AWS and SAP have announced a new partnership aimed at helping customers accelerate their digital transformation.
SAP has been steadily reinventing itself with a focus on cloud computing. CEO Christian Klein made clear in late-2021 that the strategy was working.
“Our strategy is clearly working. Customers are choosing SAP for their business transformation in the cloud. We see record adoption of our applications and our platform. This has resulted in strong acceleration of our cloud growth.”
The company has been building partnerships with other cloud providers to help customers accelerate their digital transformation and cloud migration. SAP partnered with IBM in early 2022, and has now expanded its partnership with AWS.
“AWS and other infrastructure providers are becoming increasingly important to SAP’s business as we help our customers benefit from digital transformation in the cloud with RISE with SAP,” said Elena Ordóñez del Campo, senior vice president and strategic partner officer, SAP. “Building on our partnership of 15 years, we move into the new year with aligned go-to-market teams in every region, an industry-leading portfolio of solutions enabled by our joint reference architecture, and a growing selection of co-innovations — all ready to help accelerate value for our customers. We look forward to an incredible 2023 together and beyond.”
“This multiyear collaboration will facilitate stronger marketing and co-selling programs to complement our respective technologies,” said Kathleen Curry, director of AWS Worldwide Strategic Alliances. “SAP frequently leans in with AWS to deliver to customers a unified experience as they innovate and evolve their businesses in the ever-dynamic economic environment. This collaboration is an important milestone in our partnership and helps customers modernize faster with accelerated time to value, price-performance, reliability, and sustainability.”
SAP’s efforts to exit the Russian market by the end of the year have been delayed after the company failed to find a buyer.
Like many tech companies, SAP made the decision to pull out of Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine. The company originally set a deadline of year’s end for the pullout but has failed to find a buyer for its Russian business, according to Reuters.
The issue is complicated by Russian legislation that could hold local employees liable for any contract violations, putting the company in a difficult position. On the one hand, it wants to withdraw from the market, but on the other hand, it doesn’t want to leave its current employees with legal issues if the pullout is mishandled and contracts go unfulfilled.
Nonetheless, SAP reiterated its intention to leave the Russian market as soon as possible.
“SAP is fully committed to winding down our business in Russia as quickly as possible,” an SAP spokesperson told Reuters. “Recent legal developments in Russia have, however, limited our options with regard to the final steps of our exit.”
IBM and SAP have announced a deepening of their existing partnership, with the goal of helping more companies move their SAP workflows to the cloud.
SAP is one of the leading enterprise and CRM software makers and, like most companies, is working to help its customers move to the cloud. IBM, while not one of the top three companies, is nonetheless a leading cloud provider. The company even announced its intention to split into two companies, with the main one focused on hybrid cloud solutions.
IBM has now become a premium SAP supplier with IBM for RISE with SAP. The company is also offering its BREAKTHROUGH with IBM for RISE with SAP, “a portfolio of solutions and consulting services that help accelerate and amplify the journey to SAP S/4HANA® Cloud.”
The expanded partnership makes IBM the only SAP partner to provide a complete solution, including cloud infrastructure, managed services, and business transformation solutions.
“We are thrilled to advance our long-standing partnership through RISE with SAP,” said John Granger, Senior Vice President, IBM Consulting. “Our shared commitment is to meet our clients, especially those in highly regulated industries, where they are in their digital journey, while giving them choices for migrating or modernizing their mission critical workloads with a hybrid cloud approach.”
“BREAKTHROUGH with IBM is an outstanding complement to RISE with SAP as it lays the foundation for our customers to embark on or advance their business transformation journeys. Further, it reaffirms the value customers recognize from RISE with SAP and the impact and innovation opportunity RISE with SAP offers to organizations that move to the cloud. I have every confidence that the combined expertise and experience SAP and IBM offer will accelerate cloud adoption and business growth for customers across the globe,” said Brian Duffy, President of Cloud, SAP.
SAP will release its fourth-quarter results next week, but the company has already revealed its Q4 cloud revenue grew a whopping 28%.
SAP is one of the leading ERP companies in the world and, like others, has been focusing its efforts on the cloud. Those efforts are paying off, with a 28% increase in its cloud revenue.
The company is also reporting an increase in its cloud backlog to €9.45 billion, an increase of 32%.
