If you’re on SAP ECC, S/4HANA is going to be your final destination, but that doesn’t mean it should be your first stop. The steps it takes to move to Business Suite on HANA are also the first stage of an S/4HANA migration. Here’s how that first stage can help you, and why it may make sense for you to pause at Suite.

1. Improved Performance – Business Suite on HANA yields substantial performance benefits over ECC. HANA is designed to be fast. It keeps all data in memory, which eliminates a major performance bottleneck. It also is structured differently, using an innovative column-based structure that combines OLAP and OLTP into one database. In addition to decreasing the memory footprint, this dramatically speeds up complex analytical processes in particular.

2. Demonstrating ROI – If you’ve been on ECC for years, your company may be reluctant to commit the resources to a major transformation. Business Suite on HANA is a great first step to demonstrate the value of HANA, while controlling costs and minimizing disruption.You’ll be able to show ROI from faster reporting, better visibility, and improved productivity due to both Fiori and performance improvements. If you combine HANA with a cloud migration, you can even show reduced TCO — particularly if you partner with a strong managed services provider.

3. Migrating and Modernizing – Moving to the cloud, switching to a managed services model and revamping your system to address performance and stability issues are all significant projects. If you’re an ECC user looking to make major changes to your landscape, hosting or staffing model, it makes a lot more sense to combine those projects with a migration to Suite on HANA.This will accelerate the project, decrease costs and disruption and give you the opportunity to address long standing problems like poor performance more effectively.

4. Getting Ready for S/4HANA – HANA performance, real time visibility and other features change the limits of what ERP can do, beyond the immediate benefits of Suite. S/4HANA applications can provide new departments use case and industry-specific functionality, tailored to your company’s needs. However, getting the most out of S/4HANA is complicated.You need to take a deep look at how your business processes are structured, and restructure those processes to meet your strategic goals in a different software suite.

Moving to Business Suite on HANA is often the best first step on a journey to S/4HANA. You can gain a better understanding of what the software is capable of, gather information and feedback from stakeholders, and plan the move to S/4 when you’re ready.

You’ll also be doing the preliminary work required for an S/4HANA upgrade. During your move to Suite, your partner will upgrade SAP, clean your data and perform other needed changes to your landscape, giving you a head start on your move to S/4.

Business Suite on HANA — The Right Upgrade at The Right Time

SAP Business Suite is a powerful upgrade, that can bring major improvements to your landscape. While S/4HANA can take those gains even further, stopping at Suite to establish ROI and prepare for the next stage is often the most effective strategy.