E3 Category: Editor-in-Chief Blog

With a complex ERP initiative for a hidden maintenance extension and an alternative cloud roadmap, RISE with SAP should have been given a second chance at survival earlier this year. The announcement of the Business Data Cloud in addition to the Business Technology Platform has finally put S/4 out of business.

SAP recognized the value and importance of data early on, but failed to develop a stable solution across multiple ERP generations. From NetWeaver to Datasphere, there have been ambitious attempts, but no data orchestration in the ERP space.

In an interview with Handelsblatt editor Christof Kerkmann at the WEF 2025 in Davos, SAP Executive Board member Thomas Saueressig modified the popular saying “You’ve made your bed, now lie in it.” Saueressig said: "You shape your own future.”

Members of the SAP community were surprised to read an announcement in the German business magazine Handelsblatt this week, which stated that there could be an ECC maintenance extension until 2033. If an adapted RISE with SAP contract is signed, SoH should be possible for several more years.

"Hello World" was programmed by SAP employee Raja Gupta in numerous programming languages and frameworks on SAP BTP to demonstrate the openness and flexibility of this platform (see community.sap.com). The SAP Cloud Application Programming Model will also be discussed at the Steampunk and BTP Summit 2025 in Heidelberg, Germany.

ChatGPT from OpenAI is capable of providing rapid responses to a wide range of inquiries; however, it should be noted that the accuracy of these responses may not always be guaranteed. Specialized AI systems can be beneficial tools, as demonstrated by our experiment with a Google system based on the multimodal chatbot Gemini 1.5, which was fed four years’ worth of E3 Magazine’s articles.

A typical RISE with SAP contract is an agreement to provide full disclosure to the ERP market leader. Following a RISE conversion, the SAP customer has almost only obligations and hardly any rights. Will the EU provide assistance with the implementation of the Data Service Act?

Leading SAP customers such as Hilti, Unilever, and Maersk have selected Workday as their preferred HR solution. Medium-sized SAP customers are still hesitant to make the switch because they have to weigh the benefits of brand loyalty (SAP) against the potential for innovation (Workday).

The SAP Business Technology Platform serves as the central foundation for both current and future ERP solutions. ECC customers are already leveraging this platform for consolidation and customization. It is not feasible to implement S/4 without BTP, as Abap modifications will continue to exist.

SAP's objective with RISE and GROW is to provide new and current customers with a pathway to the public cloud. The offerings present a challenge due to their complexity, and many SAP customers would prefer to remain in an on-prem environment with virtualization.

Given SAP's comprehensive range of ERP and cloud products, it seems surprising that many members of the SAP community criticize the slow pace of digitalization. There is a transformation backlog, perhaps because there is a lack of orientation.

The fundamental technology underlying SAP is still the R/3 Abap tables. However, SAP has long since stopped providing instruction in the field of ERP technology. Additionally, the company displays only a limited willingness to address SAP customers’ concerns and wishes.