While SAP continues to steadily add S/4HANA customers, with more than 4,100 now having licensed the in-memory business suite, many current customers remain unsure about the upgrade and its timing. In a survey of 2016 SAP TechEd attendees representing 166 organizations, 48 percent were either unsure of their direction or have no plans yet to upgrade. More than 170 users, from business intelligence managers to IT architects, were surveyed by Excel4apps, a provider of best-in-class Excel-based inquiry and reporting software for use with SAP and other applications.

“As we noted in a recent blog, current SAP customers are eager for more information on migrating to S/4HANA, but uncertain about its ultimate benefits and how to justify the business case for another large project,” said Chris Meyer, President and CEO, Excel4apps. “S/4HANA license numbers continue to grow although there have been few actual implementations, but they still represent only 11 percent of the total SAP ERP base, so there is a wait-and-see attitude, which was reflected in our survey by the 23 percent noting they plan to wait more than 12 months to migrate.”

When it came to reporting tools, 62 percent of SAP TechEd attendees surveyed were reliant on SAP’s standard reporting tools (ABAP reports, Report Painter/Writer, SAP Query, etc.), as well as Business Objects (51 percent) and Business Warehouse/Business Explorer (49 percent). As far as alternative reporting tools, 11 percent of respondents have turned to Excel-based reporting from Excel4apps. In terms of the newest S/4HANA-focused reporting tools, a small number of attendees seemed to be working with Fiori and Lumira, but not many at this point, so S/4NHANA creates an interesting development in the reporting landscape.

“Having solutions that are SAP Certified for Integration with Applications on SAP HANA, Excel4apps is excited about what 2017 brings for our reporting tools, which provide real-time access to S/4HANA data via Excel, as a growing number of users have discovered,” said Meyer. “We look forward to taking further advantage of S/4HANA’s performance improvements and features in our SAP product suite.”

For more information about the Excel4apps Wands for SAP suite of products, visit here.

About Excel4apps

Excel4apps is a best-in-class provider of Microsoft Excel-based reporting and data-loading software for use with SAP, Oracle and other applications. By empowering business professionals in a range of industries with independent and secure access to real-time ERP data via Microsoft Excel, the company’s products expedite accurate and timely business decisions. Excel4apps products include the award-winning GL Wand for financial reporting, as well as software for budget and planning data uploads and other types of reports. Founded in 2005, Excel4apps has offices in North America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia to serve the needs of both local and global multinational companies. For more information, visit www.excel4apps.com.