WHAT With SAP?

We are now so used to it that we suspect an acronym behind every capitalized word in the SAP world. When Christian Klein announced the new RISE with SAP offering in 2021, the letters also stood for buzzwords: realize, impact, sustainable, enhance.

Wonderfully inspiring. In 2023, we saw a paradigm shift with GROW with SAP. Personally, I thought it was a bit of a shame (but maybe there just wasn't a cool buzzword with a "w"?).

RISE and GROW

In terms of product promise, what is it about RISE and GROW and why do we spend so much time on these two offerings? It's really quite simple: RISE and GROW are the two pillars of SAP's holistic Cloud ERP offering. RISE is for SAP customers who, due to more complex and regulatory requirements, are not public cloud ready and are migrating from ECC to the private cloud world of SAP S/4 Hana. These customers have some additional platform responsibilities, but the hosting is done by and for SAP. GROW, on the other hand, is aimed at future S/4 customers in the public cloud, who will receive a SaaS product from SAP with all the bells and whistles.

Business Technology Platform

To date, cloud ERP has been at the center of SAP's portfolio overview. The in-house Business Technology Platform is the foundation for extensibility, integration and development, industry solutions, LoB solutions, and AI scenarios around the Cloud ERP core. I have already described this: we had two major announcements in 2021 (RISE) and 2023 (GROW). Ten years after the launch of S/4 Hana, the next big announcement came this year: SAP is unleashing new potential with the Business Data Cloud. And not just as a technical enhancement, but also as a strategic repositioning. Driven by AI and its market appeal, SAP not only invests in a profitable partnership with Databricks, but also repositions its portfolio around data (SAP Analytics Cloud, Datasphere, BTP). And bang! Where Cloud ERP used to be at the core of SAP's portfolio, the Business Data Cloud is now at the center. The idea behind it is clear: Data is the new capital—and those who can link, structure and analyze it intelligently will generate competitive advantages.

Everything stays different

There is nothing more constant than change. Heraclitus knew that. When you consider how colossal SAP has become, the cycles of change are comparatively short and almost agile. But where is the buzzword here, you may ask? To be honest, you will find it at the meta level, as we often discuss the SAP portfolio without categorizing where we currently stand. This article will also have a relatively short half-life, as the next changes are likely to come in May with Sapphire. And considering how RISE with SAP and GROW with SAP are paving the way for the Business Suite with the Data Cloud (instead of ERP) at its core, it will be very exciting to see how SAP presents this Business Suite commercially.

To learn more about this SAP Partner, check out the partner entry below.

To the partner entry: