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. Europeans Are Under Pressure to Centralize, While North Americans Are Demanding Agility in Their ERP Cloud Strategy

    Reading time: 5 mins

    By Robert Holland, VP Research and Publishing, SAPinsider In SAPinsider’s recently published research report on “SAP S/4HANA in the Cloud,” we explored the ERP cloud strategy of members of the SAPinsider community to gain insights into what they were doing. We were particularly interested in determining what was driving their strategy towards the cloud, how…...…
  2. SAP Doubles Down on the Cloud and Customer Focus in FY2019 Results Release

    Reading time: 5 mins

    By Robert Holland, VP Research and Publishing, SAPinsider On January 28 SAP conducted their Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2019 Results Release, and announced that they had met all of their 2019 revenue and profitability targets – albeit with their cloud numbers only passing the post because of a single very large Q4 transaction. Source: https://news.sap.com/2020/01/sap-announces-preliminary-fourth-quarter-and-full-year-2019-results/ In…
  3. What to Expect From Our SAPinsider 2020 Event: Insights From Rizal Ahmed, President and Head of Research, SAP S/4HANA and Cloud at SAPinsider

    Reading time: 2 mins

    On March 17-19 in Vegas this year at SAPinsider’s 2020 conference the word that will be buzzing around every room in the Bellagio is SAP S/4HANA, and for good reason. From our research we know that moving to SAP’s latest upgrade is the most consuming, important decision and project that SAP customers are facing, and…
  4. Opportunities And Considerations For Running SAP In The Cloud

    Reading time: 1 min

    Most enterprise companies are running some sort of hybrid cloud environment, but now the pressure is on to increase your investment in the cloud to lower costs and power innovation. But why should you consider the cloud when it comes to mission-critical a This content is for Basic Access, SAPinsider Monthly Subscription, SAPinsider Annual Subscription,…
  5. Bring Financial and Employee Value to Your Consumerized Digital Business

    Reading time: 6 mins

    This article provides an inside look at three of SAP’s most popular cloud products: SAP Cloud for Real Estate, SAP RealSpend, and SAP Financial Statement Insights. Each of these solutions can be purchased on the SAP Store and have been purpose-built to accommodate the modern business users’ needs to access personalized data and solutions instantly.…
  6. Community Management in the Cloud? Key Considerations

    Reading time: 5 mins

    Build Quickly and Lower Your Overall Costs There is no doubt that the cloud is here to stay. There are so many advantages, especially for smaller companies with limited IT staffs. For example, moving to the cloud enables companies to pay for what they use, without any ownership responsibilities or a need to maintain servers…
  7. The Future of Cloud Consumption Economics

    This video is hosted by SAPinsider and sponsored by Virtustream. Make sure you have the latest version of Adobe Flash Player enabled in your browser to watch the video stream. Infrastructure-as-a-service cloud growth is accelerating and complex.  The value perception is shifting from controlling the costs of IT infrastructure to enabling the business with agility…...…
  8. Examining Public Cloud for SAP Applications

    Reading time: 6 mins

    Public cloud is a very appealing option for many organizations, with opportunities for reduced maintenance costs, enhanced agility, and accelerated innovation. When it comes to choosing a public cloud provider for your SAP applications, there are several important factors to consider. This article explores some of these considerations — including your readiness for the cloud,…
  9. Break Free from On-Premise Complexity

    Reading time: 6 mins

    Increasing demand from customers for innovation and convenience has played a major role in moving businesses toward cloud technology, as the cloud allows organizations to be more agile and responsive to customer needs. Recognizing this trend — and the needs of its customers — SAP released SAP S/4HANA Cloud, an end-to-end ERP system purpose-built for…
  10. Bridging the Gap: How a Hybrid Cloud Scenario Leverages the Agility of the Cloud and the Security of On Premise

    Reading time: 5 mins

    While the advantages of the cloud are widely recognized in today’s business landscape, moving your entire business to the cloud can still seem like a risky proposition. For that reason, many organizations are opting for a hybrid cloud approach. So how do you go about developing a hybrid cloud strategy? This article explores that question,…