Part III

Next Steps

In Part II, we looked within the four metaphorical walls of SAP S/4HANA Cloud. We discussed SAP S/4HANA Cloud’s product functionality in depth by business process stream and workflow, including embedded analytics.

In Part III, we begin to look past the walls of SAP S/4HANA Cloud. We’ll explore beyond core SAP S/4HANA Cloud functionality and look at expanding its reach through extensibility within the application and adding complementary applications, via either integration or custom development. Integrated applications can come from within the SAP world (e.g., SAP SuccessFactors, SAP BusinessObjects Cloud, SAP Hybris, etc.) or from the larger IT application world (e.g., third-party payroll software such as ADP, project management software, or other legacy applications). Custom-developed applications, built using SAP Cloud Platform, can provide functionality not covered by SAP or third parties while still providing a user experience consistent with SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Critical in this discussion of extending the application is the promise that these extensions won’t remove a business from the SAP S/4HANA Cloud update path, allowing the company to continue to take advantage of all the new functionality and technology that will be continually released by SAP. By bolstering SAP S/4HANA Cloud with other complementary functions provided by external applications, the utility of SAP S/4HANA Cloud grows exponentially, enabling it to cover a broad canvas of business functions while maintaining a strong SAP digital core.