom ABAP code, which is still maintained Hana technology, there has been huge client inter-
customer service
for blinds maker
by the customer. est in both private and public IaaS for all IT pro-
Hillarys switched For providers, this is another challenge. Already-fierce competi- jects, including SAP infrastructure
its SAP CRM from tion has been made worse by the existence of SAP’s HEC, against Amazon Web Services (AWS) was the first public cloud IaaS
Oracle to Hana to
optimise processes which all other hosting providers will be compared. Gartner provider to offer Hana systems. Its 2013 SAP partnership offered
expects a number of smaller SAP hosting providers will find their Hana One database as a service, which allowed a complete Hana
Tackling the businesses no longer viable and will exit the market, although instance to be provisioned on AWS public cloud IaaS in less than
confusion over Hana there may be an opportunity for some to partner with SAP to an hour. This enabled customers and SAP partners of all types to
implementation deliver HEC as a white-label hosting arrangement. quickly and cost-effectively acquire Hana technology for evalua-
What are the
challenges around Another issue for SAP customers is that there are very few ref- tions, software development and proof-of-concept trials, and pay
Hana that are holding erence customers anywhere that are live on Hana systems, for for it on an hourly basis.
customers back?
either S/4 Hana or Business Suite on Hana (BSoH), and have SAP has certified the AWS public cloud IaaS service to run full
proven disaster recovery capabilities. production systems of Hana-based applications, starting with
SAP S/4 Hana cloud editions are new and very different because SAP BSoH, followed by SAP Business Warehouse (BW) powered
they are multitenant software-as-a-ser- by SAP Hana and then S/4 Hana.
vice (SaaS) offerings that are available In September 2016, SAP and AWS
only directly from SAP. SaaS systems G artner expects a number announced support for the new SAP
are very different from general IaaS SAP
hosting technology options.
of smaller SAP hosting
BW/4 Hana data warehouse system.
The X1 AWS server “instance types”
The market for Hana hosting is grow- providers will find their are optimised for high memory, and
ing as more of SAP’s customer base two new types have been introduced
migrates. A 2016 Gartner survey businesses no longer viable recently to provide support for Hana.

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How Hana is
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The x1.32xlarge instance type provides 2TB of RAM backed by
hosting services the requisite storage, while the x1.16xlarge instance provides
What differences 1TB of RAM.
from traditional SAP
architecture are The second major public cloud IaaS provider, Microsoft Azure,
introduced by Hana? also supports SAP Hana. In May 2016, Microsoft announced that
SAP had certified Azure for Hana workloads up to 3TB in size,
Hana speeds up and also certified scale-out to support Hana BW workloads up
customer service
for blinds maker
to 32TB in size. Again, these deployments are limited to certain
Hillarys switched regions, but Microsoft will extend these over time. It is also likely
its SAP CRM from that the range of SAP systems supported by Azure will continue
Oracle to Hana to
optimise processes to expand because Microsoft has a track record of catching up in
other late-entry marketplaces
Tackling the
confusion over Hana Lower three layers
implementation Neither AWS nor Azure directly supports the full layers of the
What are the
challenges around SAP technical stack. Rather, they focus on the lower three layers,
Hana that are holding including the hypervisor, but excluding the OS. This means that
customers back?
other new service providers have partnered with these cloud
providers to deliver the remaining top layers in the technical
stack, without providing their own Hana-ready infrastructure.
But because multiple providers are now involved, SAP cus-
tomers must take care when planning or operating any hosting
arrangements involving IaaS. When comparing the total cost of
ownership (TCO) of public cloud proposals, sourcing executives
must look at the cost of not just the cloud platforms, but also
these middleware service providers. The operational service and
management of multiple suppliers must be tied in from the start,
possibly using a multisourcing service integrator to provide them.
As well as providing large-scale infrastructure optimised for
Hana, both AWS and Azure deliver flexible charging options.
Most clients usually start off with a pay-as-you-go model for indi-
vidual servers, where savings can be made initially by using the
cloud in new ways — for example, by turning off unused develop-
ment and test environments.
In the longer term, clients can save more money with prepaid
options. AWS’s Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) offers the
concept of “reserved instances,” where, by booking server usage
and paying partially or completely up front, clients can achieve
discounts of up to 75%, compared with pay-as-you-go.
Prepaid models
Likewise, Azure also offers prepaid models, but has the option
for smaller businesses to buy through their existing resellers,
and for larger businesses to enter into an enterprise agreement.
Both of these options provide substantial discounts.
Both cloud providers are competing on price, and have offered
regular price cuts. AWS will pass a series of public cloud IaaS cost
reductions on to its customers by focusing on scale of deploy-
ment and increased automation. Azure matches this.
AWS and Azure are both popular choices for midsize organisa-
tions because costs can be spread over multiple years and match
business demand, rather than having to make regular expenditure
on capital upgrade programmes. n
This is an extract from the Gartner research note “The Impact of SAP Hana on the SAP
infrastructure utility services marketplace”. Derek Prior is a research director at Gartner.

