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The question is not For or Against SAP HANA, but When?

Continuously increasing volumes of data to be processed, the necessity to take real-time

decisions and regular add-ons to the existing infrastructure all drive demand for more agile

ERP systems. For SAP users this means that at some point they have to decide to adopt

new technologies such as the HANA in-memory-technology. Whilst in general the future

direction may seem clear, it remains difficult to decide on the right moment when an

investment will best pay off. “A sound business case makes the decision easier,” says

Diana Bohr, CTO of West Trax, a company with extensive experience in the analysis of

ERP systems. Bohr says, “What is really important is not only to decide to make an

investment in HANA but to ensure maximum added-value is derived from it. Facts are

needed to establish which processes in a system will profit most from HANA and in what

way“.

Filter out the relevant transactions

Not all transactions in a system will profit equally from an in-memory database. Therefore

it is particularly important to know which processes will obviously benefit the most and to

optimise the system accordingly. “20% of all transactions may provide up to 80% of the

benefit realised through SAP HANA,“ Bohr explains. That means that the focus should be

on the processes, as well as on modernising the infrastructure and updating the whole

system. Bohr says experience has shown that CIO’s often make their decisions without

exact knowledge of really important key system data.

Important: data quality

Primarily HANA accelerates business suite applications that already work efficiently.

Workarounds, processes outside of SAP and inefficient or low performance custom code

programs will not get the best benefit from HANA. Also manual actions and idle periods

will not profit from the in-memory technology either. All the processes involved in the

system cannot be accelerated in the same way. “The higher the data quality provided for

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an analytical process within SAP, the greater will be the benefit from HANA,” Diana Bohr

states.

Intelligent assessments

For the establishment of a business case West Trax takes a critical look at the client’s

ERP systems and examines the following conditions. What do all the individual processes

look like? Does the enterprise explicitly use SAP core processes or does it rely mainly on

individual in-house customisation? Are the processes standardised and efficient or have

they evolved historically? “Redundant data from different sources with different content

cannot deliver reliable and resilient results,” Diana Bohr says. An assessment requiring

minimal client resources rapidly provides decision makers with neutral, automated ratings

that offer resilient facts that can establish a firm foundation for comprehensible decisions.

Combining facts and intuition

During its analysis West Trax considers analytical as well as transactional processes. Only

a very clear identification of all relevant transactions in a system will ensure the

compilation of a comprehensive business case. Bohr says, “Ultimately the question should

not be “Do we need HANA?” but “How can we use HANA in the most effective way?” “You

cannot and surely don`t want to stop progress so it’s best to start thinking about HANA

early“.