Over the last few years, organizations have been increasingly interested in adopting SAP S/4HANA Cloud as the backbone for their transformation initiatives. However, transitioning from a legacy on-premise ERP to our cloud ERP is not a matter of delivering imagined expectations but providing what the business needs today while leaving room to evolve in the future.

Every business comes with its own challenges and goals – that’s why SAP S/4HANA Cloud is not implemented with a one-size-fits-all approach.

However, with the design authority service, companies can ensure the implemented solution is scalable, flexible, and aligned with the unique business strategy of each customer. The strategic service from SAP can support critical design decisions that can result in a smooth implementation and maximize the value of the cloud ERP.

Understanding the Value of Design Authority

The design authority service can provide a structured framework for decision-making, risk management, and quality assurance throughout the transition process.

One of the key advantages is establishing a design review board – a space where design decisions are rigorously evaluated and challenged. Every decision is aligned with clearly defined goals so the business can identify risks early in the process, avoid performance bottlenecks, and integrate all systems – from SAP to third-party solutions – reliably.

In return, organizations can confidently transition and optimize the value of the cloud ERP over the long term with:

• Commitment, where SAP experts immerse themselves in the organization’s challenges and situations 
• Ownership that leads to accountability for decisions and outcomes
• Responsibility for delivering consistent reliability and dependability when completing tasks and fulfilling commitments

The service spans across their entire transition effort, providing:

• Design oversight: The implementation of SAP S/4HANA Cloud is aligned with the organization’s strategic goals and business requirements based on a thorough review and approval of design proposals, architecture diagrams, and technical specifications.
• Standards and best practices: Consistency, reliability, and maintainability of the system design and development are prioritized across different projects and teams.
• Risk management: SAP solution architects assess and mitigate risks associated with SAP design decisions, considering scalability, security, performance, and compliance with industry regulations.
• Collaboration: Close collaboration of various stakeholders – including business users, project managers, architects, developers, and IT operations teams – helps ensure SAP S/4HANA Cloud meets business needs and technical requirements.
• Quality assurance: Appropriate testing, validation, and documentation are carried out throughout the development lifecycle.
• Continuous improvement: Monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of SAP design approaches and practices enables the identification of improvement areas and implementation of changes as necessary to help optimize performance, efficiency, and innovation.

Tailoring the Journey – Greenfield, Brownfield, and Everything in Between

A well-planned implementation and careful management are critical to the success of an optimized investment in SAP S/4HANA Cloud. For that reason, one of the first decisions organizations must make when transitioning to SAP S/4HANA Cloud is choosing the right implementation strategy.

During this early phase, organizations need the flexibility to choose between a more technical conversion (brownfield) or a fully cloud transition (greenfield) that allows them to rethink their process landscape completely. But more importantly, they should also be able to explore a broad range of options between those two extremes. They include shell conversions with a larger volume of reused processes and a mix-and-match strategy with a high level of process redesign.

The design authority service can be pivotal in guiding customers toward the best path for their unique circumstances. Tailoring the journey to a company’s specific conditions and needs helps ensure the adoption of the right technologies and the fast creation of business processes for the future.

Take, for example, a large multinational enterprise that recently transitioned to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Faced with an aging legacy system and complex business processes across multiple regions, the company relied on SAP’s design authority service to choose a hybrid strategy. By combining elements of both greenfield and brownfield approaches, the company could streamline operations while maintaining critical legacy functions.

Creating a Best-in-Class Design

Once the journey is chosen, the design authority service helps organizations consider several critical factors early in the transition initiative to help ensure the cloud ERP is scalable and flexible enough to grow alongside the business.

One crucial consideration is adherence to SAP standards and best practices. When organizations deviate too much from standard functionalities, they expose themselves to increased costs and complexity. By closely following SAP guidelines, companies can enjoy smoother upgrades and integration with other SAP and third-party systems while enhancing overall efficiency and reducing operational risks with a clean core.

By seeking this guidance from the service’s experts well before the transition, organizations can proactively address – and remove – design-related performance bottlenecks.

For instance, SAP and third-party systems can be integrated to deliver a continuous flow of data and processes, which is critical for long-term performance. Systems can be arranged to work together harmoniously and provide accurate, timely data across the enterprise.

Even after going live, the SAP team monitors and evaluates the solution’s effectiveness, making necessary adjustments to optimize performance. This can lead to an implementation of SAP S/4HANA Cloud that remains relevant and efficient as business needs evolve.

Additionally, organizations are also kept informed about future standard functionalities. By staying current on SAP’s future developments, they can make better strategic decisions and plan their IT investments wisely. Moreover, future capabilities are better aligned, keeping SAP solutions relevant and effective as new features and updates are released.

