Cloud computing refers to using the internet to deliver digital services over the internet instead of using dedicated data centers and software. With recent advances in network technology, cloud computing has become both reliable and economical enough for businesses to sit up and take note.

Increasingly, businesses are realizing that cloud computing allows them to focus on their core competency instead of running IT support teams. Not only is this more cost effective and also gives companies access to the latest technologies without having to scale up in terms of IT expenditure.

For some, transforming a traditional brick-and-mortar business into a digitally-powered company can be easier said than done. Replacing legacy systems in place for many years and retraining employees to operate the new systems can be time consuming. Company executives and business heads can also be shy of entrusting mission-critical operations to cloud services.

Fortunately embracing cloud computing and using your company’s digital transformation for value creation does not require you to have a double PhD in Artificial Intelligence technologies. The SAP S/4HANA Cloud – an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tool – integrates your business processes with easy-to-use visual interface to fully understand the business value and benefits of cloud computing and determine the adoption strategy and roadmap in alignment with your priorities and business. Best part of this is that one can experience the abilities of S/4HANA with a free trial. Here are some of the business operations that the trial version can help you with:

Purchasing

A purchaser would be able to easily create a purchase order, post a goods receipt notice, and create an invoice. In addition to this, early payment requests can be created (using SAP Ariba solutions).

Production and Quality Management

A production planner can manage forecasted demand, monitor and manage material shortages, and schedule MRP runs. A quality inspector can verify the quality of the inspection lots and take usage decisions.

Project management

A project manager would be able to easily create, plan, staff, and bill customer projects, and perform event-based revenue recognition.

Unlocking the full potential of S/4HANA

According to a 2016 Gartner study “Market Guide for Service - Centric Cloud ERP Solutions,” it is estimated that, by 2018, 50 percent of applications hosted in the public cloud will be considered mission-critical by the organizations that use them. With intelligent ERP systems such as S/4HANA, you can deliver new levels of organizational agility, business insights and customer services previously thought impossible. Here are some of the key value areas of SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

• S/4HANA can be deployed rapidly across the organization but is also capable of a two-tier deployment for branches and subsidiaries. One can go live in matter of weeks, saving huge project and deployment.
• Its intuitive interface and responsive design reduces training time and enables fast user actions and decisions.
• It supports cloud combinations (hybrid approach) with on premise systems, and other cloud offerings, coexisting in a business environment and provides the ability to scale up the cloud footprint as needed. This can be very useful for expansion and M&A activities like feasibility analysis, business process consolidation, and IT system integration.
• Sap’s subscription-based model means that there are no upfront costs or initial investment. This shifts costs from capital expense to operating expense to free up funds for other business priorities. According to Forrester, Global Business Technographics Software Survey, November 2016, 73 percent of organizations consider lower total cost as a deciding factor for moving to a cloud service.
• SAP’s constant support ensures that your business will be fully compliant with local regulations, which includes tax support, accounting rules, and preconfigured audit reporting and legal compliance with respect to data residency as per regional requirements. Also quarterly releases help ensure that organizations stay up to date on compliance regulations.
• According to Cisco’s “Global Cloud Index: Forecast and methodology” study, by 2020, 92 percent of workloads will be processed by cloud data centers whereas only 8 percent will be processed by traditional data centers. As the S/4HANA runs on the cloud it has a built-in disaster recovery to ensure business continuity, i.e. no risk of downtime due to server crashes.
• Due to its built in machine learning capabilities S/4HANA can provide actionable insights to quicken decisions, maximize resources, and drive profitability and give predictive suggestions delivered in context to the user.

Request a personal demo of intelligent, cloud-based ERP software from SAP.