“The magnitude of our cloud strength is evident,” said Christian Klein, CEO. “More and more companies are choosing SAP to help them transform their businesses, build resilient supply chains and become sustainable enterprises as they move to the cloud. This momentum is reflected in the tremendous success of ‘RISE with SAP,’ our signature cloud offering, as well as excellent growth across our entire portfolio. Our growth acceleration points to even greater potential ahead.”
“I am proud that our team has delivered an exceptional year with strong results, far exceeding our expectations,” said Luka Mucic, CFO. “After three quarters of home runs with our cloud momentum, we hit it out of the park this quarter. We are confident that we will continue our Q4 current cloud backlog growth in 2022. This is reflected in our accelerated cloud guidance for 2022 as we make great progress towards our mid-term ambition.”
The company is scheduled to report its full earnings January 27.
SAP has raised its full-year outlook on strong cloud performance as customers increasingly move their business to the cloud.
The global pandemic has accelerated many companies’ migration to the cloud, especially as workers have transitioned to remote and hybrid workflows. Many companies, including SAP, have benefited greatly.
After its third-quarter review, SAP is now revising its full-year outlook, raising it as a result of its cloud performance. The company says its current cloud backlog is up 24% and its cloud revenue is up 20%. SAP now expects its cloud and software revenue to grow 2% to 4%.
“Our strategy is clearly working,” said Christian Klein, CEO. “Customers are choosing SAP for their business transformation in the cloud. We see record adoption of our applications and our platform. This has resulted in strong acceleration of our cloud growth.”
“This has been an excellent quarter across all key financial metrics,” added Luka Mucic, CFO. “We are seeing sustained, strong progress in SAP’s transformation. Our cloud business is growing at an accelerating pace and has led to our improved full year outlook.”
Gone are the days of Linux and Microsoft being rivals, with the Redmond giant embracing SUSE Linux to run SAP applications in Azure.
Anyone who has been around technology longer than the past decade remembers the time when Microsoft was notoriously territorial about its operating system. The company aggressively fought anything it felt was a threat to Windows, including Linux.
The company’s culture shifted under CEO Satya Nadella, with a new emphasis on cloud computing and providing the best software and services on many different platforms. The strategy has paid off in spades, with Microsoft reaching all-new heights.
Microsoft is even embracing Linux, including Windows Subsystem for Linux in the most recent editions of Windows, allowing users to run Linux apps natively. The same is true for the company’s approach to SAP applications in Azure, choosing SUSE Linux as the foundation, according to SUSE’s Paul Fox.
“SLES for SAP Applications makes our complete deployment process way easier. It comes preconfigured with SAP requirements so we can deploy without having to take any extra steps,” Elke Bregler, Principal Service Architect, Microsoft, told Fox. “It also allows us to resize [VMs] without having to change any configurations. It’s quite easy to use and makes for a much better experience for everyone involved.”
SAP’s own trust in SUSE was a major factor in Microsoft’s decision-making process, as SUSE has been an SAP “partner longer than any other open source company.” With so much on the line — proving Azure could be a robust cloud solution — SUSE offered a solid track record that aligned with Microsoft’s needs.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) for SAP Applications soon proved itself a highly available, easy to maintain and fast scaling database management solution. As a Premium Certified SAP Endorsed App, SLES for SAP Applications provides an environment for optimal SAP performance: reduced risk from service outages; less time and effort for system maintenance; and faster services deployment on premises and in the cloud for SAP solutions.
SUSE Consulting provided another major benefit.
The addition of SUSE Consulting completed the picture for Microsoft, providing direct access to subject matter experts, which meant faster resolution times, mitigation of potential issues and the enablement of more precise planning for future projects.
In recent years Microsoft has become a major force within the open source community, a community it once viewed as an enemy. Its success and contributions demonstrate the good that can come when companies embrace open source software.
Google Cloud is in third place in the cloud industry, but CEO Thomas Kurian is remaking its leadership in a bid to be more competitive.
Kurian came to the top spot at Google via Oracle, and made no secret of his desire to move Google Cloud into second place within five years. Despite coming up on three years at Google, the company is still firmly in third place.
According to Business Insider, much of the old guard has been leaving the cloud unit in favor of leadership that is loyal to Kurian, leadership he’s brought in from rivals Microsoft, Oracle and SAP. Urs Hölzle and Eyal Manor are two high-profile Google Cloud execs that have left the cloud unit for other roles within Google.
“As Google Cloud grows, we regularly evaluate the best organizational structure to better scale our business and provide a world-class experience for our customers,” a Google Cloud spokesperson told Insider.
Experts believe Kurian and Google are trying to remake the company’s image in an effort to attract customers and prove Google Cloud is a serious contender.
“They’re shaking out some of the older people,” Dan Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus told Insider. “It’s a message that they’re trying to change and change the direction of the ship so they’re perceived more differently in the marketplace and can become profitable.”
Morgan’s assessment goes hand-in-hand with other changes Google’s cloud unit has made to buff its image, including rolling out Google Enterprise APIs. Google has a well-established reputation for killing off projects, regardless of how beloved they might be, a reputation that doesn’t inspire confidence in companies looking to base their entire business around the company’s cloud platform. Enterprise APIs were introduced as a way of assuring customers they could rely on Google Cloud, and the features it offers, long-term.
With only a couple of years left in his five-year goal, it remains to be seen if Kurian can drive Google Cloud into second place.
SAP and Google are tightening their working relationship, with the two companies partnering to help customers move to the cloud.
Google switched from Oracle Finance to SAP in April, and now Google Cloud and SAP are partnering to help accelerate cloud adoption.
“Google Cloud and SAP share a commitment to supporting customer success and growth. We’re delighted to partner with SAP to accelerate business’ digital transformations with SAP on Google Cloud and with next-generation cloud capabilities,” said Rob Enslin, President at Google Cloud. “Through support for RISE with SAP and in-depth integrations between SAP and Google Cloud, this new partnership will enable customers to seamlessly bring their most critical business systems and applications to a future-proof, secure, and low-latency environment and to run them sustainably, on the industry’s cleanest cloud.”
“RISE with SAP has been adopted by customers who want to accelerate their journey toward becoming an Intelligent Enterprise. We are now expanding our partnership with Google Cloud to further customer success,” said Thomas Saueressig, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE and responsible for SAP Product Engineering. “Offering integration between SAP solutions, SAP BTP, and Google Cloud infrastructure and capabilities in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and analytics gives customers both the choice they desire as well as the innovative portfolio they seek to transform their businesses in the cloud.”
The partnership is not particularly surprising, given Microsoft Azure stopped being SAP’s preferred cloud partner in May. At the time, SAP said they were making the decision due to their customers wanting more choice.
Microsoft and SAP are ending one of the main features of their partnership, wherein Azure was the preferred cloud platform.
Embrace was an SAP program designed to help companies move their workflows to the cloud. Initially, Microsoft and SAP had a partnership built around Embrace that made Azure the preferred cloud choice.
It appears that arrangement is coming to an end, according to Business Insider, a casualty of the escalating cloud wars. SAP’s customers increasingly wanted more choice, leading the company to de-emphasize its go-to-market strategy with Microsoft.
“Our customers made it really clear that the market wants to provide choice and optionality,” SAP senior vice president focused on customer success, David Robinson told Insider. “Choice and optionality means all partners that provide cloud infrastructure to operate SAP workloads are great partners.”
A Microsoft spokesperson told Insider: “We value our partnership with SAP and look forward to continuing to innovate and serve customers together.”
*Correction: An earlier version of this article said Microsoft and SAP may not be on the same page regarding the end of Azure’s preferred status. SAP has clarified the partnership is not ending early and both companies were on the same page.
SAP entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice (DOJ), admitting it illegally exported thousands of copies of its software to Iran.
SAP is the one of the leading enterprise software companies in the world, with a focus on ERP, cloud and IoT solutions. The company does business all over the world, requiring it to adhere to the laws and regulations of the many countries it operates within.
Unfortunately, the company has run afoul of the US, ignoring sanctions and export restrictions against Iran. As a result, SAP has entered a non-prosecution agreement with the DOJ, admitting it sold thousands of copies of its software to Iran, and agreeing to penalties and restitution.
Under the terms of the agreement, SAP will pay combined penalties of more than $8 million. SAP will disgorge $5.14 million of the money it received through the illegal sales.
“Today’s first-ever resolution pursuant to the Department’s Export Control and Sanctions Enforcement Policy for Business Organizations sends a strong message that businesses must abide by export control and sanctions laws, but that when they violate those laws, there is a clear benefit to coming to the Department before they get caught,” said Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers for the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “SAP will suffer the penalties for its violations of the Iran sanctions, but these would have been far worse had they not disclosed, cooperated, and remediated. We hope that other businesses, software or otherwise, we heed this lesson.”
“By supplying Iran with millions of dollars’ worth of illegally exported software and services, SAP circumvented U.S. economic sanctions against Iran—pressure that is intended to end Iran’s malign behavior. However, it was SAP that first uncovered and reported this sanctions violation, and we would like to thank them for working hard to enhance their compliance program to prevent future violations,” said Special Agent in Charge Joseph R. Bonavolonta for the FBI’s Boston Division. “Let this case be a lesson to others that it’s better to self-report and own up to one’s mistakes than undermine U.S. foreign policy and adversely affect our national security.”
Google is reportedly switching from Oracle finance software to SAP, with the move occurring in the next few weeks.
Google made the announcement in an email to employees, seen by CNBC. The move doesn’t appear to be related to Google’s Supreme Court win over Oracle earlier Monday. Nonetheless, there is no love lost between the two companies.
As CNBC points out, Oracle refused to certify its software for Google Cloud for years, costing Google business as some companies were hesitant to use a cloud solution that didn’t have Oracle’s blessing. In response, Google started focusing on SAP deployment with its cloud offerings, rather than Oracle.
That relationship appears to be advancing to the software Google uses in-house, with it adopting SAP’s financial software and migrating away from Oracle.
Microsoft and SAP are partnering to integrate Teams across SAP’s suite of solutions, with the goal of streamlining customers’ cloud transitions.
Microsoft Teams and Slack are the two dominant corporate messaging platforms on the market. Salesforce recently inked a deal to acquire Slack in a move that was seen largely as a way to fend off threats and remain competitive. It’s not surprising that Saleforce’s rivals would want to offer similar levels of integration. This is especially true for SAP and Microsoft, both among Salesforce’s biggest competitors.
The partnerships builds on a joint commitment by the two companies, and will see Teams integrated with SAP S/4HANA, SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Customer Experience.
“New ways of working, collaborating and interacting completely transform how we operate,” said Christian Klein, CEO of SAP SE and member of the Executive Board. “By integrating Microsoft Teams across our solution portfolio, we will bring collaboration to the next level, jointly determining the future of work and enabling the frictionless enterprise. Our trusted partnership with Microsoft is focused on continuously advancing customer success. That’s why we are also expanding interoperability with Azure.”
“The case for digital transformation has never been more urgent,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. “By bringing together the power of Azure and Teams with SAP’s solutions, we will help more organizations harness the power of the cloud so they can more quickly adapt and innovate going forward.”
The new integrations are expected to be available in mid-2021.
Microsoft has announced an expansion of its partnership with SAP to improve supply chain and Industry 4.0 solutions.
SAP is one of the leading enterprise software providers, and the two companies are expanding their partnership “to help customers design and operate intelligent digital supply chain and Industry 4.0 solutions.” The two companies are also working together to promote interoperability in the industry.
The partnership will allow customers to run SAP’s Digital Supply Chain solutions on Microsoft Azure. The solution will run as software-as-a-service (SaaS) on Azure, giving customers the ability to scale as needed and reap the benefits of the cloud.
SAP is excited to bring our proven and innovative solutions to Microsoft Azure for our manufacturing and digital supply chain customers. This partnership gives our customers the ability to subscribe to our digital supply chain and manufacturing solutions in the cloud and enhances our offerings for Industry 4.0. Building on this, SAP solutions will soon be available at the edge in factories, plants, and automated warehouses in close proximity to sensors, machines, and control systems. —Franz Hero, SAP Senior Vice President for Digital Supply Chain Solutions.
The partnership should be a big win for both Microsoft and SAP customers.
SAP turned in disappointing quarterly results, prompting the company to switch gears and focus on accelerating customers’ cloud adoption.
SAP revealed its Q3 2020 results Sunday, reporting revenue of roughly €6.54 billion IFRS. This was a 4% decrease year-over-year, and was down from €6.74 billion in Q2.
“COVID-19 has created an inflection point for our customers,” said Christian Klein, CEO. “The move to the cloud combined with a true business transformation has become a must for enterprises, to gain resiliency and position them to emerge stronger out of the crisis. Together with our customers and partners we will co-innovate and reinvent how businesses run in a digital world. SAP will accelerate growth in the cloud to more than €22 billion in 2025 and expand the share of more predictable revenue to approximately 85%.”
The company emphasized the impact the coronavirus pandemic has had on its performance, warning that some aspects of the business will likely not recover during 2020.
“SAP’s previous full year 2020 outlook issued on April 8, 2020, reflected its best estimates concerning the timing and pace of recovery from the COVID-19 crisis,” the company said. “This outlook assumed economies would reopen and population lockdowns would ease, leading to a gradually improving demand environment in the third and fourth quarters.
“While SAP continues to see robust interest in its solutions to drive digital transformation as customers look to emerge from the crisis with more resilience and agility, lockdowns have been recently re-introduced in some regions and demand recovery has been more muted than expected. Further and for the same reasons, SAP no longer anticipates a meaningful recovery in SAP Concur business travel-related revenues for the remainder of the year 2020.”
As a result of these factors, the company is focusing on the cloud and helping customers transition to it. In its mid-term guidance, the company is planning on €22 billion non-IFRS cloud revenue by 2025, a goal that reflects its new focus. At the same time, because of its focus on the cloud, the company expects traditional software licensing revenue to decrease as it moves forward.
SAP is just the latest company to pivot to the cloud. As the pandemic has changed how companies operate, the cloud has emerged as the single biggest factor in keeping companies and their employees operational.
SAP announced that a new IDC economic impact model predicts the revenue SAP partners generate will nearly double over the next four years.
“The pandemic has driven digital transformation into every corner of the enterprise to allow businesses to adapt and continue operating as usual,” said Steve White, program vice president, channels and alliances, IDC. “As the economic situation continues to unfold and businesses move their focus from resiliency to recovery, those that leverage digital and cloud-based solutions will be more agile and future-proof, and we’re seeing that acknowledgment drive significant adoption.”
SAP commissioned the research to explore the impact of the current economic landscape on the partner ecosystem. The data shows that due to the pandemic-driven increase in remote work, digital transformation efforts are advancing, and companies are expected to spend more on cloud-based solutions. This translates into a $204.4 billion cloud market opportunity for SAP partners from now until the end of 2024. This cloud revenue figure represents 68% of the total net-new opportunity for our partners over that period of time.
“This research confirms the vast and continually growing market opportunity for SAP partners,” said Karl Fahrbach, chief partner officer, SAP. “SAP’s next-generation partnering movement drives partners’ sustained growth by establishing partner-centric sales and service and connecting with customers in new ways across their life cycle. This higher level of ecosystem engagement can increase customer satisfaction, lead to faster time to value and enhance customer lifetime value.”
Just twenty short months after SAP announced their intention of acquiringQualtrics for $8 billion just prior to their IPO SAP is taking Qualtrics public.
“The Qualtrics IPO is actually a win-win situation for both SAP and Qualtrics,” says SAP CEO Christian Klein. “When we are talking about Qualtrics let me first outline that Qualtrics was for sure one of the best acquisitions SAP ever did. They performed in the last 9 months above and beyond all the expectations we have set at the point of the acquisition. Now, three months back when I became the sole CEO of SAP Ryan Smith and I discussed a few options about how to move Qualtrics to the next level.”
“SAP’s acquisition of Qualtrics has been a great success and has outperformed our expectations with 2019 cloud growth in excess of 40 percent, demonstrating very strong performance in the current setup,” Klein stated. “As Ryan Smith, Zig Serafin, and I worked together, we decided that an IPO would provide the greatest opportunity for Qualtrics to grow the Experience Management category, serve its customers, explore its own acquisition strategy and continue building the best talent. SAP will remain Qualtrics’ largest and most important go-to-market and research and development (R&D) partner while giving Qualtrics greater independence to broaden its base by partnering and building out the entire experience management ecosystem.”
“When we launched the Experience Management category, our goal was always to help as many organizations as possible leverage the XM Platform as a system of action,” Qualtrics Founder Ryan Smith said. “SAP is an incredible partner with unprecedented global reach, and we couldn’t be more excited about continuing the partnership. This will allow us to continue building out the XM ecosystem across a broad array of partners.”
SAP agreed to acquire Qualtrics just four days before Qualtrics was to go public in 2018, recognizing the potential of bringing together experience and operational data (X+O) to help organizations take action. SAP currently owns 100 percent of Qualtrics shares. SAP will retain majority ownership of Qualtrics and has no intention of spinning off or otherwise divesting its majority ownership interest. Ryan Smith intends to be Qualtrics’ largest individual shareholder.
Christian Klein, CEO of SAP, discusses the reasons for their IPO and says that Qualtrics has been the best acquisition that SAP ever did:
Qualtrics IPO Is A Win-Win For SAP and Qualtrics
When we are talking about Qualtrics let me first outline that Qualtrics was for sure one of the best acquisitions SAP ever did. They performed in the last 9 months above and beyond all the expectations we have set at the point of the acquisition. Now, three months back when I became the sole CEO of SAP Ryan Smith and I discussed a few options about how to move Qualtrics to the next level. The partial IPO, we are both fully convinced, is actually a win-win situation for both SAP and Qualtrics.
First, it will allow Qualtrics to focus on the non-SAP customer base in a high closed market. Second, despite the IPO, of course, SAP will remain fully committed to Experience Management (XM) and we will develop further use cases for our customers. We will also continue with the joint go-to-market. SAP is fully committed and will be in the long run highly committed to to Qualtrics and also will remain a majority shareholder of Qualtrics going forward.
IPO Allows Qualtrics To Go After non-SAP Customers
We kicked off already in the last 19 months, great use cases for our customers. We launched Human Experience Management (HXM) which helped both to accelerate the sales of Qualtrics but also our core application success factors. We did the same for commerce. In our product strategy, it actually plans to really expand experience management across our solution portfolio.
Our employees are very excited about that because they see the benefits for our customers and this is something that won’t change with the IPO. This will allow Qualtrics more autonomy to also go after the market with non-SAP customers as this is a high quote segment.
Qualtrics IPO Is A Win-Win, Says SAP CEO Christian Klein
SAP Co-CEO Jennifer Morgan is departing the company, leaving Christian Klein as sole CEO.
Morgan has been with the company since 2004, and jointly held the role of CEO with Klein since October 2019. The company says that Morgan “mutually agreed with the Supervisory Board of SAP SE” to resign and depart, effective April 30. At the same time, the announcement makes clear that the current economic crisis was a driving factor, with the decision to get behind a single CEO being “taken earlier than planned to ensure strong, unambiguous steering in times of an unprecedented crisis.” A single CEO will give the company a clear, unified leadership structure.
“I’d like to thank Jennifer for her partnership over many years,” said CEO Christian Klein. “Throughout SAP’s transformation, Jennifer has always been laser-focused on customers, partners, shareholders and employees. It’s thanks to her that we have established a strong position in experience management solutions. I know she will always be a champion of SAP.”
“It has been a great privilege to drive SAP’s growth and innovation in so many areas and most recently as Co-CEO,” said Jennifer Morgan. “With unprecedented change within the world, it has become clear that now is the right time for the company to transition to a single CEO leading the business. I would like to thank Hasso Plattner for the opportunity to co-lead this great company, and I wish Christian, the Executive Board, and SAP’s talented team much success as they drive the company forward.”
It will be interesting to watch SAP to see if the change has a noticeable impact on the company’s operations.
Achieved HANA Database, ERP, Cloud, and business network.
The market cap of SAP over the last decade speaks for itself.
“SAP is in good shape,” says former SAP CEO Bill McDermott. “The HANA database, refactoring the ERP system on HANA, moving the company to the cloud, and the business network.”
“When you look at the market cap of SAP over the last decade the record speaks for itself,” McDermott says. “It was an honor to leave it at maximum strength and also to see the new co-CEOs take over. I think every CEO dreams of handing the keys to the next generation in the succession plan.”
McDermott became CEO of ServiceNow in November 2019.
It Was An Honor To Leave SAP At Maximum Strength, Says Former CEO Bill McDermott
SAP and Verizon have announced a collaboration to help applications process data where it is generated, thanks to Verizon’s network and SAP’s edge computing platform.
Edge computing allows companies to reduce data processing time by processing the data collected by Internet of Things (IoT) devices at or near the data collection point, rather than sending it to a data center.
Verizon’s 5G network, paired with SAP’s Leonardo Internet of Things and Edge Services and analytics, will give customers in the supply chain, field service management, assembly line and retail industries real-time data processing.
“We are unleashing the next generation of cloud capabilities through global data centers, across the edge of the network,” said Eric Stine, Chief Customer Innovation Officer, SAP North America. “With data volumes growing exponentially and the capabilities of new wireless technologies like 5G to further expand the reach of IoT and enterprise computing, SAP and Verizon are uniquely positioned to drive a new class of data analytics, management and services at scale to help the world’s great companies create amazing customer
experiences, and unlock new business models and monetization strategies.”
