Introducing SAP S/4HANA 1610
http://news.sap.com/introducing-sap-s4hana-1610/
Following on from the success of the on-premise 1511 edition of SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management, SAP released SAP S/4HANA 1610 on October 31, 2016.
With brand new functions and significant simplifications across lines of business (LoB), the addition of the full SAP S/4HANA Finance scope, and the SAP Fiori 2.0 user experience, SAP S/4HANA 1610 continues where its predecessor left off on its mission to reinvent ERP for the digital age. Here we take a look at some of these highlights in more detail.
From the start, SAP S/4HANA was designed to enable businesses to both master the challenges and leverage the benefits of digitalization for businesses. As the modern digital core, it serves as the nerve center of the enterprise. Built on the SAP HANA platform, SAP S/4HANA has the power to significantly accelerate the speed of both transactional and analytics performance and radically reduce an organization’s data footprint. As a system of intelligence, it offers decision-making support, simulation, pattern recognition, and prediction capabilities to help organizations transform from the reactive to the proactive.
Integration not only between departments, but also with suppliers, customers, the workforce, and the Internet of Things makes immediate and valuable insights across an entire business a reality. SAP S/4HANA 1610 has built on and further advanced all of these capabilities to create the most innovative on-premise release yet.
Next-Generation UX with SAP Fiori 2.0
Starting at the top, one key innovation in SAP S/4HANA 1610 is the SAP Fiori 2.0 visual theme. Using tiles, links, or the search function, users access all the applications they need from one single personalized entry point. Overview pages, list reports, and work lists based on domain-specific information provide tailored task overviews, with notifications alerting users to priority issues. Drilling down, users can investigate and resolve open issues – with the SAP Fiori visual theme applied across the board, even to own developments.
Expanding the Core
Delivering on the simplification road map, a number of important developments are now included in their entirety in the latest on-premise release of SAP S/4HANA.
First, SAP has added the entire scope of SAP S/4HANA Finance. This single source of truth for all financial data means reconciliation is a thing of the past, and the optimized financial accounting processes help companies’ finance experts improve efficiency and ensure compliance. Highlights include real-time understanding with SAP RealSpend and SAP Financial Statement Insights, and parallel valuation methods for legal, group, and profit centers, making reporting profitability for both the group as a whole and individual units possible.
Second, SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM) is now part of SAP S/4HANA. With flexible deployment options, customers can run SAP EWM either as a centralized or a decentralized application with SAP S/4HANA 1610. Innovations, such as the direct use of master data and the supported use of 40-digit material numbers, are now also available. The key benefit comes, of course, with the central consistency that SAP S/4HANA provides. There are no redundancies, no duplications, just a simplified SAP system landscape.
Following on from discrete industries and mill products being moved to the core with SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management, on-premise edition 1511, this latest release includes the industry solutions for retail and oil & gas.
Innovating the Core
SAP S/4HANA not only provides customers with the software to deal with the new opportunities presented by the digital age, such as IoT, Big Data, business networks, and machine learning, it also creates software for entirely new technologies that are essentially the results of this digitalization.
In the age of the smart product, one of the new topics addressed by the latest on-premise release, is that of embedded software. Whether it is in our phones, cars, or household appliances, “built-in” software has become ubiquitous. With SAP S/4HANA 1610, completely new capabilities support manufacturers in the management of this kind of software across the entire product lifecycle.
Businesses can accelerate new product development by responding quickly to information gathered from their intelligent products, leverage requirements-based product design and impact analysis, and monitor the product development status, including design, quality, and development progress.
At a glance: The key innovations and enhancements with SAP S/4HANA 1610
Another important new development with SAP S/4HANA 1610 is the optimized portfolio and project management solution, an SAP S/4HANA add-on (subject to separate licensing agreement) that focuses on supporting project managers and portfolio managers. SAP has completely redesigned the way a user interacts with the system to enable optimum efficiency.
Further additions include advanced availability to promise functionality, integrated quality management, and SAP S/4HANA for international trade.
Enhancing the Core
SAP S/4HANA 1610 is not, however, just about the new additions to the core. Building on the extensive simplifications delivered with SAP S/4HANA, on-premise edition 1511, the latest on-premise release has also enhanced solutions such as inventory management and accelerated material requirements planning.
The Go-To Release
With its extensive set of new functionality, this is, without doubt, the new go-to release for all companies in all industries embarking on their digital transformation. To learn more, explore the following links:
The 1610 page – everything you need to know in one place: sap.com/s4-onpremiserelease
Simplification list for SAP S/4HANA 1610
Press release – SAP S/4HANA Enhancements Accelerate Digital Transformation Adoption
Discover the best practice content for this release – to follow
For more information about the full portfolio of SAP S/4HANA products, in the cloud and on premise, visit:
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Rudolf Hois is vice president and chief product owner for SAP S/4HANA On Premise
Tags: SAP S/4HANA
