Get right

E3: What do you see as the most important insights from the CC Summit regarding the current licensing situation of SAP customers?

Jana Jentzsch: First of all, in general terms: That companies face a huge challenge with the conversion to SAP S/4 Hana - technically, commercially and legally. As a rule, conversion is irreversible, and because the product conversion option has expired, companies will have to focus primarily on the complex contract conversion in the future - at least if they do not already have the SAP S/4 Hana Enterprise Management for ERP Customers product in their portfolio in preparation for a product conversion. In the case of contract conversion, the contracts are converted, but basically at SAP's current terms and conditions, unless the customer prepares well in advance and negotiates his individual requirements in a targeted manner.

E3: Why is it so complicated? Can't you just use the
convert existing R/3 and ECC contracts to S/4?

Jentzsch: You can, but then you have probably converted past the actual need. The new S/4 conditions are fundamentally different from the legacy conditions. The customer has to make numerous decisions, such as: How can existing special users and special conditions be mapped under S/4? What flexibility in terms of usage authorization does the corporate group need? How to handle the issue of indirect usage? How should the transition phase be designed and what options are available if the implementation does not run as desired? In addition, there are the specific
Cloud usage issues, such as.
the Rise-with-SAP program, the FUE issue, and surveying issues. These are just a few examples. At the CC Summit, there was a great deal of interest among participants in these issues.

The challenge for companies is huge - also from a legal point of view.

The Hamburg lawyer
has been advising companies and organizations in DACH on legal issues related to the use of SAP software for over ten years.

E3: At the CC Summit, SAP presented a kind of "cloud first" strategy for the future. Is that advantageous from a legal perspective?

Jentzsch: From a legal perspective, it causes increased expense for customers. The regulatory requirements for data protection-compliant use of global cloud services are already very high. Particularly in the public cloud, the customer must take the data protection issues very seriously, check them and also actively address them vis-à-vis SAP. Otherwise, there is a great risk of incompliance. The issue is not limited to the attached data protection agreement; many data protection challenges can be found in other parts of the contracts. This is often overlooked. Among other things, the topic of data use for AI and machine learning purposes is gaining importance here.

E3: So what is the legally
best strategy for dealing with S/4 conversion?

Jentzsch: Early planning that takes into account the legal aspects and defines a strategy. Signing a commercially attractive offer and hoping that the legal issues will not cause any trouble is not a strategy, but may turn out to be the most expensive deal ever in the medium term.

E3: Thank you for the interview.