Beyond Two-Player Deals: How PwC and SAP Are Reshaping the RISE with SAP Partnership for an Ecosystem Era

PwC’s place in the RISE with SAP Partner Validated program is that of a top-tier advisor formally aligned with a flagship SAP offering. The reality, according to Patrick Pugh, Global & US Alliances Leader at PwC, is more demanding, as the partnership has evolved into one that involves orchestrating a far larger cast.

“The world has evolved beyond a model where PwC and SAP alone can tackle these challenges,” Pugh told SAPinsider at the recently concluded SAP Sapphire 2026 Orlando. “Today, it’s not just about SAP and PwC. Our ability to orchestrate across hyperscalers, other ISVs, data partners, and frontier players is the only way to solve the complex problems that, candidly, no single organization can address on its own anymore.”

Where Ecosystem Orchestration Earns Its Keep

Pugh pointed to two areas where the limits of a siloed approach are most visible: supply chain visibility and sustainability reporting. The latter has become a driving force for ecosystem thinking as European regulation reshapes global corporate behavior.

Speaking about the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Scope 3 tracing, Pugh observed that these are complex areas and that just two players working together are not enough. “You need to bring in and orchestrate these ecosystems to make sure that we’re bringing the best. If you take a siloed approach, you’re just not going to crank through the integration that must happen,” Pugh argued.

He further pointed out that the stakes for clients sticking to the old pattern are concrete: “They are missing out on speed, scale, learning, scope, and that ability to unlock value.”

Resilience Has Replaced Efficiency

Efficiency used to be the headline metric for SAP transformations. Today, it shares top billing with something harder to engineer — Resilience.

“Resilience has replaced, or has equal footing, as a primary driver of ROI,” Pugh said. “Clients want to know that they can absorb that next big disruption, not just run leaner. Financial responsibility is important, but you can’t have disruptions in today’s world.”

He added that resilience cuts across finance, supply chain, HR, procurement, and risk. That cross-domain reality is what an orchestrated RISE engagement is designed to handle.

The Democratization of Data and the Human Side of Transformation

Asked what excites him most, Pugh pointed to two threads that rarely share a stage.

The first is the democratization of data. According to Pugh, traditionally, data that had been locked in forever might take a couple of weeks to get out. However, by the time organizations could really act on it, the data had become somewhat stale. “Now it’s immediately in the hands of frontline workers,” Pugh noted. “We can unlock that real-time access to help decision-making, to help anticipate and be more predictive.”

The second is transformation fatigue. “People have been burned with ERP implementations in the past,” Pugh said. So, how do organizations set up those early tangible wins? His answer is human: “We couldn’t do that in the past because we had multi-year journeys. We can now learn, iterate, and respond like we never could before.”

Pugh’s closing line lands the point: “At the heart of all this, where we’re seeing success, still [involves] humans in the loop.”

What This Means for SAPinsiders

Pressure-test the orchestration model and SAP credentials. Before signing, organizations should ask their systems integrator to name the hyperscalers, ISVs, and data partners they will pull into the architecture and how they will govern that ecosystem. This is because a two-party delivery plan is yesterday’s model.

Rewrite the business case around resilience. Give equal weight to disruption absorption in an ROI model. They include supply chain shocks, CSRD and Scope 3 obligations, and talent gaps. SAPinsiders should build the case across finance, supply chain, HR, and risk, and budget for continuous iteration post-go-live rather than for one-time stabilization.

Engineer early, tangible wins to beat transformation fatigue. Sequence the roadmap so frontline teams see real-time data and visible outcomes in the first 90 days, not at the end of a multi-year journey. If the organization’s plan lacks a built-in course-correction mechanism, it is still running on the old playbook.