“Our ability to integrate our ThingSpace platform into the SAP Cloud portfolio provides a secure and agile way to deliver instantaneous, end-to-end operational analytics at the edge while lowering the cost of IoT management,” said George Fischer, president, Global Enterprise, Verizon Business Group. “This combined solution is not just about massive IoT. We are also enabling computer vision, augmented reality, blockchain and machine learning using Verizon’s network. These are a truly comprehensive set of capabilities to help our customers better manage critical functions including asset lifecycles, supply chains, customer experiences, human capital and plant operations.”
SAP SE announced a collaboration program with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure at SAPPHIRE NOW 2019. The project, named “Embrace” will also include global strategic service partners (GSSP).
At the same time, Infosys—“a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting”—has announced Innov8, a new program designed to help “clients transform their business model to one based on predictable OPEX-based costs.”
According to a press release Infosys issued Tuesday, the two companies are planning a collaborative alliance, to bring the benefits of Embrace and Innov8 to customers “and offer flexible points of entry to the SAP environment for both existing and new cloud users, all within one comprehensive end-to-end business solution.”
With more than 70 ready-to-deploy artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, analytics and Internet of Things use cases, Innov8 provides a way for companies to invest, innovate and build intelligent enterprises.
From the Infosys Press Release:
Dinesh Rao, Executive Vice President, Infosys, said, “Navigating the cloud ecosystem requires a structured strategy that provides a consolidated view into a company’s overall transformation journey. Through Innov8, we are focused on leveraging our industry knowledge and experience to accelerate the delivery of business solutions. Through this collaboration, we are focusing on ensuring that our clients are able to rapidly adopt tomorrow’s business models today.”
David Robinson, Senior Vice President, SAP Cloud Business Group and Global Lead, Embrace program at SAP said, “SAP is excited about its plans to partner with Infosys to help clients invest in purposeful innovation to build their intelligent enterprise. Innov8 for Embrace leverages Infosys’ industry knowledge and expertise on SAP and cloud technologies. This is a platform that is delivered on a cloud hyperscale environment with SAP digital solutions delivering end-to-end business outcomes at accelerated pace. We couldn’t be more excited.”
David McIntire, IT Services Research Director at NelsonHall, said “The value of SAP S/4HANA adoption extends beyond IT and into transforming how businesses operate. Innov8 for Embrace has the potential to combine industry-tailored intelligence, applications and processes with simplified OPEX pricing and cloud hosting into an integrated offering aimed at helping companies maximize the business value of adopting SAP S/4HANA.”
“Cloud ERP is a very new principle in the market,” says Mark Chalfen, director at PwC. “The way that I see cloud is all round simplification—simple and standard. It’s a lot more easy than it was five, ten, fifteen, twenty years ago.”
Mark Chalfen, director at PwC, talks about how cloud ERP software can help companies drive innovation, standardization and cost savings.
Speed is not a problem. Speed for the organization is the speed to consume the change. The speed is understanding your roadmap, building that roadmap, understanding what the future holds and then planning that back in.
Overcoming Preconceptions About ERP Software
A true ERP, a SaaS ERP, is an asset. There’s a number of clients I will work with and start to talk with and they see it as a liability. We take them on a journey and the realization changes that actually cloud ERP is an asset. The speed, the innovation, the standardization—all the things that people previously thought an ERP was, the ability to write lots of custom code, those benefits are removed when they see the power of the cloud ERP and the future direction of SAP in cloud ERP.
Now, all of our engagements are with the c-suite—a CFO, a CEO—who understands the power of cloud ERP, understands the power of SaaS. That means that the programs we work on are business-led, truly business-led. They understand the benefit that it provides: standardization, simplification, speed and the cost benefit. Now you have standard process. You get some efficiency and you’ll get some cost savings.
There’s three key areas. Break everything off into small consumable chunks. Build that confidence within the business. ‘Look, we deployed within three months. We deployed within six months.’ You then build that confidence. We then need to focus on the change appetite. You need to plan the change engagement. Followed around that, the actual governance and the ownership of the program—you need strong stakeholder management all the way through.
The Tool Is Not the Issue
The tool is there to help you. The tool is mature, the tool is ready, the tool is not the issue. It’s people and data and change. If you can control all of those three, your program will be successful.
