SAP Cloud Strategy


What is SAP Cloud Strategy?

SAP has both financial and software targets behind their medium and long-term cloud strategy. Their financial target, as initially announced during their Q3 earnings presentation in 2020, involves achieving €22 billion in cloud revenue by 2025. From a software and technology standpoint, SAP is looking for customers to adopt cloud-based solutions for all their SAP applications. This may simply involve using cloud-based infrastructure such as that available through SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud or with the hosting capabilities of RISE with SAP, or could involve using an entirely cloud-based application such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

What is SAP Cloud Strategy?

SAP has both financial and software targets behind their medium and long-term cloud strategy. Their financial target, as initially announced during their Q3 earnings presentation in 2020, involves achieving €22 billion in cloud revenue by 2025. From a software and technology standpoint, SAP is looking for customers to adopt cloud-based solutions for all their SAP applications. This may simply involve using cloud-based infrastructure such as that available through SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud or with the hosting capabilities of RISE with SAP, or could involve using an entirely cloud-based application such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

SAP Cloud Strategy is focused on allowing customers to choose their provider while SAP offers and manages the cloud services. This is particularly true with their RISE with SAP offering where there is a single contract with SAP for the services and their management, but organizations choose who their hosting and implementation partner will be. SAP has close relationships with all of the major public cloud providers, typically referred to as hyperscalers, but there are many other hosting partners and cloud providers who are SAP partners and offer cloud services.

Further Resources for SAPinsdiers

SAP’s 2022 Strategy Focuses on Cloud ERP and RISE with SAP. Although SAP has had cloud targets in place as their 2025 objectives and has been reinventing itself as a cloud company since the late 2010s, their focus has shifted towards moving customers towards cloud ERP—software-as-a-service solutions like SAP S/4HANA Cloud—and RISE with SAP. This article explores what SAP has announced and their 2022 strategy focus.

Enterprise Cloud Deployment 2021 Benchmark Report. More and more organizations are moving SAP workloads to the cloud, with 88% of respondents running at least one workload in the cloud. Many of these workloads are solutions like SAP Success Factors, SAP Concur, or SAP Ariba which are entirely cloud-based, but there is also an acceleration in moving workloads like ERP systems to cloud infrastructure.

Cloud Success Requires a Clear Vision. The primary focus of organizations moving to the cloud is around reducing costs, increasing flexibility and scalability, and deploying applications more quickly.  However, taking the time to understand what you are trying to achieve with your move to the cloud is an important step that organizations don’t always complete. This article talks about the steps that you can take to ensure that you’re having the right conversations ahead of your move to the cloud.

Moving to the Cloud is About More Than Infrastructure. Although initial cloud deployments focused on infrastructure, there has been a shift in the business case behind why organizations are moving to the cloud. Effectively utilizing data should be a key consideration when moving to the cloud as this is the most valuable asset your company has. This article discusses how business cases are changing, and how you should be looking at your cloud provider as an innovation partner in addition to the other services they provide.

Vendors offering cloud services for SAP include: Atos, AWS, Dell Technologies, Google Cloud, HPE, IBM, Lenovo, Microsoft, Navisite, NTT Data, Nutanix, Rackspace Technology, Virtustream, and VMware.

54 results

  1. SAP Sovereign Cloud Capabilities Arrive in ANZ

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    Explore how SAP’s sovereign cloud can enhance data security and compliance for Australian and New Zealand businesses in highly regulated sectors. Read the full article now.
  2. The Reality of SAP in the Multi Cloud

    June 27, 2023

    For many organizations today the journey to the cloud has spiraled into cloud chaos which has resulted in a mixture of highly fragmented cloud strategies and silos that have a significant impact on strategic systems like SAP. This webinar explores how that cloud chaos can be addressed and how to embark on the next phase…
  3. Clovity

    Why Cloud? Why Now?

    June 20, 2023

    In this session, The Tile Shop Director of Infrastructure, Eric Pawlowski, is joined by Protera to discuss their accelerated migration timeline and provide insights on their move to the cloud. Attendees will be able to leverage these insights to better understand and review options for modernization using the cloud within their own organizations. 
  4. Cloud

    Video: Moving to the Cloud is About More Than Infrastructure

    Organizations are moving their SAP workloads to the cloud, either by replacing legacy hardware with flexible and scalable cloud infrastructure or with the adoption of cloud-based applications. But today’s cloud investments must provide more than just new and faster infrastructure, as organizations look to make those investments the basis for broader innovation. In this video…
  5. edge computing

    Video: Leveraging Edge Computing to Simplify and Scale

    While centralizing systems to create a single source of business and financial truth within the organization is a key driver for moving to solutions like SAP S/4HANA, there are potential downsides to having every transaction relying on one central system. Part of that issue can be the lag involved with accessing a central system, while…
  6. Journey to the Cloud

    What has RISE with SAP taught us about optimizing your SAP journey to the cloud?

    September 22, 2022

    Many SAP customers are still considering their roadmap for SAP S/4HANA while at the same time planning for their next infrastructure refresh. But these decisions involve choices about the licensing model for SAP S/4HANA (perpetual vs. SaaS), what sort of deployment model is best (brownfield, greenfield, or something in between), whether to link the move…
  7. SAP

    SAP Sees Strong Cloud Growth in 2022 Q2

    Reading time: 4 mins

    In SAP’s second quarter earnings call for 2022, the organization announced a 34% jump in cloud revenue, 24% at constant currencies, making it SAP’s largest revenue stream. Current cloud backlog, contractually committed revenue that SAP expects to recognize over the coming 12 months, also exceeded €10 billion for the first time ever. Much of this…...…
  8. Cloud Sustainability

    The Increasing Need for Cloud Sustainability

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    In a conversation with Google Cloud, one of the topics discussed was that the business case for moving to the cloud is changing. While organizations are still looking at digitization, flexibility and scalability, and minimizing disruption as key reasons for moving to the cloud, there is increased interest in sustainability as a major part of…...…
  9. sap azure

    Which Cloud Skills are Needed for the SAP Cloud Transition?

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    SAP’s primary focus has turned to The Cloud. For SAP customers, that means there are new technologies to learn and different skills required for cloud deployments. We talked with Rizing CTO Martin Stenzig about these cloud skills, and key SAP technologies such as the SAP Business Technology Platform that are important for customers moving to…
  10. Cloud Adoption

    Cloud Adoption and Transformation for SAP

    Reading time: 3 mins

    A recent article published at SAP News highlighted How the Cloud Changes the Business Transformation Mindset. The point of the article was that true business transformation in the cloud requires a comprehensive approach that brings together strategy, organization, process, and technology. The reason behind this comprehensive approach is that organizations are struggling to bridge the…...…