With the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition 2402 update, we are bringing a new round of exciting innovations.
Over the last year, artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the world by storm and captured our collective imagination – and it has been a clear focus for us. We see a lot of potential in how AI can improve user and organizational productivity: doing things faster, making better decisions, and automating business processes. We have been embedding intelligent capabilities in our product regularly and will continue to invest in AI to help organizations be successful.
Simply Ask Joule
Available through the SAP Early Adopter Care program, Joule, our AI-powered copilot, can redefine user interaction, streamline business processes, and enhance productivity. It can offer quick, contextual access to content and applications; users can simply ask Joule for guidance and get pointed in the right direction.
Catch a glimpse into the future of AI in ERP and find more information about the development of AI and Joule in SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition here.
Improve Productivity with Embedded AI
The 2402 update also enhances productivity across various business processes through embedded AI capabilities. Examples include:
- Sales order auto-completion helps accelerate sales order creation and processing by providing smart input field recommendations.
- Automated material inspection helps streamline material inspection for customer returns, enhancing logistical efficiency and flexibility.
Adopt a Modern and Collaborative User Experience
The launch of spaces and pages in the SAP Fiori design system can offer a more intuitive user experience, enabling better task organization and quicker resource access. Highlights include:
- The new My Home space helps enhance personalization for end users, including personalization export/import and improved language support for System News. Watch a video to learn more.
- Collaborative stage view integration facilitates information sharing in Microsoft Teams, helping to enhance collaborative efforts across platforms. Watch a video to see it action.
- Contact card collaboration is now possible by initiating chats, calls, or video meetings directly from the To Do section in My Home. Watch a video to see how.
Transforming to Intelligent and Sustainable Finance
One important aspect is treasury and risk management, where IDC MarketScape has positioned us as a leader for SaaS and cloud-enabled enterprise applications. Our latest finance enhancements are specifically designed to help elevate businesses into sustainable, intelligent enterprises:
- Enhanced compliance through improved risk management can increase transparency and process health, helping to ensure a more robust compliance structure in your financial operations.
- Integrated financial planning with CO2e insights in SAP Analytics Cloud allows planning alongside economic sustainability goals. This can provide a dual perspective on financial metrics and environmental impact, aiding in the development of eco-responsible strategies and identification of related financial risks.
- The integration with Planon Real Estate focuses on seamless data management for enhanced efficiency in real estate and contract management processes.
Powering Service-Centric Companies
We have seen a spike in service-centric companies using SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and were named a leader in this area by Gartner. Based on feedback from our customers and partners, we are continuously improving the product experience. Examples include:
- The Project Control – Professional Services Projects app can offer a detailed project overview, enabling managers to monitor project health and address issues like missing time entries, pending invoices, or unassigned roles. This can allow for more proactive and efficient project management.
- The improved billing solution helps prevent revenue losses and streamline billing processes for increased flexibility and accuracy. Enhancements include editing billing due dates, merging billing plan items, and creating preliminary billing documents, all within the Manage Project Billing app.
- The SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP)-based module of SAP Subscription Billing is tightly and seamlessly integrated. It can support customers’ transitions to subscription-based commercial models. Effective and detailed profitability analysis becomes instrumental to maximize revenue with tailored subscription-pricing models with the seamless support of profit centers. Take a look at our brand-new interactive value journey.
- Advanced solution order management can elevate your sales strategies. By integrating sales kits into solution orders, we provide the tools to help enhance your solution selling approach, working to ensure that every sales opportunity is maximized for optimal results, enhancing the process from ordering to billing and accounting.
Boosting Manufacturing and Product-Centric Companies
The enhancements for product-centric companies help elevate operational efficiency, streamline processes, and unlock new revenue opportunities. Gartner named SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition as a cloud ERP market leader for product-centric enterprises. Highlights of the 2402 update include:
- For manufacturing sectors operating under the produce and sell standard products model, we now offer integration between SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and the SAP Integrated Business Planning application for demand. This synergy allows you to leverage comprehensive data insights for precise production planning, helping to ensure that your manufacturing processes align seamlessly with market demand.
- Efficient third-party order processing (TPOP) is tailored for businesses in a two-tier ERP setting and can simplify direct shipments from suppliers to customers with enhanced order fulfillment, greater sourcing flexibility, and reduced logistical expenses.
- The automatic linkage of equipment to service contracts helps improve the combined sales of a physical good and a service and enables you to increase revenue by selling combinations of physical products, one-time services, and recurring services. This also helps to avoid errors and reduce manual effort.
Enhancing Global Reach
We further invested in localization, so our software complies with local regulations and cultural norms:
- With the 2402 update we are introducing new local versions for Kuwait, Oman, Kazakhstan, and Slovenia to meet specific regional requirements.
- We extended the business scope in our standard 59 local versions, responding to customer needs and enhancing local compatibility.
- We enhanced scope in our Customer Local Version countries (formerly CLT) to include baseline, finance, and now product-centric capabilities, catering to a wider range of customer needs.
And So Much More…
Throughout this year, we will deliver many more innovations that help bring value to your business. For more details around what is being delivered for the 2402 update, see the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition release info. For more information on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition:
- Visit the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition community
- Watch product videos on our SAP S/4HANA Cloud YouTube playlist
- Explore the early release webinar series here
- See what’s new here
- Visit our product page on the SAP Help Portal site
- Explore extensibility options by leveraging sample scenarios from SAP in the SAP Extensibility Explorer tool
- Learn more about SAP Business AI
Arpan Shah is SVP of Public Cloud ERP Product Management at SAP.