A familiar adage reminds us that “success favors the bold.” To SAP, those words are more than a saying. They’re woven into our DNA.

Since our beginnings in 1972, SAP has led with a bold strategy. That spirit continued through to our pivot to the cloud five years ago and, more recently, with Joule, our powerful AI copilot.

I spoke about this during our latest SAP Global Partner Summit at SAP Sapphire in Orlando, joined by SAP Executive Board Members, including CEO Christian Klein, COO Sebastian Steinhaeuser, and SAP Product and Engineering Head Muhammad Alam, during an exciting, live-streamed keynote.

Our boldness has paid off. SAP was named Europe’s most valuable publicly traded company this year, and our cloud revenue has surged more than 25 percent. SAP continues to dominate our market because we have the boldness to change and influence the direction of our industry.

What’s even more notable is that we are shaping the future together with our partners, which had their best year ever in 2024. Partners are leading the change with us across everything we do — from introducing new customers to SAP innovations to extending our growing portfolio, especially as demand for proven AI value continues to take off.

To top it off, it is our customers that see some of the biggest wins. Our partners ensure our customers achieve true business transformation, enabling them to operate, provide products and services, and compete at their best. We are committed to their success today and tomorrow — and that’s why we have to make our next bold move together.

SAP Business Suite: Harmonized business applications, AI, and data

The SAP Global Partner Summit highlighted the opportunities SAP Business Suite offers our partners and customers. Our vision of the suite evolves Software-as-a-Service into Suite-as-a-Service. Only SAP has it — unrivaled AI, unmatched data, unparalleled applications — offered together in one seamless experience, and the opportunity is enormous. SAP Business Suite will help customers solve their toughest business challenges like never before.

With the suite, partners can meet customers where they are and grow to unlock their full potential. It sets up customers for the clean core they need to scale, but also represents incredible upsell and cross-sell opportunities for SAP partners, regardless of partner type.

Beyond this, SAP is introducing new SAP Business Suite packages to simplify customers’ engagement with the SAP portfolio. This new approach aligns capabilities and product offerings with customers’ lines of business. Partners can guide customers to the best-fit packages that deliver the integration, intelligence, and additional functionality needed for their specific business.

Even more opportunities for partners

To drive growth and empower our partners to innovate and scale at their best, we are also bringing our “A” game with leading initiatives that demonstrate our unwavering commitment to their success:

• We announced the new SAP Referral program, launching in North America in the third quarter, that rewards partners for every lead they can’t close on their own.
• This year, we launched partner-led territories globally, allowing partners to become more self-sufficient across the entire Customer Value Journey.
• Our award-winning SAP PartnerEdge program has evolved to be even stronger,including a new leveling framework focused on cloud performance.
• We’ve adapted our commercial models for software partners to ensure they are integrated into SAP Business Suite, with new packages that include partner solutions to help deliver the full end-to-end experience to our customers.

How to capitalize on partner opportunities with SAP

There are four key actions for partners ready to seize the great opportunity that SAP Business Suite and our evolving partnership create:

• Autonomy: Learn more about partner-led territories and begin taking more control of the Customer Value Journey, with enablement and support from SAP. Always lead with SAP Cloud ERP as a sustainable growth engine. The opt-in window is now open, and SAP will continue to expand territories.
• Quality: Customers will benefit from optimal performance and scalability when partners apply RISE with SAP Methodology to every project. Ensuring that customers preserve a clean core and use our integrated toolchain will deliver a smooth transition to the cloud.
• Innovation: Building complementary solutions to SAP Business Suite using SAP Business Technology Platform. Partner solutions are a key component of our value proposition.
• Learning: Explore the SAP Learning Journey for SAP Business Suite on SAP Learning Hub and understand how we integrate applications, data, and AI across all functions to enhance business processes from end to end. Partners also have the opportunity to elevate their credibility in the market by earning SAP Business Suite certifications.

