All about RISE with SAP - Part 1 : Latest updates on the offering

Since its release in Jan 2021, RISE with SAP offering has been gaining traction with small and medium size customers and now slowly also with Large Enterprises as well. With support for SAP ECC coming to an end by 2027, moving to S/4HANA is becoming almost inevitable. Along with this, if Cloud journey is also on the roadmap, then RISE with SAP offerings will be the best fit to the customers. In a series of blogs, I plan to share my recent experiences with clients on the RISE - latest updates in the RISE offering , Overview of Pricing and commercials, Partner Integration options, about Transition paths (Brownfield, Greenfield) for RISE with SAP customers and related areas.  In this blog, I plan to cover latest updates in the RISE offering.

Overview - So, what is RISE with SAP all about?

By now, most of you may already be aware of what RISE with SAP is all about. A quick recap - It is not a single product, but a comprehensive bundle of service offerings, to help Customers in their Digital Transformation journey to cloud and to SAP S/4HANA ERP, with whatever starting point they are currently in. SAP’s vision for Intelligent Enterprise via RISE is to enable intelligent, sustainable enterprises that deliver business and societal outcomes.

Source: SAP

Moving away from the older hamburger picture to a new sandwich one – it defines different layers of the RISE offering that has Partner’s role to help build Intelligent Sustainable enterprises. BTP is the underlying Technology platform wherein Service Integration Partners can help build additional features or build Apps, Integration, Data migration and Analytics along with niche areas such as AI.  Basically, it helps to maintain the core clean (as recommended) and create Business differentiation as required by customers. The next layer for them is to contribute and build any Industry cloud or other add-ons suitable for a specific LOB. The final layer is the focus on Industry specific end-to-end process management. Outcomes now focus on Top Line, Bottom line and the Sustainability Green Line (as shown). So, in a nutshell, SAP and Partners are now moving away from selling a product to selling Outcome driven services and hence selling Value to customers via the RISE.

So, what is actually included within the RISE with SAP offering ? Lets look at the updated contents (as of May 2022)

Source: SAP       

Cloud ERP - Choice of Private or Public cloud ERP, along with Industry specific content from SAP / Partner as required.

Business Process Intelligence (BPI)– suitable for existing customers, will help analyze their current business processes to check for their efficiency , benchmark against the Industry Standards, using standard tools in the market like Signavio (included in the offering now) (Celonis can also be used) and provides recommendations for redesign / improvement of the processes via the reports.

Business Technology Platform (BTP) and Analytics – the underlying technology platform – to be used for Integrations to satellite systems in the landscape, for any extensions to suite their current functionality, for Data Migration and Analytics as well. Also to leverage intelligent technologies and predictive analytics to generate differentiated business

Business Network Starter pack –To help collaborate between manufacturers, dealers, service providers and vehicle owners and to build a resilient supply base with access to the world’s largest supplier network. It also helps to collaborate with logistics partners to manage freight transactions and exchange documents.

Outcome driven Services and Tools - best suited for the current SAP customers, offers a set of tools/services to help in their transformation journey. For example, check the readiness of the customer’s processes and get technical guidance on moving to SAP S/4HANA Cloud, analyze custom code & add on compatibility and services helps with their current custom code base and to retain or eliminate the same. Bundle also includes SAP Enable now to address the learning capabilities.

Source: SAP

• One Single contract for customer – all Infra + S/w with SAP and the Rest – Application Implementation and managed services with the Integration partner.
• The SAP S/4HANA Cloud Product includes 2 variants  :

1. Public cloud ERP solution, multi-tenant edition, complete SaaS offering (adhere to standardizations / best practices i.e. like out of the shelf product), limited flexibility (via extensions), mostly suited for SMB customers Or Large ones via the two-tier ERP architecture. Mostly suited for new customers.
2. Private cloud edition – instance dedicated to the customer, very similar to on-premise edition and hence allows more flexibility (and hence more room for custom developments). Mostly suited for existing customers, helps carry forward all the current customizations to the target

• The pack also includes Industry flavours – like Utilities, Retail, Automotive, Consumer products, Industry Machinery & Components (IM&C), now covers only 5, more coming up.

