As many of you may have seen, a couple of weeks ago, SAP announced plans to offer a new on-premise HCM option for SAP S/4HANA. The solution will be available in 2023, with maintenance planned at least through until 2030.
The announcement has created a fair amount of debate – it is worth checking out a series of articles Dennis Howlett at diginomica has written on the subject. So, after a short period of reflection here is our initial thoughts on the news.
We welcome the announcement as it brings more choice for our members. From all the events we run and discussions we have with you, every organisation moves at its own pace. The S/4 HCM announcement is further acknowledgement from SAP that customers are all moving at a different speed when it comes to cloud and/or S/4HANA. Simply extending support for the existing R/3 SAP HCM product would probably be very difficult, especially as support has already been extended from 2020 to 2025. Considering this is seven years away, it seems reasonable for SAP to be encouraging users to move to S/4 rather than extending the deadline further.
Our recent member surveys have also highlighted that many users have concerns regarding the integration of legacy (SAP HR) and new apps (SuccessFactors) with S/4HANA. To an extent, the S/4 HCM announcement does begin to help address these concerns. However, without seeing the product and without more information on its scope, it is difficult to judge the complexity of the migration at this stage. We were also pleased with SAP’s intentions to offer a license conversion programme in recognition of customers’ existing investments, and look forward to hearing further details over the coming year.
Some of you might be thinking, why would I look at this when my IT won’t be on-premise in seven years’ time? Don’t forget, we welcomed the SuccessFactors UK User Group into the fold last year, to help us further educate existing members around the product and its future roadmap.
As ever we will work closely with SAP to provide members with the information they need in order to make an informed decision about their future HCM requirements. Do check out our HR SIG for further info and discussion in the coming months.
