How do you escape the SAP licensing jungle?

Although the conditions for SAP licensing are still defined in SAP's Price and Conditions List (PKL), many are not really familiar with them.

For example, there are framework conditions for the purchase or subsequent purchase of licenses that can arise quite suddenly. One should therefore have as precise knowledge of the PKL as possible in order to achieve the best foundation for one's own company.

Or do you know why a Professional license costs 3800 Euro one time and only 3200 Euro somewhere else? Or how you can determine whether you can use cheaper Employee licenses, Worker, Logistics, Project User, etc.? You could go on like this without stopping.

The licensing business in the SAP area is more than complex and that is precisely why many companies shy away from dealing with the topic.

When the annual license measurement is due and you can no longer avoid it, the issue suddenly becomes acute. However, by then the child has not only already fallen into the well, but has already drowned.

Then, willy-nilly, you have to deal with the issue - but on what basis? At this point, companies start nervously rummaging through the existing contracts and at the same time looking incredulously at the survey result at hand.

And yet the solution is quite obvious: Don't allow yourself to be drawn into this jungle in the first place, and obtain a transparent data situation at an early stage.

Just two reasons why you should do this and how it can be done easily: First, you should realize early on that you have cracked the upper license mark.

Why? Negotiations after measurement are always based on the list price. In this way, customers who have been caught violating the license put themselves in a more than bad negotiating position.

Once you are in this predicament, there is no good reason for SAP to act on your suggestions either.

Another reason to focus more on transparent data is SAP's "unfriendly audits," which have been increasing exponentially for years.

In the meantime, it is not too unlikely that sooner or later SAP will also contact you and want to check up on you. Here, you are better prepared and provide SAP with the required answers.

An "unfriendly audit" also opens up the next danger. The question is not only whether there are enough licenses, but also whether they are the right licenses.

And there is one thing you can be sure of: without proper preparation on your part, SAP is guaranteed to be more familiar with the licensing landscape than you are at this moment.

So you need to know not only whether you have enough licenses for your employees, but also which ones they really need. This is the only way to achieve compliance and avoid additional payments in the long term.

But how do you best manage your licenses as an SAP user so that compliance is also right? Unfortunately, the means for measuring compliance are often inaccurate. In such cases, an audit is likely to result in additional payments.

One way to protect against this is to bring in an external consultancy to sort out the company's own licensing landscape. However, this approach usually ends with overlicensing to play it safe in terms of compliance.

And that in turn means high costs for you. Then you can also go straight to expensive licenses and get the same result.

However, you do want to adhere to compliance guidelines and show the correct licenses, but you certainly don't want to spend more than you have to. If you don't have the capacity to manage your licenses manually, it's best to use software.

This allows you to manage SAP licenses quickly and easily. You are informed about shortages at an early stage and your licenses are continuously optimized.

This not only helps you find your way out of the definition jungle, but also keeps you on the safe side for the next audit.