In a nut shell, it includes all products and services to help Customers aid in their Business transformation journey to cloud along with SAP S/4HANA. Hence it is Business Transformation as a Service offering, wherein, RISE provides a common framework and structure that customers can use and work with the partner to get the tailored offering for their move to S/4HANA cloud.

So, lets see how can customers choose from the available S/4HANA ERP product choices ? Below is a ready reckoner – the SaaS Public Cloud version, OR the On-Premise (or on any Infrastructure version)

Source: SAP

S/4HANA Public Cloud:

This is a complete SaaS solution (very similar to Ariba, Concur, SuccessFactors etc.) where in services are delivered to customers over a network that is open for public usage and is multi-tenant (i.e. provider runs your service in a shared environment). Apart from providing all other benefits of moving to cloud, it offers standard out of the shelf ERP product that has very limited flexibility (via extensions) options. Quarterly releases done from SAP side, latest one is Aug 2022 – the 202208 version.

Suitable for :

• New customers with no SAP legacy or affiliation and looking for a modern native SaaS ERP solution leveraging the benefits of Cloud and for small to mid-size companies with high growth (Cloud Native) – high growth potential and / or start-ups; Or in the new economy – Fintech, e-retail etc.
• Customers looking for a standard out of the shelf product ERP with core back office capabilities (covering commonly used end to end processes of Finance, Purchasing , Sales etc.) and wanting to keep the Core clean by willing to adhere to mostly standard processes.
• Or for large corporations for the Tier 2 of the Two-tier ERP architecture (Two-tier ERP is an approach in ERP technology that uses two systems to address the needs of large businesses with Multiple locations and/or subsidiaries). Under this strategy, headquarters / corporate office will use a Tier 1 ERP that’s highly flexible and customized and has the functionality to run a large, global company, while subsidiaries or smaller business units use a less resource-intensive Tier 2 ERP that better suits their needs.

Key advantages include all the Benefits from SaaS cloud ERP product use.

 SAP S/4HANA Private cloud

SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition is a managed cloud with a dedicated tenant per customer that will be hosted on a public cloud (hyperscalers of customer choice - like AWS, Azure, Google cloud etc.) Code line is very similar to On-Premise edition and hence offers more flexibility and extensibility. The subscription price (One Contract with SAP) includes the software licenses and support, infrastructure management (hyperscaler) and technical managed services (this can now be handled by Partners via SAP contracting with Partners). This means that Private Cloud edition offers scope and flexibility of On-Premise system while providing the value of cloud economics.

Key Benefits:

• Around scope, it includes full functional S/4HANA scope including all LoBs and industry processes, country coverages, language coverage and ability to leverage Partner add-ons.
• In terms of Flexibility and extensibility, it is mostly like on-premise version with full access to IMG, allows code enhancements, modifications, access to S/4HANA extensibility framework etc.
• Allows to carry forward the current customizations via system conversion and migration into the cloud.
• Moving away from BYOL (Bring your own Licenses model) to Subscription based model supporting all other advantages offered by the Hyperscalers (like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud etc.) like elasticity, resilience etc.

Beyond the above, the Partners (Service Integration partner) can bring their Assets / Accelerators or their service offerings on the table to help the customers accelerate their cloud journey / digital transformation journey. Partners can also upsell to include additional SAP solutions based on the Customer requirements (e.g.: SAC to support Analytics, SAP Digital Supplier Network (DSN) beyond basic Ariba starter pack)

To Summarize, we have understood that the whole point of RISE is to answer most of the customer questions on how to get to S/4HANA cloud from wherever they are today; as every customer is in different stage(starting point)  of digital transformation . In my next blog, I plan to cover Overview of Pricing and commercials for RISE with SAP offerings.

Please note that these are my personal views and not of my employer. If you have any feedback or any other recommendations, please share.