A survey conducted in the run-up to this year’s annual SAP user group congress showed how much demand there is for SAP on-premise solutions. However, cloud solutions are constantly gaining importance, so users’ desire for transparent, flexible, and scalable cloud contracts is growing. The 23rd annual congress of the German-speaking SAP user group took place in mid-October. Three thousand five hundred interested people came to the Congress Center Leipzig.
The event was supported by a new survey by the German-speaking SAP user group eV (DSAG), the Americas SAP Users’ Group (ASUG), and the Japan SAP Users’ Group (JSUG). The results paint a picture of the mood of SAP users worldwide. This mood was picked up several times by the keynote speakers, both by DSAG CEO Jens Hungershausen and Thomas Saueressig, Head of SAP Product Engineering and an SAP SE Executive Board member.
At the press conference for the congress, the latter congratulated DSAG on its 25th birthday and described the cooperation between SAP and the user group as close and “very remarkable.” First and foremost, it showed that only those user companies that accept the challenges of digitization, transformation, and political changes have a chance of success. Eighty-five percent of the DSAG member companies surveyed succeed in doing this “to some extent or without any problems.
” They had qualified and motivated employees, sufficient resources, flexible organizations, quick decision-making processes, and the management’s “will to change.” Only 15 percent of those surveyed stated that they could not keep up due to a lack of resources, the high complexity of the business transformation, or a “lack of willingness to change.” For the IT departments of DACH companies, the obstacles are:
- The complexity of IT conversions (53 percent).
- Cost constraints (42 percent).
The Look Ahead
Which software solutions will be necessary for the future IT landscapes of companies? Well, 85 percent of the DSAG participants surveyed for the new study attested the SAP on-premises solutions to be of high and medium relevance, 77 percent to the SAP cloud solutions, and just as many to the non-SAP cloud solutions. Non-SAP on-premises answers follow with 67 percent.
The picture is similar for all three user groups surveyed: It is assumed that on-premises solutions will lose importance and cloud solutions will gain importance – both in the SAP and non-SAP area. However, since the SAP cloud solutions are becoming more critical simultaneously, this confirms the trend we have observed for a few years: the future is hybrid.”
“The Future Of IT Is Hybrid.”
Last but not least, IT departments and landscapes must be adapted so that companies and organizations can keep up with the hybrid changes. When asked about the essential software providers to DSAG members in this context, SAP is ahead of Microsoft, followed by Oracle, Salesforce, Amazon Web Services, and Google. SAP and Microsoft also occupy the first two places among the participants of ASUG and JSUG.
For 93 percent of the DSAG member companies surveyed, SAP on-premises solutions are of high or medium importance. For non-SAP on-premises solutions, this statement applies to 75 percent of the survey participants. The following applies to cloud solutions: Non-SAP cloud solutions are of high or medium importance for 61 percent and 42 percent for SAP cloud solutions.
On-Premise Still In Demand
As we have seen, most SAP ERP systems are installed on-premises, but cloud use is steadily increasing. According to Saueressig, SAP is well prepared for this: “We have made a long-term commitment to SAP S/ 4HANA,” pointed out the Head of SAP Product Engineering and an SAP SE Executive Board member. Users not only have maximum planning security but can also fully exploit the potential of their SAP investments.”
The new survey showed that Amazon Web Services and Google are increasingly crucial for SAP customers. “It is, therefore, increasingly important for users and us that the hyperscalers support us and our solutions, which is a major challenge for everyone involved,” said Saueressig at the press conference.
Wishes To SAP
So everything is good? Not quite. Companies must be supported by SAP with correspondingly consistent and affordable scenarios based on adequate license and data models and processes,” Hungershausen demanded. He would like transparent, flexible, and scalable cloud contracts with the corresponding metrics, binding statements, and roadmaps for product strategy in the cloud and on-premises. In addition, precise models are required for integration and operation in hybrid landscapes.
This also includes cooperation models between the Cloud Centers of Excellence ( CCoE ) and the hyperscalers. The CEO sees opportunities in transformation: “In our view, ‘RISE with SAP’ still has a lot of potential. The wish would be for SAP to accompany the complex transformation process even more strongly and better in a customer-specific way right from the start. This also includes involving partners more quickly and better across the board”.
The Demand For More Transparency Is Not New
Hungershausen thus picked up a ball that Sebastian Westphal, DSAG Technical Director Technology, had already brought into play at the DSAG Technology Days in Düsseldorf in May. To position SAP as a cloud provider, the focus must be more on contracting: However, there is still a lot to do: “The Business Technology Platform Free Tier and some other approaches are already going in the right direction,” but the foundation of these technical solutions is still “very fragile.”
Contract structures still known from the on-premises context are too often transferred to cloud services. This paralyzes a fast and flexible adaptation of cloud services. SAP still needs to sufficiently support the transformation in companies and, above all, not comprehensively and scalably enough. One-dimensional as-a-service offers do not support the multidimensional challenges during a customer company transformation.
Conclusion
Most of the SAP users surveyed for the DSAG anniversary in Leipzig can keep up with the changes brought about by digitization, transformation, and the turn of the era. Regarding solutions, the on-premise approach is still the undisputed leader, even though cloud solutions will soon be growing significantly. For the future, the DSAG would like “more transparency in cloud contracts, roadmaps and product strategy” for its members. In addition, the complex transformation process must be accompanied much better by SAP.