Catalyzing Meaningful Transformation

SAP S/4HANA Cloud is designed to be a living system that evolves and scales as business needs change and new technologies become available. With the technology, businesses, and industry expertise that the design authority service offers, organizations can be sure that their cloud ERP solution will continue to deliver the capabilities they need to stay competitive in an ever-changing landscape.

Want to learn more about the design authority service from SAP? Check out the SAP Services and Support overview brochure.

Dirk Dreisbach is chief business enterprise consultant for BTS Consumer Products and Retail Industries for SAP Germany.
Alexander Klammrodt is premium engagements lead for SAP Switzerland.

As the landscape of cloud-based enterprise solutions continues to evolve rapidly, the relationship between SAP and our dedicated network of partners becomes increasingly vital for our customers. At the core of this partnership lies the unique and exclusive SAP Preferred Success offering, designed to empower our partners with benefits that are unparalleled in any other traditional partnership model.

Central to this collaboration is the access to experts, tool insights, and resources provided through success planning, which serves as a blueprint to help partners maximize customer success. The joint approach between our partners and SAP can give customers immediate access to experts who can provide specific advice and solutions that help maximize the value of the cloud. This can not only enable our customers to get what they need, but it also helps ensure their long-term satisfaction and confidence in their cloud investment.

Our partners’ businesses are reaping tremendous benefits, too. With SAP Preferred Success, SAP partners can have a foundation for more efficient deployments, faster incident resolution, and lower project overruns – laying the groundwork for their profitability and growth potential.

Driving Cloud Adoption with Continuous Engagement

A key advantage of SAP Preferred Success is that partners can work with SAP to innovate and deliver a range of tailored services and solutions that align with each customer’s business case.

This shared effort between SAP and our partners helps enhance cloud consumption and adoption through five essential services:

• Feature adoption planning and success checks: Partners work with customers to plan and adopt relevant features that align with their desired business outcomes.
• In-depth release guidance: Customers receive help in planning for new feature adoptions to help maximize the benefits of SAP solutions.
• Targeted training programs: Key users and administrators are empowered with knowledge on relevant topics and best practices.
• Advanced support and enhanced target service levels: Customers can benefit from quicker incident response times and expanded resolution targets.
• Customer success experts: Customer success experts coordinate exclusive content, resources, and planning methods to help accelerate cloud adoption.

In the context of SAP Preferred Success, our partners play a pivotal role. They can offer advisory and implementation expertise, helping ensure customers can take advantage of the latest innovations and industry standards within a suite of cloud solutions from SAP. This can not only mitigate risks and lower costs, but it can also provide customers with best-in-class support and guidance throughout their journey, making our partners an integral part of the success story.

In addition, as SAP deploys the latest innovations and features, SAP Preferred Success can complement partner skill sets with expertise on new features and capabilities, as well as guidance on best practices learned across tens of thousands of customers. Our ongoing support and commitment to innovation can better ensure that partners and customers are always at the forefront of the cloud industry, with access to the latest tools and resources to help drive their success.

Strengthening the Partner-Customer Relationship

Through the adoption and operation scenario within the flex model for SAP PartnerEdge Cloud Choice, SAP partners can own the overall customer relationship. This responsibility extends to driving customer success activities in collaboration with a customer success partner from SAP who helps orchestrate the delivery of SAP Preferred Success services, whether the sale is direct or indirect.

The role of the customer success partner enables SAP partners to drive value across the customer lifecycle through successful solution adoption and ongoing renewals that foster account expansion. That includes encouraging the creation of a success plan and providing inputs to define business goals and key performance indicators. Customer success partners can further assist partners by hosting release guidance sessions, offering exclusive learning content, and booking one-on-one sessions with certified SAP experts to help address configuration needs and discuss best practices.

By working closely with a designated customer success partner, partners can proactively manage potential issues and avoid escalations of critical customer situations. This can be achieved through regular communication and collaboration with the customer success partner, working to resolve problems or concerns promptly and efficiently. Partners are consistently included in customer interactions and are the first to receive defined outputs from completed activities. Doing so helps ensure alignment of messaging presented to the customer, giving partners the opportunity to address potential concerns, add their recommendations, and propose services to implement the next steps.

For partners such as Innovabee, this level of teamwork with SAP provides a faster and easier path for migrating customers from outdated ERP systems to a modern, cloud-based ERP, such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition. Focused on adopting the solution instead of adapting, the SAP partner can emphasize a user-centric approach that encompasses real-time process visualization, agility, scalability, and ease of maintenance.