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BUYER’S GUIDE TO SAP HANA DEPLOYMENT

Hana speeds up customer

service for blinds maker
Hillarys Blinds switched its SAP CRM from Oracle to the Hana
platform to optimise business processes, writes Brian McKenna
S AP customers who have elected to use the supplier’s
database platform Hana for analytics or to run business
applications better are not few in number – but neither
are they plentiful or vocal.
Hillarys Blinds, a Nottingham-based UK manufacturer and
retailer of blinds, is one mid-market customer that has turned
the high-speed, in-memory database to business account. It is
among 5,000 to 6,000 customers who are running SAP business
applications on Hana worldwide – although more will be using it
for analytics use cases.
The supplier said in its full-year 2016 results, released in
January this year, that S/4 Hana adoption had doubled year-on-
year to more than 5,400 customers, which equates to 1.6% of its
customer base of 345,000. However, an SAP UK & Ireland User
Group survey of 296 user organisations, published in November
2016, found that 5% of customers were using S/4 Hana. It also
found that 12% of that group of customers had simply not heard
of the Hana-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Flagship product
Now, the supplier’s in-memory, columnar database has been
the lynchpin of its strategy since 2010, when the first database
was sold. And S/4 Hana, its full system for planning enterprise
resources, has been its flagship product since February 2015.
Matters are confused, however, by the earlier Business Suite
on Hana, which is what Hillarys is running. This is a suite of SAP
applications that can be run on Hana, but were not originally writ-
ten exclusively for Hana, as is S/4 Hana – which is, in turn, short
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for SAP Business Suite 4, an early component of service, reducing call times, faster resolutions of
hosting services which was Simple Finance. ❯SAP announces an issues and a drop in complaints”, he adds.
What differences Hillarys moved to Business Suite on Hana in intensification of S/4 Hana cloud A salient feature of the company’s business is
from traditional SAP delivery, and an infusion of its
architecture are August 2015, when S/4 Hana had been announced, enterprise resource planning
that there is no such thing as a standard blind. “We
introduced by Hana? but was still in its infancy as the full ERP system with artificial intelligence. don’t make stock blinds,” says Bond. “A key ques-
rewritten to be optimised for Hana – and therefore tion for us is, ‘can we fit this blind technically?’.”
Hana speeds up suitable for other rival databases. Hillarys has an army of fitter-salespeople who
customer service
for blinds maker
Julian Bond, head of ICT at Hillarys, recounts how visit people in their homes and measure for blinds.
Hillarys switched the company had then been on the ECC5 SAP ERP, not the more There are two million size permutations and half a million combi-
its SAP CRM from recent ECC6, which might have had given it better functionality. nations of colours and fabrics in play. The fitter has a tablet com-
Oracle to Hana to
optimise processes “ECC5 was coming to the end of its support cycle,” he says. “We puter with which to place the order, and a hand-held device to take
could have gone to ECC6 on the same hardware, but we decided payment. He or she will get a lead time from the SAP back-end
Tackling the we’d rather be at the front of the curve, and mobility was at the system, and the order will trigger the manufacture of the blinds.
confusion over Hana front of our thinking, too. Hana is an expensive investment. It is “We were running our MRP [material requirements planning]
implementation very important that you kick the tyres when selecting a partner. process once a week,” says Bond. “With Hana, we run it once a
What are the
challenges around We used the Birchman Group, which has proper Hana expertise, day, which means we can respond quicker.”
Hana that are holding and that made all the difference for us.” Hillarys was founded in 1971 by Tony Hillary in his garage. He
customers back?
The main benefit Bond reports from Hana is the speeding up of sold the business 30 years later to Close Brothers Private Equity,
the SAP CRM 7 on-premise applica- and today it is owned by another pri-
tion that is used to deal with custom- vate equity group, European Capital.
ers. “It runs much faster on Hana,”
he says. “It used to be a dog, frankly,
“H ana is an expensive It has always stuck to an operational
model that has eschewed retail out-
and the business had started to work .I
investment t is very important lets and showrooms in favour of
around it.” Previously, it had run on bespoke, made-to-measure ordering
an Oracle database, he adds. “That is that you kick the tyres when – in a sense, made for the web.
not to say anything against Oracle –
it just runs better on SAP Hana.” This
selecting a partner ” The firm is currently looking to
rebuild its ecommerce platform,
means “a speeding up of customer Julian Bond, Hillarys Blinds which it now gets from Magento,

