Published: Dec 30, 2020

NCS helps client automate its finance processes with SAP S/4HANA on AWS

To stay relevant and sustain growth, organisations today are constantly evolving their products and services and this is no different with education providers. Specifically, Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) have ventured into growth areas through the setup of new specialisations to cater to various groups of learners. IHLs have also stepped up their collaboration with industry and government partners on initiatives such as research, training, internship and volunteering opportunities.

The changing landscape of the higher education sector means that areas such as grant and fund management are becoming increasingly complex. IHLs are looking to achieve greater visibility on business performance across all teams and leverage data-driven analysis to drive better decision-making.

As the gatekeeper of key financial and operational data, finance teams in IHLs need to stay agile and employ actionable insights at every turn so that business leaders can make informed decisions.

An IHL client currently uses basic accounting software to maintain its financial records and provide appropriate financial reporting. With evolving financial reporting requirements, they are looking for a financial management software solution that meets their requirements to standardise, harmonise, automate and streamline its financial, operational and business processes. The IHL envisaged a system that not only complies with financial reporting standards and the institute’s accounting policy and procedures but is also aligned with industry best practices.

The IHL partners with NCS to implement a standardised financial management system that can seamlessly integrate its financial, procurement and budgeting processes on SAP S/4HANA Cloud Solution.

The S/4HANA Cloud Solution runs on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and enables real-time analysis using large transaction data in S/4HANA with S/4HANA Embedded Analytics. It will optimally support business users in defined business processes with decision support and information at the users’ fingertips.

• Greater insights and data-driven decision-making from the Cloud-based analytics and business intelligence helps improve forecasts and drive data-enabled decisions, and provides end users with real-time and tailored financial information.
• Enhanced and improved user experience with an integrated digital enterprise platform comprising of SAP Cloud Solutions running on AWS that seamlessly combines information from multiple data sources.
• Higher scalability, fit-for-purpose, best-of-breed and cost-effectiveness of the SAP S/4HANA solution running on AWS platform.
• Ease of system and user administration with Managed Cloud Services.

The IHL plans to further enhance its SAP Solution with an e-procurement system running on AWS that can fully integrate with S/4HANA via SAP Cloud Platform. The solution leverages AWS technologies to optimise cost on a pay-per-use model and provides automation, security and data protection through NCS’ Cloud managed services.