Scandal in restricted area

It's no secret that not all existing SAP customers have yet completed the release upgrade from ERP/ECC 6.0 to S/4 Hana. Some may want to tackle the Herculean task this year: Maybe it will take longer due to a lack of resources, maybe an inserted process mining will steer the conversion in a different direction. Perhaps some existing SAP customers will not be able to complete the release upgrade until 2027 or 2030, and then the question will very well arise: How up-to-date are Hana and S/4?

SAP and DSAG were deeply irritated by our question. The author and inventor of this consideration was indirectly threatened with excommunication from DSAG. An inquiry from E-3 Magazine to SAP CEO Christian Klein was not even responded to. Scandal in the restricted area: Currently, it makes the impression that E-3 Magazine has once again been guilty of lese majeste - we apologize!

Naturally, we know that ERP software from SAP is continuously being developed. It is therefore not surprising that old R/3 Abap code can still be found in the modern S/4. For medium-term ERP planning, however, it would be interesting to know what SAP is planning after 2030. Of course, SAP will continue to maintain and support Hana and S/4 after 2030, but by then Hana will be 20 years old and S/4 15 years old - an eternity in the fast-moving IT scene.

The January 2022 issue of Manager Magazine sees SAP CEO Christian Klein in a defensive battle against Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, -Oracle, Snowflake, UiPath and Celonis. The fact is that Christian Klein is fighting with very blunt weapons, making it very likely that he will lose the battle. SAP's Hana database is over ten years old, S/4 is almost as old, and much Abap code in S/4 is much older still. Ten years is an eternity in the fast-paced IT scene. So is the S/4 strategy 2022 still up to date?

What is frightening about this scenario is the fact that SAP is planning with Hana and S/4 into 2030 and beyond. Even the best Abap modifications on the Business Technology Platform or in on-prem systems do not turn the old construct into a modern ERP. SAP urgently needs a rejuvenation, a retread, an ERP relaunch.

From a business perspective, every SAP system from R/3 to S/4 is still the benchmark in the ERP world. Many business processes from ECC 6.0 and S/4 have become standard. Anyone who maps their organizational structure and processes using IT is on the safe side with ECC and AnyDB as well as S/4 and Hana. There are concerns and criticism regarding the information technology used in the cloud and on-prem. Only a few want to grant SAP technological leadership, especially in the area of cloud computing. The discussion about the current user interface is similar.

Forty years of experience in ERP and business management is still unique. Only SAP has forgotten to talk about the good from ERP, SCM, PLM and also CRM - the ERP world market leader wants to be contemporary, which does not seem mandatory because of the potential. Is double-entry bookkeeping contemporary? But it is still the measure of things in finance.