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How Hana is
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says Bond. “We are looking for a richer web services integration
hosting services into our Business Suite on Hana.”
What differences The firm has also been using Hana for analytics. “Previously,
from traditional SAP
architecture are we had been pushing [SAP] Business Warehouse to the limit of
introduced by Hana? the overnight window,” says Bond. “With Hana, we process the
data so much more quickly, reducing the time taken by 60%. That
Hana speeds up means can get greater insight faster, including from the mobile
customer service
for blinds maker
app, which sits on top of SAP’s mobile platform We get a richer
Hillarys switched picture of what customers are interested in, what promotions
its SAP CRM from they go for, and so on.”
Oracle to Hana to
optimise processes Bond is a frequent presenter at UK and Ireland SAP user group
conferences. He says his impression is that a lot of mid-size cus-
Tackling the tomers are still waiting to see how S/4 Hana will pan out, and are
confusion over Hana sticking with ECC6. “It is hard to tell if take-up [of Hana] is accel-
implementation erating or not. The main question I get is how to cost justify it.”
What are the
challenges around
Hana that are holding
customers back?
Additional benefits
Bond and the Hillarys IT team – 50 or so strong in Nottingham –
are currently “exploring additional benefits for Hana, for example
new capabilities around rules engines to optimise processes”, he
says. They are not yet using Simple Finance and Simple Logistics
within S/4 Hana, properly speaking. Nor are they looking to
move to a cloud environment for Hana or S/4 Hana.
“When we made the call in summer 2015, when SAP had some
announced capability, it all seemed a bit vapourware. The com-
mercial case didn’t stack up then. In three years, maybe it will.”
In an interview with our sister site SearchSAP.com, published in
December 2016, Bond told how the firm’s IT team had deployed
the Panaya CloudQuality Suite tool to test only what was most
critical when upgrading to the SAP ERP on Hana. He recounted
how the complexity of the manufacturer’s operational model was
what led it to SAP R/3 in the first place, in 1999. “We implemented
SAP in 1999, and even then it was one of the few standard, off-
the-shelf products that could cope with the complexity that every
product we make is unique,” he said. “It could help us cope with
short turnarounds on blinds that are made to order.”
Panaya, an Infosys-owned, Israeli software-as-a-service com-
pany focused on making ERP systems more agile, recently pub-
lished a global survey of 200 SAP managers about S/4 adoption.
Define a business case
It found that a slim majority (51%) have committed to move to
S/4, yet most of them (69%) are still trying to define a busi-
ness case for so doing. It also found that 31% of those who have
decided on an implementation route have chosen system con-
version or a brownfield approach over what Panaya describes as
SAP’s recommended re-implementation. This, they surmise, is
because of the high cost of new installations and their reluctance
to throw away decades of customisations in existing systems.
In view of the fact that the firm sells an “SAP S/4 Hana Discovery
Pack, which provides SAP customers the insights they need to
identify the optimal conversion path that meets their organisa-
tion’s needs” as part of its CloudQuality suite, this research is
perhaps not entirely disinterested. Nonetheless, it suggests the
non-trivial nature of upgrading to the full S/4 Hana business suite
from perfectly decent previous SAP ERP systems. n

