As businesses seek to optimize their SAP deployments and extract unparalleled value, understanding the essence of Clean Core and its synergy with SAP BTP emerges as a pivotal stepping-stone. Wondering if this might apply to your situation. Ask yourself these questions, are your critical business operations burdened by a plethora of customizations? Do these customizations predominantly reside within your procurement domain?
If so, it's time to explore the concept of Clean Core and discover how it could revolutionize your SAP procurement landscape.
At its heart, Clean Core is a synergy of two distinct yet interwoven components: "core" and "clean." The core, in this context, embodies the fundamental elements of an ERP system, encompassing extensibility, processes, data, integration, and operation. The capabilities of this core hinge on the chosen software-stack and its implementation. On the flip side, "clean" signifies a state of being up-to-date, transparent, unmodified, consistent, efficient, and compliant with the cloud environment.
But why should Clean Core matter to you? A Clean Core empowers your system to swiftly adapt to evolving business requisites and embrace novel capabilities, all the while ensuring enduring traceability across the core's various facets. This approach brings forth a cascade of advantages, including enhanced agility, as streamlined environments translate to reduced time-to-value. Efficient operations also take center stage, as the absence of maintenance for redundant elements slashes costs and complexity. Additionally, the journey from data to value becomes seamless, yielding reliable forecasts and precise predictions.
While Clean Core holds transformative potential, several misconceptions often cloud its true essence. One such fallacy is that the Business Technology Platform (BTP) is the sole conduit for attaining and maintaining a clean core. Contrary to this, Clean Core spans beyond custom code and extensibility, embracing a holistic approach. Furthermore, its scope extends beyond the mere assessment of total cost of ownership; it's a strategy that fosters efficiency, traceability, and adaptability.
You can work with the SAP Integration and Certification Center to check that the extension or add-on that follows the best possible, cloud-ready development practices for SAP ERP solutions. There is also an SAP certification for clean core with SAP S/4HANA Cloud designations that you can look for, or you can ask the provider if they meet these standards as part of your evaluation.
If you are currently in the process of making this evaluation, you might consider adding the clean core compatibility to the existing list. You can access the template here.
As a partner we can confirm that clean core applications, that partner applications follow a certain methodology in development and delivery to SAP customers. All newly built extensions and classic ABAP Add-Ons are highly encouraged to follow these guidelines set out by SAP.
If you choose to purchase a solution that is Clean Core Compatible, you get the additional benefit of your solution automatically meeting upgrades of SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition at any time, shortly after availability of each new release.
If you already have a complex core, you might have the question how do I get the core clean(er)? The answer is through a lengthy process of scanning through all custom code and deciding what needs to be kept and made modern and what needs to be removed to go back to standard.
Depending on the volume of custom code, that can be a lengthy task, especially when considering that decades of code may have been included in the core and will take time to sort out.
As you delve into the realm of SAP procurement, the notion of Clean Core emerges as a beacon of efficiency and innovation. Streamlining your systems through a clean core approach equips your procurement endeavors with the agility to meet evolving demands, the efficacy to eliminate redundancies, and the foresight to chart a well-informed course.