Demystifying S4HANA will be top of agenda for customers at 2015 SAP User Group conference

User Group conference will help customers develop strategies to migrate to SAP's next generation Business Suite platform

Getting to grips with SAP's S/4 HANA platform will be top of the agenda at SAP's annual UK&I User Group conference next month, according to the group's chief executive, Craig Dale.

SAP's new Business Suite platform, which runs on the HANA in-memory database, was launched earlier this year. However there have been questions over how and why customers should start to migrate to the new service. See also: S4/HANA: What does SAP’s next generation ERP mean for customers?

Dale told ComputerworldUK that the User Group conference - which will take place at the ICC Birmingham between 22nd and 24th November - will support customers in developing their own road maps.

"Since the last event obviously there has been a lot of questions and thirst for knowledge around S/4 HANA: what does it mean to customers, how can they understand where they sit on the roadmap, and how they can then formulate their roadmap on S4/HANA," he said.

Dale added that there will be keynotes and a dedicated S/4 HANA stream at the event to discuss deployment methods and help clarify what the new platform will mean for old and new customers.

"With anything new that comes into the market it is about 'how do I understand that as a business, and how do I then look at taking advantage of this new technology?'," he said.

"That is what we are working towards in bringing this stream to the members, to really make it clear and to help them understand and again we have a number of sessions from SAP in there really mapping out that roadmap talking about S/4 HANA finance, logistics etcetera, moving forward."

Along with the usual topics on the agenda - such as licensing, application lifecycle management, analytics, payroll and HR - there will be a track covering digital transformation, featuring a presentation from Ray Wang, principal analyst and founder & chairman of Constellation Research.

Speakers at the event include Philip Adams, chairman of the UK & Ireland SAP User Group; Cormac Watters, SAP UK & Ireland’s managing director; Sven Denecken, Global VP Co-innovation and Strategy S/4HANA.

In addition, over 100 breakout sessions will look at topics such as big data, data visualisation and digital transformation.

More information on the SAP UK&I User Group conference can be found here.