What is an SAP Model Company?

SAP Model Companies are pre-configured and ready-to-use SAP S/4HANA systems with end-to-end processes. They are tailored to a specific industry or line of business (LoB). The selected processes are based on the SAP best practice standard.

What is the difference between SAP Best Practices and SAP Model Companies?

The SAP Best Practices offer processes for cross-industry basic solutions such as Finance, Controlling or Sales & Distribution.

They are prefabricated, integrated and immediately available processes that can be used to fulfil basic business requirements. The Best Practices can be used free of charge.

The SAP Model Companies, on the other hand, cover specific industry or business area functions and processes. A Model Company therefore contains selected Best Practices that fit a specific industry.

A Model Company is fee-based, but offers a more in-depth process view for specific industries and LoBs (such as Customer Experience or Digital Supply Chain).

In addition to the best practices, an SAP Model Company also includes other functions, for example from the SAP Analytics Cloud.

Which SAP Model Companies are there?

SAP has changed the entire concept for the provision of predefined systems in 2021.

If a company wants to activate and use SAP Model Company content for on-premise solutions and SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, it can continue to do so as part of a larger SAP service engagement.

This includes the industry-specific and business unit-specific content known from the Model Company that goes beyond SAP Best Practices.

Accordingly, Model Companies exist in the areas of energy supply or supply chain, while other specific areas for cloud products, such as SuccessFactors, have been transferred directly into the best practice standard.

Companies can still access all predefined solutions via the Cloud Appliance Library.

What are the benefits of the SAP Cloud Appliance Library solutions?

The SAP Cloud Appliance Library not only provides companies with a predefined solution in their own cloud account. They can also immediately access the latest processes and innovations.

This not only accelerates onboarding and training as part of an implementation project, but also the analysis of best-practice processes as part of the prepare phase.

Do the SAP Model Companies make sense when moving to the cloud?

If a project is based on the digital core of SAP S/4HANA, then the SAP Model Companies are more than useful. This is independent of the deployment.

The processes in the predefined systems give the user a good impression of which processes are mapped in the system and how, what the new operating concept FIORI 3.0 looks like and which additional SAP solutions are relevant for the core business.

How can I evaluate my processes on the basis of the SAP Model Company?

Process evaluation on the basis of a Model Company is very simple and can be carried out in a structured and practical way using a real system.

Basically, three different components come together here: the SAP Model Company as a system, the Best Practice Explorer as a blueprint for business processes and the sector- or company-specific know-how of the process experts.

Within the framework of fit-gap or fit-to-standard workshops, companies can go through the individual processes in a system, analyse them and check where there are deviations from the current system or business processes.

The classification of the deviations follows the analysis. This procedure is known from the SAP Activate method and can be considerably simplified and made more transparent by the Model Company.

How can the Model Company support me in the implementation of SAP S/4HANA?

One of the main principles in the implementation of SAP S/4HANA is to reduce the time to go-live - the implementation should therefore be significantly faster than was possible with previous implementations.

SAP is trying to address and support this aspect with the concept of the SAP Model Company through the predefined and compiled processes for specific sectors and industries.

Companies can therefore save time by building on an industry-specific reference architecture and starting from modelled practical processes. The best practice processes are already comprehensively documented and each scope item (instance of a best practice process) comes with a test case "out of the box".

Companies can thus focus on which scope items are relevant for the respective project, whether the standard processes fit the individual requirements and what to do if this is not the case.

What is an Enterprise Management Layer? And how does it differ from the Model Companies?

The Enterprise Management Layer (EML) is a special type of SAP Model Company. It is a global template for SAP S/4HANA implementations for customers operating in multiple countries.

The template for SAP S/4HANA offers - in addition to pre-configured end-to-end business processes in all application areas - sample master data and print forms as well as detailed documentation.

However, the focus of the EML is on complex accounting and reporting requirements. Multinational companies are confronted with these requirements because they have to comply with both intra-group and local accounting principles.

The Enterprise Management Layer for SAP S/4HANA is - similar to the Model Company - ideal for the greenfield approach, i.e. the new implementation of SAP S/4HANA.

In addition, the EML is also suitable as a reference system for new customers or for customers who want to choose the path "back to standard".

Currently, the Enterprise Management Layer is available for SAP S/4HANA, the Private Cloud Edition (service-based deployment) and an on-premise deployment (service-based deployment).

Why is the Enterprise Management Layer unique and why is it the best choice for getting started with SAP S/4HANA?

The Enterprise Management Layer is best suited for companies that are active in different countries. SAP Best Practices are available for SAP S/4HANA in 43 countries and 25 languages. Companies can choose which countries they need and start immediately.

An SAP Model Company, on the other hand, is usually designed for only one country, for example Germany. This means that the configuration has to be done individually for each country, which causes additional costs in the project.

Another advantage of EML is that it can be set up very quickly. This means that a company does not have to activate the SAP best practices individually and thus does not have to train employees on how to do this.

Apart from that, SAP Best Practices do not include cross-company processes by default. The implementation of such requirements usually leads to considerable effort in the context of projects.

The Enterprise Management Layer offers a model solution here with scope items for internal processes between two countries. Companies can transfer these scope items to other countries.

What is the scope of the Enterprise Management Layer?

The scope of the Enterprise Management Layer covers all areas of a classic SAP S/4HANA system.

With the EML, around 160 scope items are activated as standard, which are distributed across the areas of finance, manufacturing, R&D/engineering, sales, service, sourcing and procurement and supply chain. The high number of scope items means that companies can handle almost all end-to-end processes on the basis of the EML.