Introduction

After attending SAP TechEd in October 2015, and presenting a session at the New
Zealand SAP
User Group (NZSUG) later in the year on this topic, I had requests from both partners
and
customers for more discussion around the impact of SAP HANA on the future of SAP
development
teams.
With SAP HANA now taking off as the new digital core for the SAP juggernaut, there is
no doubt
that the impact on existing SAP development teams, who implement and support SAP
solutions, will
be significant. With the rise of SAP HANA, the ways in which SAP technical teams
deliver services
to their SAP customers (inhouse
or external), will need a rethink. Teams and their managers should
consider how they can prepare themselves to ensure they remain effective in delivering
this new
breed of SAP HANAbased
solutions.
Looking ahead, SAP development teams will have many questions, such as:
What new skills and training do we need?
What development tools should we use and how do we set them up?
What is our role going to be and what should we focus on?
How will our team deliver and support HANAbased
solutions?
What happens to traditional SAP development? Is it still relevant?
How will this align with our organisational goals?
How will we structure our teams in the future?
What strategies and methodologies will we introduce or modify to adapt to HANA?
Impact on SAP Development Teams
SAP HANA introduces new technologies and platforms, challenging the status quo.
Consequently,
existing SAP technical teams will need to look at how they adapt to these new
challenges.

The impact on development teams could include:

The need to acquire new skill sets
The use of new development & platform tools
The requirement to establish new strategies and methodologies
The need to revise team roles and structures.
This article discusses these areas of impact, and highlights the key actionpoints
required for SAP
practitioners and their managers to be better prepared and remain effective in delivering
new SAP
HANAbased
solutions to their customers.
The context of this discussion is specific to an SAP technical team and the focus is on a
few key
areas only. However, the introduction of SAP HANA has a far wider impact on all kinds
of
organisations (both partners and customers), and deserves its own scrutiny in a broader
sense.
Developers Need New Skillsets
In addition to traditional ABAP skills (as in ABAP programming e.g. Workflow, Reports,
Interfaces,
Conversions, Enhancements, Forms), new HANA development skills are now required
in areas
such as HANA Modelling and Development, Development Tools, Programming
Languages and