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RISEwithSAP
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SAPLicensing
The question that needs to be asked is: What motivates companies to toy with the idea of transforming their ERP to the cloud?
There are some very tempting details: people believe they no longer have to manage their IT infrastructure. In future, specialists will ensure that everything runs smoothly in the background. Of course, there are also hopes of reducing costs. As is so often the case, it's not that simple in the end.
The first step is to analyze whether the cloud variant makes sense and is feasible for the company at all. To do this, all paths to S/4HANA transformation should be considered. In addition to the RISE with SAP variant, a transformation to the cloud to another hyperscaler is also an option - and sometimes at better conditions than via the SAP "detour". In addition, it should be reliably determined whether the cloud variant actually offers financial benefits in the long term. After all, it is a rental model that has to be renegotiated when it expires.
In this white paper, we discuss where the real focus of change lies, where expenses arise, and where hidden costs lurk. It is not primarily about the offer and what is included in detail - there are enough papers about that. Rather this is about what might not be included and subsequently where even apparently small differences between your demand and the package offer make huge differences in your TCO analysis.
SAP offers the options of the "public cloud" and the "private cloud". When it comes to the public cloud, the guard rails are very tight on both sides. Many individual processes cannot be implemented there, third-party applications are impossible, and SAP dictates what can and cannot be implemented. However, this can be a cost-effective alternative for smaller companies if they can largely do without individualization.
Most companies choose the private cloud in favor of flexibility. This allows them to act more individually, but extras also cost extra money. Every MB that is required over and above the standards drives up the costs. So one thing is certain: the required and sensible system landscape should be determined first and then the required dimensioning.
SAP helps to shed light on this with special services. However, you should not rely on SAP alone here either and consult an infrastructure specialist who can validate the results. Infrastructure design based on the motto "just in case" can be really expensive.
The next dimensions concern the license landscape and data migration to the cloud.
The path to the cloud offers a unique opportunity to shed the ballast of the past and enter the new world with a lean license model. Unfortunately, SAP offers no real help here. The STAR analysis is crude and often generates new license surpluses right from the start, which you then drag around with you for the next few years. But there is software such as "samQ - License Optimizer for SAP Software", which reduces the change to a minimum and establishes compliance at the most cost-effective level. In addition, samQ continues to monitor what is needed in the future and provides important information on where gaps are or may be occurring. The license requirements for the future have thus been clarified!
The same applies to data transformation. With the transformation, the company has the unique opportunity to free itself from ballast and thus save infrastructure costs, resulting in a cycle. The initial determination of the required IT dimension can usually be corrected downwards after the data analysis if it is clear that you are not moving into the new building with everything and are clearing out beforehand. A lot of data from the past is no longer really needed and can be archived for contingencies instead of being transformed. There are also specialists and service providers who can generate good savings for transformation. So you shouldn't do this on your own either, but bring in someone who has already done it successfully several times in recent years.
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.
Let's move on to the last and not insignificant point, the SLA. SAP defines very precisely how it reacts to problems, how quickly it reacts, what it does not do in the standard process and where an extra assignment is necessary. The more than 50 pages of the description of services focus a lot on what is not done.
This leaves it up to the customer to identify whether they need to do anything more, whether they will incur extra costs for extended services, and for which they may even have to engage third-party providers to ensure production reliability.
All in all, switching to RISE with SAP is not easy, and the SAP services that are supposed to bring clarity must be validated. If you keep this in mind, the cloud can be a success.
As far as the license issue is concerned: talk to us! With visoryQ, samQ and our globally active licensing experts, we can certainly help you generate unnecessary license expenses!
Peter Rattey is the founder of VOQUZ Labs. He invented samQ and is still intensively involved in samQ's further development. Peter is one of our most experienced advisors.
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