Innovabee’s engagement with customers in various industries is a shining example of the benefits of SAP Preferred Success. With a customer success partner’s assistance,  the SAP partner can connect its customers with SAP experts to help create and agree on innovative and relevant solution recommendations, gain guidance on adoption of new functionality, and quickly access continuous learning. This approach helps enable customers to adapt to a new way of working efficiently, showcasing the transformative power of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and maintaining peace of mind through and beyond solution deployment.

“As a partner, we always highly recommend that our customers opt for a subscription of SAP Preferred Success to amplify the business impact of their SAP solutions. We see easier adoption of new innovations, better user experience, and overall faster time to value for all parties,” shares Florian Häußler, CEO at Innovabee GmbH.

Delivering High-Quality Services That Build Success

The collaborative approach between SAP partners and SAP – facilitated by SAP Preferred Success – is a pivotal factor in enhancing the cloud journey. Customers can confidently navigate the complexities of the cloud landscape, knowing that they have a trusted partner in SAP that is committed to their success and growth.

And for SAP partners the model is even more empowering. By freeing up their capacity, partners can serve more customers effectively, leading to an enhanced customer experience, accelerated innovation adoption, reduced risks, and access to expertise in the ever-evolving cloud landscape.

Ready for a more rewarding approach to the cloud journey? Explore how your partner business can leverage the advantages of SAP Preferred Success and SAP PartnerEdge Cloud Choice, flex model.

Andreia Bessa is global program lead for Enterprise Cross Solution Sales at SAP.

WALLDORF — SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) announced today its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2024.

• Current cloud backlog of €15.4 billion, up 25% and up 29% at constant currencies
• Cloud revenue up 25% and up 27% at constant currencies
• Cloud ERP Suite revenue up 34% and up 36% at constant currencies
• Total revenue up 9% and up 10% at constant currencies
• IFRS cloud gross profit up 26%, non-IFRS cloud gross profit up 27% and up 28% at constant currencies
• IFRS operating profit up 29%, non-IFRS operating profit up 27% and up 28% at constant currencies
• SAP raises its 2024 outlook for cloud and software revenue, operating profit and free cash flow

“Q3 was another strong quarter for SAP, and we are confidently raising our 2024 financial outlook. Cloud revenue growth developed remarkably well in the quarter, especially for our Cloud ERP Suite. Even more importantly, we are making strong progress on Business AI with groundbreaking innovations such as SAP Knowledge Graph. A significant part of our cloud deals in Q3 included AI use cases.”

Christian Klein, CEO

“We are very pleased with our third quarter performance. The 2024 transformation program has already started to yield efficiency improvements. This allowed us to deliver a strong operating profit and free cash flow, while retaining our topline momentum.
We’re now focused on carrying that momentum into Q4 to safeguard the achievement of our 2025 ambition amidst a highly volatile environment.”

Dominik Asam, CFO

Read the Quarterly Statement

SAP recently announced enhancements to its spend management solutions, which intend to enable businesses to streamline operations, gain actionable insights, and drive growth. SAP’s spend management solutions have long been an essential part of modern business operations, providing companies with the tools needed to control their expenditures across procurement, supplier management, and workforce planning. These […]

The post SAP Spend Management Tools Introduce New AI Capabilities appeared first on InsideSAP.

Syntax Systems has announced its acquisition of Argon Supply Chain Solutions, strengthening its position within the SAP digital supply chain ecosystem. Syntax Systems, a global provider of cloud solutions and services, has expanded its service offerings by acquiring Argon Supply Chain Solutions, a company focused on warehouse management and supply chain optimization. Argon, an SAP […]

The post Syntax Grows SAP Digital Supply Chain Services with Argon appeared first on InsideSAP.

A clean slate sounds great! But it’s a brave call indeed to implement from scratch, especially if you’re a big multinational. Yet a decades-long SAP customer did just that, driven by its own customers’ demand for speed – and a clear mission.

“Our mission is to help the customer be fast-moving,” Takuya Sakai, general manager of Hitachi High-Tech Corporation’s Digital Transformation Business Group, said in an SAP Winning Insights video after appearing in an SAP TechEd keynote last year. “And our corporate vision is a simplified customer process.”

So, in the name of speed and simplicity, Hitachi High-Tech did more than just modify its solution architecture; the Tokyo-based subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. opted for a greenfield SAP S/4HANA transformation. That meant designing and building a new environment customized for its specific needs.

And it did so via an ambitious digital experience program with the goal of helping to simplify its customers’ high-tech processes across nano-technology, analytical and medical, as well as other business categories.