The features of GROW with SAP and SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud

One of the key decisions that companies have to make when implementing SAP S/4HANA is the question of deployment. Those who choose GROW with SAP opt for SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud. This is associated with certain features and benefits that make GROW with SAP attractive for companies – provided they meet certain requirements.

Is GROW with SAP the right solution for your company?

Regular release upgrades and lower TCO

By choosing SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud, companies benefit from continuous innovation. SAP provides release upgrades twice a year – in February and August – and support packages are rolled out monthly. This ensures that the cloud ERP system remains up-to-date and legally compliant at all times, while the associated costs for in-house IT are kept to a minimum.

The main drivers for the operating costs of an ERP system are modifications and support cases, which together account for around 50% of the operating costs of on-premise installations. Thanks to standardization, automation and a clear lifecycle, SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud significantly reduces precisely these expenses that have to be provided by internal IT (by up to 75%). Overall, SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud has a 25 to 30% lower total cost of ownership (TCO) compared to SAP S/4HANA on-premise. In addition, the regular release upgrades result in lower testing costs and enable better resource planning.

Standardization with best practice processes

Another factor that speaks for GROW with SAP is the fast and efficient implementation of the standardized cloud ERP system. This is ensured by preconfigured best-practice business processes, which are provided as part of the fit-to-standard approach. The legal requirements of the various countries are covered by preconfigured country versions. In addition, further country versions can be created with the SAP Localization Toolkit.

SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud offers a range of options for customizing. Customer-specific developments must be implemented as side-by-side extensions on SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). GROW with SAP thus contributes directly to the “Keep the core clean” approach, in which innovations are realized in the agile environment on SAP BTP and thus independently of the SAP S/4HANA system as the digital core. This also ensures the release capability of SAP S/4HANA at all times.

GROW with SAP and RISE with SAP in comparison

Challenges in relation to GROW with SAP

However, it must also be mentioned that GROW with SAP is certainly not suitable for all companies and SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud does come with certain challenges. The public cloud is a pragmatic approach: The business processes are adapted to the system and not vice versa. The principle of continuous improvement also plays an important role, meaning that the solution is constantly being optimized in an agile approach. An open mindset is required for users to embrace these innovations and accept the associated consequences for their work.

In some areas of the company, standardization in particular can prove to be a challenge. For example, finance and controlling work with many individualized reports, which means that employees have to change the way they work. Consequently, key users should be given sufficient time to familiarize themselves with the changes. SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud also represents a turning point for IT, as the procedure is exclusively Fiori-based.

For which companies is SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud suitable?

GROW with SAP is primarily aimed at small and medium-sized companies with an annual turnover of up to 2 billion euros. These are often new SAP customers. SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud is the right solution for companies that pursue a cloud-first strategy and may already have cloud systems in use. Likewise, newly founded companies that emerge from the spin-off of a business unit, for example, often opt for SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud as they have no historically grown processes and want a scalable ERP system.

In general, GROW with SAP is suitable for companies with more linear processes that are closely aligned with the SAP standard and have a low level of customization, as well as for organizations that always want to be up to date with the latest releases. Hybrid scenarios are also possible, in which highly complex processes in production are separated from less complex processes in sales organizations, for example. In such cases, SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud is used to map the basic processes, while SAP S/4HANA on-premise or SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud is used for the complex processes.

Conclusion: Fast, scalable, cost-effective

GROW with SAP enables the efficient and fast implementation of standardized cloud solutions with little need for individualization. SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud offers clear advantages in terms of time and costs. GROW with SAP is ideal for companies that want to get started quickly, rely on standard processes and benefit from low TCO. On the other hand, those who require extensive customization in the system are probably better off with SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud (RISE with SAP) or SAP S/4HANA on-premise.