For years, the VOQUZ Labs team has been preparing webinars on SAP license optimizations and their connection to a successful migration to S/4HANA or the switch to RISE. We focus primarily on interactions and their influence on the right migration path, successful negotiations with SAP and, last but not least, possible cost savings. We have both the necessary tools and the expertise to achieve the best possible results for you while remaining compliant.
In one of our latest webinars called "S/4HANA: Your path to the optimal licensing landscape", we do just that.
To say one thing straight away from the start:
When considering how best to manage the complex technology change, optimization of the basics, i.e. the licences, is often neglected, but the reality is that a poor foundation cannot be a good platform for a healthy SAP landscape. Many companies leave licence management to SAP or use SAP’s STAR analysis. They believe they are well equipped for the future - and that can be an expensive mistake. You can save 20 to 30% on costs – VOQUZ Labs will be happy to show you how!
Having said that: Our events are not a one-way street - particularly interesting questions and discussions arise in the live Q&A sessions at the end of each webinar. We are happy to highlight two questions and the answers from our experts for you below.
Question 1:
“Can I also tidy up my licenses after I have moved to S/4HANA?”
Answer to Question 1:
“If you’re moving to S/4HANA on-premise, then you still have an S/4HANA perpetual licensing model. It’s difficult to right-size your ECC or your perpetual licensing model once you're locked in. There are inherent difficulties when dealing with SAP to change your licensing to get rid of shelfware and things like that. It’s the same in the RISE world – as you’re locked in for the fixed term, for the duration of the subscription. You should be able to renegotiate your contract when it comes to the end of the term. We’re regularly seeing customers facing difficulties in trying to reduce their spending when they get to the end of their subscription term. It’s something you need to be prepared for when you get to those negotiations – waiting until two weeks before the negotiation would be a mistake. So the conclusion is: When you’re considering moving to S/4 – whether it’s a contract conversion or moving to RISE – the preparation is key to your success. If you move useless stuff from your ECC environment and you move it to your S/4 environment, it’s still useless – and you’re still facing the problem of dealing with SAP about it. You’ll then have to wait again for a “next event” or end of a term to bring SAP back to the table again. So take the opportunity now: If you’ve made the decision to move, take the opportunity to right-size your licensing environment during the negotiation. samQ and visoryQ can help you with that.”
Question 2:
“What options do customers have without embarking on a major transformation journey now? Can we extend the compatibility pack to the end of the ECC mainstream maintenance period?”
Answer to Question 2:
There’s something in everyone’s contract which defines your next steps. This is one of the “it depends” answers. It depends on your situation, it depends on your leverage, it depends on how much control you have over your SAP, it depends on your migration path. You need to look into that and then engage either with a third party, who understands the relationships between the parameters mentioned and others and has the expertise and tools to draw the right conclusions. Or with SAP, which is often running the risk that they will say “no,” which again forces you into doing or deciding something. So if you have a question like that, please reach out to our team (labs@voquzlabs.com) – we’ll jump on a quick call to talk about your current situation in order to be able to deliver an individual answer.
Check out the recording for more questions and answers. Our experience is that the Q&A brings up topics and possibilities that you might not have thought of.
Also interesting is our regular live poll in the webinars, which we use to see where we all stand with our topics and questions. The live attendee poll in the webinar on S/4HANA in the context of licensing produced some interesting results. Please note that these are not generally representative statistics.
visoryQ Business Case Builder for SAP contracting strategies provides the decision criteria and financial framework you need to prepare, visualize, and justify your decision-making about the future of your ERP.
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You might think it's still a while until 2027. On the other hand, we know how long it can take to prepare and implement the migration. Regardless of how you perceive the supposed time pressure, we at VOQUZ Labs see some things very clearly: 25% of webinar participants have not yet assumed that a tidy license environment is a significant cost factor for the S/4HANA migration - and that can be expensive. SAP STAR may be a reliable tool to take a snapshot of your licenses and does its job - but it's a different story when it comes to determining what type and how many licenses would really be right based on your team's needs and business processes.
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Have we inspired you or given you food for thought?
Talk to us: labs@voquzlabs.com
Miss Q stands for the shared knowledge of our team. The expertise comes from different team members from different departments to put together the best possible and most useful mix of information for you. Miss Q is therefore a TI, a Team Intelligence, because there is nothing "artificial" about it :)
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