As we see more & more customer moving to SAP S/4 HANA, we have lot of discussion around various offerings of SAP and how is it different from the other offering of SAP.
Looking at the depth of the discussion we have as SAP Consultants amongst our peers or with customers, its important that all of us are having clear understanding of various differences amongst the SAP S4 HANA offerings i.e. SAP S/4 HANA ‘Rise with SAP’ vs SAP S/4 HANA Cloud vs SAP S/4 HANA AnyPremise (On-Premise).
As a SAP Consultant being in the consulting industry for 20+ years and working on RFP’s( Request for Proposals) , i have come across many RFP’s where customer hasn’t finalized on the SAP Product though they are clear that they want to move to SAP S/4 HANA but aren’t clear on which SAP offering they should go for.
The intent of this blog is to help our SAP customers / SAP consultants understand the various parameters which they should assess while contemplating on the SAP Product offering which they want to go ahead with. Hope this blog will help in terms of getting a birds eye view in terms of key parameters & insight on how do various SAP product offering stand against those key parameters for the customers / organizations to make better decisions
| Parameters | SAP S/4 HANA ‘RISE with SAP’ | SAP S/4 HANA Cloud Edition (Public/Essential Edition) |
SAP S/4 HANA AnyPremise |
|---|---|---|---|
| License | Subscription based bundled service on Private Cloud Edition(PCE) or SAAS—controlled by SAP. | Subscription based service but unlike ‘Rise with SAP’ its not a bundled service so for Ariba, Signavio etc. you need to have separate subscription. | Outright purchase of licenses & typically hosted on-premise infrastructure or on Hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, GCP etc. ) where contract is negotiated by Customer. |
| 3rd Party Applications hosting on cloud | Would need to be hosted in separate cloud environment as we don’t have any control for SAAS. For PCE, yes its possible to host on same cloud infrastructure. |
Can be hosted on the same Hyperscalers. | Can be hosted on the same Hyperscalers. |
| Internal IT Support | 30% Basis support is covered in the bundle. Only SAP support for client 000 covered. Rest to be managed by Customer inhouse or through System Integrator for PCE. For SAAS, its completely managed by SAP. |
Not much IT Support investment required as application is completely managed by SAP . | Typically, customer will have a contract with System Integrator for Infrastructure, Application Maintenance. Can be managed through System Integrator or in-house IT team. |
| Landscape — SBX, DEV, QA, PRD, Dual Landscape for AMS & Projects | For PCE, Only 3 systems are covered in the landscape – DEV, QA, PRD. If you have parallel landscape for Projects or if you need Sandbox(SBX) then its not covered in default pricing. For SAAS, starter system is for initial set-up which is later decomissioned so eventually it would be Central Business Configuration, QA & PRD. |
Landscape is governed by SAP with usually only 2 systems (QA & PRD) with Central Business Configuration. | Customer has full control on the landscape, # of systems required, support required from System Integrator etc. |
| Parameters | SAP S/4 HANA ‘RISE with SAP’ | SAP S/4 HANA Cloud Edition (Public/Essential Edition) |
SAP S/4 HANA AnyPremise |
|---|---|---|---|
| SAP Solution Manager (SOLMAN) | Not part of default pricing. Need to go for additional charge if required under RISE or opt for Solution Manager as a Managed Service. | Need to go for additional charge if required. | Customer has full control on SolMan System or can opt for Solution Manager as a Managed Service. |
| 1Hyperscalers Platform | SAP provides us option to choose any of the Hyperscalers platform for PCE. For SAAS, its SAP platform – complete control with SAP. |
Customer can chose any hyperscaler. | Customer has complete control & can negotiate well. |
| High Availability(HA), Disaster Recovery(DR) | Need to pay additional as not covered in default service . | Customer works with Hyperscalers for HA, DR . | Customer works with Hyperscalers for HA, DR . |
| I HANA Database | I HANA Database | Scaling up or down is easier with Cloud Edition. | Customer has flexibility for fractional sizing. Can scale up or scale down depending on the need. |
| Contract | Single contract for Software, Services & Infrastructure as it’s a bundled offering — Signavio, BTP, Ariba etc. | Customer has to sign multiple contracts or get a System Integrator who does it all (not preferred). | Customer has to sign multiple contracts or get a System Integrator who does it all (not preferred). |
| Speed & Agility for Implementation | Just one partner for contract , infrastructure set-up & operations + Implementation services helps customer in terms of speed + agility to implement. | Limited as compared to ‘Rise with SAP’ but better when compared to SAP S/4 HANA AnyPremise. | Customer has to work through mutiple vendors, negotiate etc. hence relatively speed & agility has certain impact. |
| Customization | Flexibility to do custom development for PCE. For SAAS, custom changes through Fiori apps are possible, no IMG access. | Limited custom developments as approach is to Fit to Standard. | Flexibility to add custom developments which is useful especially for complex industry scenarios. |
| Parameters | CSAP S/4 HANA ‘RISE with SAP’ | SAP S/4 HANA Cloud Edition (Public/Essential Edition) |
SAP S/4 HANA AnyPremise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Release Cycle | For SAAS, every quarter release cycle so benefit of getting to use updated functionality. Need to plan every quarter & also need to look at stabilty of the system as changes are introduced every quarter. For PCE, 1 upgrade in every 5 year is mandatory. | Quarterly release cycles which has benefit of being early adopter of updated functionality but have to plan for testing etc. to ensure stability of system. | Annual release cycle which means you need to wait for a year for updated functionality. All changes come at one go which needs significant regression testing. Frequency of upgrade can be decided by customer. |
| Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) | For SAAS, Low as its all bundled in a single contract For PCE, slightly more than SAAS model. | Better than SAP S/4 HANA AnyPremise but it can be more as compared to ‘Rise with SAP’. | Highest due to infrastructure, hosting, support, resources, DR etc. – everything is managed by customer. |
| Timeline for Implementation | Primarily Standard solution hence time required for implementation is relatively less for SAAS. For PCE, it is relatively more than SAAS model depending on the amount of customization required. |
Primarily Standard solution hence time required for implementation is relatively less. | More time required due to complexity because of landscape, business processes, custom developments required etc. unless approach is to ‘Fit-to-Standard’. |
| Standardization | For SAAS, High Standardization as its heavily focussed on ‘Fit-to-Standard’ For PCE, it depends on the amount of customization. |
High Standardization as its heavily focussed on ‘Fit- to-Standard’. Offering is restrictred in terms of standard functions, key processes etc. | Low Standardization due to flexibility of customization. |
| Flexibility | For SAAS, Low Flexibility as not much scope for customization. For PCE, customer has flexibility in terms of customization. |
Low Flexibility as not much scope for customization. | High Flexibilty due to option of customization but customers should be cautious in terms of the extent of customization to be approved. |
Hope this comparison will help our SAP customers / SAP Consultants to take better informed decisions with a clear understanding of benefits related to each option and the options which suits their organizations digital journey.