Focusing on these four key areas will allow our partner ecosystem to capitalize on the opportunity of SAP Business Suite.

Winning together

Now, more than ever, partners must demonstrate their commitment to driving customer value, backed by deep technical expertise and business transformation experience.

We need to work together, much like a sports team, each identifying our strengths, committing to the position we’ll play, and building our skills. And, as in the story of a championship team, it starts with belief. That belief will propel us to deliver exceptional value for our customers.

Be bold, and we’ll be unstoppable together.

Karl Fahrbach is chief partner officer of SAP.

• SAP Business Suite enables industry-leading enterprise functions and connected intelligence with AI-driven insights
• Packaged service offerings from Accenture are rightsized for speed and ease to help customers quickly grow and secure their businesses

NEW YORK and ORLANDO — Through a strategic expansion of their longstanding partnership, Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) have launched ADVANCE.

For the first time, the two companies have worked together to create a pathway to the cloud for organizations pursuing high growth with annual revenue of up to US$5 billion to help create more connected, intelligent and responsive enterprises.

Drawing on more than four decades of learnings from working with the world’s largest organizations, Accenture and SAP are applying their expertise and breakthrough innovations to help fast-track business transformation with streamlined finance, procurement, supply chain and workforce management, delivered through preconfigured services. The ADVANCE offerings leverage the power of SAP Business Suite — which brings together business applications, data and AI capabilities — combined with Accenture’s industry, innovation, implementation, delivery and operations expertise to provide connected experiences across the enterprise while building resilience and enabling sustainable, top-line growth. 

Available in ready-to-consume, rightsized packages, the solutions leverage AI to help companies modernize faster, in as few as six to twelve months, while providing contextual data insights and achieving predictable outcomes. Tailored by industry and function, they provide a smooth service experience, from contracting to continuous innovation.

“This expansion of our longstanding partnership with SAP will tailor leading technologies, industry insights and innovation to meet the specific demands of high-growth companies to help them reinvent, thrive and grow,” said Julie Sweet, chair and CEO, Accenture. “By bringing together the very best of Accenture and SAP, ADVANCE can help growing companies gain the speed, agility and resilience they need to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of today’s dynamic business environment.” 

“To drive real transformation, companies need technology and services that help them move faster, operate more efficiently and scale with confidence,” said Christian Klein, CEO of SAP SE. “ADVANCE brings the full strength of SAP Business Suite with Accenture’s business transformation services to a new generation of businesses, helping them grow quickly and respond with agility to new opportunities and challenges.”

To support the unique needs of this customer segment, Accenture will invest in a dedicated practice of go-to-market and SAP-certified SaaS professionals, who will collaborate closely with SAP product specialists to deliver these packages. The purpose-built packages are focused on the following principles:

• Simple: Streamlined systems and process complexity. Preconfigured industry processes and best practices improve workflows and lower costs. 
• Secure: Reliable and secure business operations with strong encryption, access controls and centralized data management to help improve integrity and compliance.
• Fast: Rightsized solutions with transparent pricing can be implemented quickly, achieving business outcomes in months. Industry-tailored accelerators speed time to value and measurable business outcomes, from simplifying financial complexities to supply chain planning.
• Future-ready: Respond to changing market conditions faster, while leveraging continuous innovations, including AI agents. Enhance decision-making with data and AI for better customer experience and resilience.

Additional SAP Business Suite offerings and Accenture services are also available, including change readiness, business process management, cybersecurity, AI agents and more.

Visit the SAP News Center. Get SAP news via LinkedIn and Bluesky.

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with approximately 801,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. Our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at accenture.com.

About SAP

As a global leader in enterprise applications and business AI, SAP (NYSE: SAP) stands at the nexus of business and technology. For over 50 years, organizations have trusted SAP to bring out their best by uniting business-critical operations spanning finance, procurement, HR, supply chain, and customer experience. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

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