SAP Build delivers 3x higher development velocity than a traditional custom development stack by dramatically reducing story points and overall level of effort for an equivalent enterprise application.
By leveraging CAP, prebuilt integrations, visual tooling, and the Joule AI copilot, SAP Build cuts development effort by 59%, lowers reliance on senior developers by 37%, and enables junior-to-mid-level teams to deliver enterprise-grade solutions.
For organizations needing rapid, SAP-centric application delivery, the study concludes that SAP Build offers substantial TCO advantages over custom development, especially in time-to-market, labor costs, and long-term maintenance.
THE DEMAND FOR DEVELOPMENT SOLUTIONS that enhance developer efficiency is growing as businesses need to adapt quickly to evolving market conditions and customer demands. Development platforms like SAP Build, that offer comprehensive capabilities for low-code, code-first, and generative AI, are increasingly used to enable faster and more efficient application development with fewer resources than traditional coding methods.
SAP Build integrates a range of development tools and production services into a single, cohesive solution, simplifying the process of building applications on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). This includes tools for continuous integration, continuous deployment (CI/CD), runtime environments, and AI-powered development assistance, making it easier to develop and deploy enterprise ready business applications.
In this GigaOm benchmark, SAP Build was compared to a traditional custom development approach across multiple dimensions, including development time (as measured in story points), cost (as measured in developer skill level), and ease of use. Key findings include:
• More efficient development resources: Development teams accomplished the same objectives with less than half the usual workforce allocation. This efficiency is achieved through built-in templates, reusable components, and AI assistance that eliminate many repetitive coding tasks. Additionally, the platform reduces the need for specialized developers across different phases of development.
• Accelerated development timelines: Projects are completed in less than half the traditional timeframe through a combination of automated code generation and testing that reduces time spent on routine development tasks. The platform’s streamlined workflows enable faster iterations and deployments, significantly reducing the overall project duration.
• Cost efficiency: SAP Build required considerably fewer developers–especially senior-level ones—indicating significant labor savings. • Built-in AI capabilities: SAP Build’s Joule copilot is an integrated artificial intelligence assistant that increases developer velocity and optimizes code and logic to align with SAP programming models. In our tests, Joule produced distinct improvements, for example, reducing the time to create high-quality synthetic test data by 30% while improving data consistency and reliability across testing environments.