I originally started to write my thoughts on this, one week before Christmas, as many SAP customers were tying up the loose ends from 2019, yet another busy year. So many SAP updates, small business change requests – all on top of the big new SAP projects demanded by your business execs. 

Now that Christmas seems like a distant memory and we are in full flow of the New Year and, indeed the new decade. It’s time to ask the obvious questions such as “What’s next” and “What will be different in 2020”? 

Well one thing for sure is that our beloved IT industry isn’t very good at standing still. New technologies jump onto our radar screens all the time. So, before we look at likely SAP Trends in 2020, let’s take a look at that technology radar screen – what will be the fast-moving new dots? 

If we were to ask our friends at Gartner this question, this would be their answer:

1. Hyperautomation

2. Multiexperience 

3. Democratization 

4. Human augmentation

5. Transparency and traceability

6. The Empowered Edge

7. The Distributed Cloud

8. Autonomous things

9. Practical Blockchain

10. AI security

If you want to dig deeper, just click here: https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-top-10-strategic-technology-trends-for-2020/

But another thing we have learned is that the real-world of the SAP customer moves much more slowly. So, here’s the first SAP trend that I think you can expect in 2020, now that you’ve recovered from all the festive fun.

SAP Trend 1: S/4HANA uptake picks up

We all know about S4 and the 2025 “deadline”. Have you seen our previous discussion on this: https://www.sapture.com.au/news/when-will-your-business-be-live-on-sap-s4-hanna/46596/ ?

Well in other parts of the world, even in skeptical old UK, S4 adoption has picked up. We’re not talking exponential growth, but rather linear growth. Many customers that can get away without a business case, or can indeed build their own cunning business case, will start their ECC-to-S4 journeys in 2020. An interesting place to start is to explore the SAP Business Scenario Recommendations, which are based on your actual usage of ECC (https://news.sap.com/2019/09/move-sap-s4hana-business-scenario-recommendations/?source=email-en-newscenter-newsletter-20191009&sap-outbound-id=4AABDABFAF99E043066028F88DF28EF18EB97350&utm_source=SAPHybris&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2603&utm_term=NEWS_MEE_ALL_191512_1_NewsCenter_EN___Main%20offer&utm_content=EN ).

Recent research in the UK has predicted a worrying S4 skills shortage (https://resulting-it.com/SAP-S4-HANA-Consultant-Skills-Shortage ). This is likely to be mirrored her in ANZ, where SAP is seeing increased S4 uptake and the need for more partners with the right skills (https://insidesap.com.au/mark-hettler-highlights-sap-demand-for-partners/ ). 

Next week I’ll be discussing the second SAP Trend that I think you can expect in 2020; increased cloud adoption. In the meantime if you are need advice on local skills availability in ANZ, then Sapture can help.

Dr Derek Prior spent 19 years as an analyst specializing in SAP at Gartner and AMR Research, advising organizations all around the world on SAP strategy and best practices.