T-Systems and Scheer Group Partner on SAP Process Automation

Deutsche Telekom’s IT subsidiary, T-Systems, has entered a strategic partnership with the Scheer Group to accelerate enterprise process automation. This collaboration pairs T-Systems’ regulated cloud infrastructure with Scheer’s deep expertise in process design and hyperautomation.

For SAP customers navigating complex cloud ERP and RISE with SAP evaluations, this announcement elevates a critical industry reality. Regulated cloud operations are necessary, but not sufficient for automation without auditable process models and thoroughly governed historical data.

What The Data Shows

Business leaders are placing immense pressure on IT to deliver faster financial closes, real-time visibility, and agent-enabled workflows. However, an SAP landscape cannot safely automate what it has not modeled, governed, or cleaned up. Cloud adoption certainly changes the operating environment, but it does not untangle broken business processes on its own.

For example, an order-to-cash workflow that relies on email approvals and manual spreadsheet reconciliations does not become compliant simply because it runs on a regulated server. Without comprehensive process redesign, that same messy spreadsheet simply gets a more expensive address.

SAPinsider research illustrates why the market is pushing for these combined service offerings. In 2024, 76% of respondents prioritized boosting productivity by automating repetitive tasks, up from 59% in 2023. Additionally, 60% focused on optimizing processes to reduce cycle times, while 52% prioritized reducing manual touchpoints to increase process quality.

These figures show that while the appetite for intelligent automation is undeniable, overall readiness remains the primary constraint. Organizations still desperately need stronger data governance and consistent controls before AI can act safely across hybrid landscapes spanning SAP and non-SAP systems.

Scaling AI With Governance

Additionally, SAPinsider’s 2025 RISE with SAP findings show that customers are bringing far tougher expectations to the vendor selection process. Buyers are now prioritizing partners with proven cloud ERP implementation experience, defensible data migration strategies, and business process models that meet strict regulatory requirements. Raw compute capacity and hosting credentials are no longer enough to win the deal. The T-Systems and Scheer partnership actively acknowledges this shift, offering a managed cloud engagement paired directly with process-automation services to close the readiness gap rather than hosting the workload.

The pressure on end-users to deliver on these capabilities is high, with finance teams illustrating this daily reality perfectly. Current SAPinsider research reveals that only 5% of finance teams achieve a one- to three-day close, while 53% take four to seven days and 42% drag on for eight or more days. While more than 70% of companies expect to use automation to accelerate record-to-report workflows, the underlying process discipline required to support those ambitions remains uneven across the enterprise.

It is easy to underestimate the importance of governance. However, this factor dictates whether enterprise AI will scale. Simplified data integration, strong lineage, and real-time availability are fundamental operating model choices rather than simple infrastructure features. They directly influence whether an AI agent acting on SAP data can be audited, rolled back, and defended to a regulator.

For enterprise architects evaluating any regulated-cloud bundle, the core question is whether the broader engagement includes strict accountability for automated actions.

What This Means for SAPinsiders

Enterprise architects must treat regulated cloud infrastructure and process automation as deeply interconnected decisions. This will ensure that documented process models and precise data lineage are explicitly part of the expected project scope to prevent future compliance bottlenecks. By demanding this level of foundational hygiene up front, architects can build a resilient landscape in which automated workflows remain auditable and secure during external regulatory reviews.

Chief Information Officers should rigorously assess automation services against their specific RISE with SAP readiness gaps. Leadership teams need to scrutinize how a partner bridges the divide between messy legacy data and a streamlined, cloud-native operating model. Demanding practical roadmaps for process cleanup from partners before greenlighting intelligent automation will save IT teams from the headache of accidentally automating broken business rules.

System integration leaders must urgently evolve their service portfolios to combine secure cloud migration with deep, value-driven process redesign. Customers are actively filtering hosting partners based on their ability to untangle complex workflows, making basic lift-and-shift propositions increasingly obsolete in the SAP ecosystem. To stay competitive, service providers should clearly articulate how their methodologies prepare a client’s historical data and compliance frameworks for next-generation AI agents.