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 BUYER’S GUIDE TO SAP HANA DEPLOYMENT
Tackling the confusion
of Hana implementation
The confusion around SAP’s in-memory
database is holding many customers
back. Jim Mortleman asks experts
about the challenges
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W hen SAP introduced its Run Simple campaign in
2014, the company hoped to transform its long-
held reputation for complexity and being difficult
to work with. At the heart of this new focus was
Hana, the in-memory column database first introduced in 2010.
The prime advantages of Hana over traditional relational data-
bases are its blisteringly fast query speeds and the ability to do
real-time analytics and reporting.
But subsequent years have seen a confusing raft of Hana-based
products and systems that have left many customers scratching
their heads as to the best way forward.
Among other things, there is the Hana Cloud Platform, the Hana
Business One Cloud, and a plethora of SAP components such as
CRM and Business Warehouse on Hana. Then, of course, there is
the company’s core enterprise resource planning (ERP) system
Business Suite for Hana and its fully featured successor, S/4 Hana.
The company also offers a range of other products and services
under the Hana brand, including apps and accelerators.
Insufficient clarity
But a recent survey by the SAP UK and Ireland User Group found
that 70% of users believe SAP has failed to communicate the
migration path to SAP S/4 Hana with sufficient clarity.
Julian Bond, head of ICT at Hillarys, a supplier of made-to-
measure blinds and a long-time SAP customer, says: “SAP thinks
it is a master of marketing, but while it is good in some senses, its
customer base hasn’t got the foggiest idea what’s going on and
the truth is, it has caused all the confusion itself.”
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Hillarys completed its upgrade to what it thought “Frankly, I don’t know how organisations can
hosting services was S/4 Hana in an impressive six months, going ❯SAP has announced an make a sensible calculation about the cost or
What differences live in February 2016. But Bond says: “We have intensification of S/4 Hana cloud return on investment because they do not have
from traditional SAP delivery, plus an infusion of its
architecture are moved to SAP Business Suite on Hana, which was enterprise resource planning
all of the information they need. And why would
introduced by Hana? what S/4 Hana originally meant. But now SAP has with artificial intelligence. a customer take on the risk of an unproven
moved the goalposts and released a later version system that is likely to be in development for
Hana speeds up that it says is actually S/4 Hana.” many years?”
customer service
for blinds maker
As a result, Hillarys has not yet been able to take Others, though, believe the ongoing digital trans-
Hillarys switched advantage of all the advanced functionality, such as the much- formation of business makes the eventual move to S/4 Hana
its SAP CRM from touted Fiori app portal that presents users only with the apps and inevitable for most SAP stalwarts. Robin Webster, director of
Oracle to Hana to
optimise processes functionality that they actually use, rather than forcing them to technology at Centiq, which provides managed services for SAP
navigate a complex list of stuff they don’t need. Hana, says: “SAP is very keen to get people onto the platform. It’s
Tackling the a bit early in the cycle for most organisations – next year should
confusion over Hana Challenges of Hana be interesting – but it is going to happen.
implementation The problem for SAP customers is that deciding whether and “There was always going to be a need to redesign how SAP
What are the
challenges around how to move to S/4 Hana is by no means easy. Sebastian Grady, works under the covers to take advantage of the full capabilities
Hana that are holding president of independent support specialist Rimini Street, which of Hana. SAP talks a lot about simplification, but that simplifica-
customers back?
supports software from SAP, Oracle and a number of other sup- tion is dependent on S/4. For most customers, it’s just a ques-
pliers, says: “This is not as simple tion of when to move – and that will
as flicking a switch – it can be a very be when the business functionality
costly re-implementation, rather
than a simple upgrade. SAP’s cur-
“T his is not as simple as flicking in S/4 is so far advanced that busi-
nesses decide they can’t do with-
rent flagship product set, built over –
a switch it can be a very costly out these new tools.”
40 years ago, has 400 million lines Hillarys’ Bond says it is critical
of code. Customers have millions re -
implementation , rather to plan any move early. “When we
invested in extensive customisa-
tions that may have to be rewritten
than a simple upgrade ” made our switch, it was a big archi-
tectural change,” he says. “We
in a move to S/4 Hana. Sebastian Grady, Rimini Street used to run HP-UX, but for Hana,

