SAP provides a choice of platforms and paths to S/4HANA go-live to support businesses with their digital transformation. But are businesses taking the SAP deadline seriously and will there be a bottleneck of implementations with a limited talent pool?
What’s an SAP Model Company?
While many business prefer their own systems and processes, and thrive on software they can endlessly configure and adapt to their needs, SAP has created a group of templated S/4HANA setups that do just the opposite. The SAP Model Company service has been created to provide high quality configurations built for specific industries, with tried and tested tools that benefit implementation and operational efficiency in a particular industry. The approach is to provide SAP customers with the know-how for their line of business, meaning SAP customers using this model adapt their processes to the preconfigured software rather than having to configure their own.
Industries that benefit from SAP Model Company
Currently there are 16 packages available for industries such as automotive, oil and gas, consumer products and retail, as well as 11 packages for different lines of business such as finance, HR and supply chain planning. You can find the full list here
SAP relies on their users to gain feedback and improve their offerings. To create their latest models and build on their existing ones, they have carried out research and tested mid-size and large companies from across Europe and the Americas who were already using their models.
- Festo, a German mechanical engineering company reported 50 percent increase in speed during their implementation of the SAP Model Company for R&D/Engineering and Sustainability. They also reported that 80 percent of their requirements did not need customisation.
- Zambon, an Italian life sciences company that implemented SAP Model Company for Finances reported that they practically skipped the entire first phase of the implementation process, allowing their employees to concentrate more on their regular tasks.
- La Europea, a wine, spirits and gourmet products retailer in Mexico has transformed their HR processes with the implementation of SAP Model Company for HR, reducing employee turnover by 20% with processes to attract the right talent, quicker on-boarding and improving engagement with new talent.
Benefits of SAP Model Company
It’s a ready-made setup, it has been tested, and this route to implementation is faster than normal. Some of the benefits of using this method are:
- Provides preconfigured processes and data for the relevant industry or line of business
- Access to leading practices, processes, accelerators, implementation guides and latest innovations and upgrades
- Fast to deploy and easy to use
- Simplification of the different phases required for a new deployment
- Standardised processes that help improve operational costs, spend on custom code and innovation adoption
- It’s an end-to-end industry solution
- It can be combined with SAP Value Assurance or SAP Advanced Deployment service packages
Snapshot of S/4HANA adoption rates
Market research firm IDC recently surveyed 300 SAP clients. They report that only 9 percent had already deployed S/4HANA, 18 percent are currently deploying and 73 percent stated they will move to S/4HANA within the next three years. There is no doubt the shift to S/4HANA is happening and no company wants to lag behind.
Plans for the future
SAP recommends SAP Model Company for deployments of S/4HANA and SAP SuccessFactors, and will soon also support C/4HANA. It can be used in on-premise and hybrid platforms.
SAP will be launching six further Model Companies but have even bigger plans: they recently announced that they will host SAP Model Company services in the cloud to provide a more flexible environment and allow customers to identify the best configuration for their needs. SAP are currently working with five different partners, including IBM and Accenture, to gain further insight and best practices and are planning to expand to include another ten partners to help them combine everything customers need for their transformation to an intelligent enterprise.
