Why Consider SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition?

#PublicCloudMadePossible

The cloud conversation isn’t new, but the shift to public cloud models, specifically SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition (S/4HC), is gathering real momentum. As businesses strive for agility, scalability, and lower costs, S/4HC is increasingly the smart choice. But why and why now? Let’s break it down.

While we’re here, if you’re planning to attend the UK and Ireland SAP User Group (UKISUG) Connect conference this December, we’d love to chat face-to-face about how this could work for you. More on that later!

Where Does S/4HC Sit in the SAP ERP World?

The SAP world is full of unique terminology, and at Birchman, we’re always here to help you navigate them. Here’s a quick guide to get you started:

  • Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): the catch all term for enterprise wide systems, which SAP pioneered over 50 years ago!
  • S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition (S/4HC): This article explains SAP’s Software as a Service (SaaS) ERP, designed for businesses of any size. All you need to run it is a web browser.
  • SAP GROW: this is SAP’s offering of solutions, adoption acceleration services, community, and learning. It includes S/4HC and is how you buy it.
  • S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition is designed for larger companies. It helps them move from old ERP systems to an SAP managed cloud service. You can choose where SAP hosts it: Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), or Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
  • SAP RISE is SAP’s solution that includes cloud ERP, process intelligence, and tools for the CFO. RISE is how users purchase the commercial package and S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition. 
  • S/4HANA On-Premise means it is hosted and managed separately from SAP. You can use your own data center, a third-party center, or a hyper scaler like Azure, AWS, or GCP.

The Future is Flexible

The pace of change in the business world is faster than ever. Markets evolve, customer demands shift and businesses need to pivot in real-time. That’s where S/4HC excels—offering flexibility and scalability that other solutions simply can’t match.

With S/4HC, you get a modular system that adapts as your business changes. It allows you to start small, grow fast and pivot on the fly—all while ensuring you only pay to grow S/4HC when your business does. 

In other words, it’s business on your terms.

Innovation Without the Overheads

S/4HC delivers innovation straight to your doorstep. S/4HC is a true SaaS solution which means regular, automated updates ensuring you’re always working with the latest and greatest capabilities.

Gone are the days of costly and time-consuming upgrades that disrupt operations. With S/4HC, updates happen seamlessly in the background. SAP notifies you in advance about upcoming changes so you can review and prepare. Updates are applied first to the development environment, allowing for testing before they go live, ensuring a smooth transition while your team stays focused on results.

Think of it as innovation on autopilot, without the added strain on your IT budget.

Built-In Best Practices

S/4HC isn’t just about technology. It’s about delivering industry-leading processes straight out of the box. SAP has poured over 50 years of experience into crafting solutions that align with the best practices across industries.

When you deploy S/4HC, you’re not just buying software; you’re tapping into years of business process refinement. This means faster implementations, fewer customisations and quicker return on investment (ROI).

Why reinvent the wheel when you’ve already got the keys to a Formula 1 car?

Want to see how these best practices could fit with your business? Let’s discuss it at the UKISUG Connect event this December.

Security You Can Trust

Let’s address the elephant in the room: security. A top priority for any organisation moving to the cloud is essential and rightly so.

SAP’s rigorous global security standards back S/4HC. Your data is hosted in state-of-the-art data centres with built-in compliance for industry regulations. Whether you are managing sensitive customer data or important operations, you can trust SAP to keep your information safe.

Because peace of mind? That’s priceless.

Cost-Efficiency Done Right

With S/4HC, the pricing model is built to scale with your business. Gone are the upfront costs and the hidden extras that come with any-premise hosting. Instead, you move to an operating expenditure (OPEX) model, paying for the size of system you actually want.

This not only reduces waste but makes your budget far more predictable. With the cloud, those days of under-utilised hardware gathering dust are firmly in the past.

In short, it’s a leaner, smarter way to manage your technology spend.

Fast-Track to the Future

We live in a world where staying relevant means staying ahead. S/4HC enables businesses to keep pace with rapid innovation. Whether it’s integrating AI and machine learning or tapping into advanced analytics, S/4HC positions you for future growth, without having to rethink your entire IT infrastructure. The system evolves with your business, offering you the tools to turn data into insight and insight into action.

So, why choose S/4HC? It’s simple. Agility, efficiency and future-proofing—all in one solution.

If you’re interested in taking your business to the next level, let’s grab some time at the UKISUG Connect conference this December and map out what that could look like for you.

Closing Thoughts

Businesses today face an increasingly complex landscape, with pressures to innovate, reduce costs and grow—all at the same time. S/4HC isn’t a magic bullet but it’s close. By embracing this solution, you’re not just adopting technology. You’re equipping your business with a flexible, scalable and cost-effective foundation that will help you tackle tomorrow’s challenges head-on.

At the end of the day, it’s about outcomes. With S/4HC, those outcomes become a lot more attainable. 

Here at Birchman we can help you on every step of the journey from a friendly chat through to management consultancy, advisory, licences, implementation and support services from our UK based teams or through our United VARs global alliance including 70 partners covering 100 countries. 

Ready to explore how S/4HC could transform your business and start with that friendly chat? We’ll be at the UKISUG Connect conference in December—where you can book a meeting with us. It’s the perfect opportunity to have an in-depth chat about your goals and how we can help make them a reality. If you don’t have a ticket yet, just let us know and we can help you out with a discount code!

If you’re not attending the UKISUG Connect conference, you can chat to our team today by completing the “Contact Us” form below.