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we needed Linux, so we moved to SuSe. That involved retraining Picking the right partner for the move is also vital. “We used
hosting services all our in-house staff. We even migrated some of our non-SAP Panaya,” says Bond, “whose tools were able to analyse all our
What differences systems across to give us a bit of experience running produc- custom code to ascertain how much would need to be rewritten,
from traditional SAP
architecture are tion systems in that environment. Hana also assumes you will which sped up implementation considerably.”
introduced by Hana? be working in a virtualised world, so we had to get up to speed Hana also requires a different approach to traditional rela-
with that virtualisation layer.” tional databases, says Bond. “When you move to a column/
Hana speeds up
customer service
for blinds maker
Hillarys switched
its SAP CRM from
Oracle to Hana to
Hillarys head of IT on the benefits of Business Suite for Hana
optimise processes
Julian Bond, head of ICT at Hillarys, has found that Hana gives Similarly, using Hana with SAP’s Business Warehouse
Tackling the the blinds maker a definite speed boost. speeds things up significantly. Hillarys has managed to cut
confusion over Hana “Are we seeing the promised 50% speed improvement across overnight processing times by 60%, although Bond has not
implementation the piece?” he says. “No, but you certainly see benefits in terms attempted to replicate what some larger SAP customers have
What are the
challenges around of anything query-related or data-intensive. We use SAP’s on- done and spend lots of money putting in accelerators to allow
Hana that are holding premise CRM [customer relationship management] product, for real-time processing.
customers back?
which has always been known for running like a dog. But when “I don’t want real-time P&L, for example – I want everyone
we stuck Hana underneath it, for once the expletives were of in the business looking at the same numbers,” he says.
joy, not of derision. And in terms of the core ERP suite, Bond notes that
“Before, if you had a short call with a customer, the call would running the monthly accounts to send to the Office for
probably be over before their details appeared on screen. So National Statistics used to take 20 minutes, but it now takes
people developed stalling tactics to keep customers on the line under a minute.
longer, and subsidiary processes using Outlook or notes on “And when it comes to material requirements planning, where
the screen. Since implementing Hana, customer information is we used only to be able to do it once a week, we can now run
available instantly, call times have dropped and customer satis- it daily because it’s so much quicker, which allows us to deliver
faction has risen.” wider benefits for the business,” he says.

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in-memory database, you need to retrain. Rules that had served Centiq’s Webster stresses the importance of business readi-
hosting services me well for 30 years are no longer appropriate. For example, ness. “Ensure the functional area of the business you want to
What differences Hana archiving is very different. As the database is already com- implement in is ready for S/4,” he says.
from traditional SAP
architecture are pressed in memory, archiving doesn’t make it smaller and can “For example, the HR [human resources] engine that many SAP
introduced by Hana? actually make it bigger,” he says. customers know and love is not supported in S/4 because SAP
Lewis Marston, CEO at SAP supply chain and digital transfor- assumes that you will use its SaaS [software as a service] offer-
Hana speeds up mation specialist Rocket Consulting, recommends that organi- ing, SuccessFactors. And some areas probably just don’t have the
customer service
for blinds maker
sations take a holistic view of their application landscape and agile capability you need for S/4 Hana.”
Hillarys switched roadmap so that a strategic decision
its SAP CRM from can be made with alignment to the Security and patching
Oracle to Hana to
optimise processes SAP application roadmap. “A clearly “R egular patching will be Finally, businesses should pay par-
defined data strategy is a must ticular attention to security and
Tackling the before moving to S/4 Hana,” he required as the product patching, given the newness of
says. “Data without value will, even Hana. Alex Ayers, co-founder and
confusion over Hana
implementation with the high storage compression matures .O rganisations ’
change consulting director at risk man-
What are the
challenges around that is available in Hana, drive up management processes should agement consultancy Turnkey
Hana that are holding infrastructure costs significantly.” Consulting, urges businesses to
customers back?
be ready to support this ” keep on top of security.
Look at the roadmap Alex Ayers, Turnkey Consulting “S/4 Hana is relatively new tech-
Marston also urges companies to nology and important updates are
consider their organisation’s cloud provided through SAP Notes and
strategy or constraints. This requires a strategic look at SAP’s each new release,” he says. “Regular patching will be required as
roadmap to the cloud for some line-of-business systems to the product matures, and organisations’ change management
avoid capability gaps. processes should be ready to support this.”
Because any implementation is unlikely to be a like-for-like Ayers says security of the system should be given as much
replacement, Marston says businesses should consider how attention as roles and users. “Vulnerabilities are being reported
the new and old systems can co-exist for an initial period until frequently and organisations must have the ability to assess the
S/4 Hana is fully functional. risks and apply timely fixes or mitigations,” he adds. n

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