Co-Author: Anil Kumar

Wish you a very happy new year 2022!! We are back in 2022 to update you on what’s new in Two-Tier ERP with SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2202 Release. If you missed our innovations in 2021, click here for a recap.

Predictive Maintenance with Service Integration

With our first scenario innovation, we see how headquarter & subsidiaries can leverage the SAP Internet of Things with SAP Asset Intelligence Network in a secure cloud-based information exchange for equipment manufacturers, operators, and maintenance providers in a Two-Tier ERP Set up. SAP Asset Intelligence Network is an asset business network that enables the scope of Industry 4.0 and the next generation of Intelligent Asset management. With more emphasis on movement of customers from product-based business models to solution-based business models, customers now prefer product or equipment on rental basis from Original Equipment Manufacturer to avoid capital expenditure. To understand this better, let’s see a process where customer places a contract with the Headquarter for an equipment. Equipment is delivered to the customer as a consignment and updated in master as equipment at customer location. The parameters or indicators are maintained in equipment master. IoT sensors in the equipment ensure key parameters are monitored and information relayed to Original Equipment Manufacturer. Through predictive analytics from the indicators, maintenance order is triggered. The service providers are informed of the repair or service required with the customer and equipment details. Monthly rentals are charged against the contracts for the period when the equipment is at customer location. Between the headquarters and subsidiary, vendor invoicing is done for the service or repair carried out on the equipment.

For deep dive into this innovation, click here.

Improvements in Group Reporting

In Two-Tier ERP Group Reporting scenario, the consolidation specialist at headquarters overall gets several improvements like the SAP Group Reporting Data Collection apps on SAP BTP to automate the mapping, transformation, and data load from subsidiary companies on SAP & non-SAP systems, the ability to add comments, adjust, and enrich the group reporting data through a guided visual control with pre-delivered Forms or custom Forms with formulas and conditional formatting. Increased flexibility with extensibility for FS item attributes & Consolidation Unit and finally deeper financial insights and analytics capabilities with Group Financial Statement Review Booklet.

The much-awaited Group Financial Statement Review Booklet is getting generally available with 2202 release and thus the headquarter can get financial insights with integrated analytics component within the Fiori app. Inbuilt help features, flexible analysis with slice and dice, drilldown capabilities, tabular and graphical format, auditable financial results with complete audit trail and drill down to operations documents are some key features.

For deep dive into Group Financial Statement-Review Booklet, watch the video below.

You can also read a detailed blog here.

Product Footprint Management Innovations

We saw our first use case in SAP Product Footprint Management for purchased materials and now we see further integration of footprints into Purchase requisition Fiori apps within SAP S/4HANA Cloud. We get SAP Sustainability Control Tower powered by SAP BTP which gives holistic steering and reporting based on financial as well as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) indicators giving automated, timely, and auditable ESG reporting against a variety of regulations, standards, and ratings. We get SAP Product Footprint Management Analytics Dashboards as pre-delivered content on SAP Analytics Cloud which gives footprint analytics for purchased materials, supplier inflow analytics, supplier inflow heatmap, inventory analysis, inventory heatmap and inventory table view. Towards the end of Q1, we also get the footprint calculation template for manufactured products based on cost estimate & bill of material details from headquarter & subsidiary companies & the integration back in Two-Tier ERP systems. Also new APIs for Data Acquisition to support SAP S/4HANA customers on former releases as well as ECC customers in Two-Tier ERP landscape. Stay tuned.

For deep dive into SAP Sustainability Control Tower, watch the video below –

SAP Learning hub

SAP S/4HANA Cloud 2202 Early Release Series – Replay

Whitelisted APIs

SAP has also released several APIs to facilitate Two-Tier ERP deployment. The details of the APIs can be found in API Hub and also in What’s New Viewer. You can use these APIs to integrate different systems and build new business use case scenarios with SAP S/4HANA Cloud.