SAP Offers Cloud Migration Incentives, Extended Maintenance Services

As part of the company’s Rise with SAP cloud migration services, businesses with on-premises S/4HANA and ECC applications can earn credits that reduce average annual contract costs by starting their move to the cloud this year.

SAP is expanding its Rise with SAP offerings with a new set of resources, services and financial incentives – including credits to reduce the cost of moving on-premises implementations of SAP S/4HANA or the legacy SAP ECC (ERP Central Component) application sets to the cloud.

The new Rise with SAP Migration and Modernization program, unveiled Tuesday, also includes the new SAP S/4HANA Cloud Safekeeper service that provides extended maintenance for older releases of S/4HANA for customers that need more time to upgrade.

SAP is also putting increased emphasis on the Rise with SAP Methodology for all Rise with SAP implementations – both through SAP and the partner ecosystem – as a way of ensuring upgrade consistency and quality.

“There's really two key types of barriers that we're trying to address,” said Eric van Rossum, chief marketing and solutions officer, SAP Cloud ERP, addressing the challenges of application cloud migrations in an interview with CRN. “One is you're moving to the cloud and making investments to go there. How does this actually drive tangible business outcomes and is not just a technical story? And then secondly, in that move, how can we also minimize the cost and the risk? And really the [Migration and Modernization] announcement is targeting those two things.”

SAP has actively encouraged customers with on-premises applications, including SAP ECC (the foundation of the SAP Business Suite legacy ERP applications) and newer SAP S/4HANA software, to migrate to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. The company has even generated some controversy by providing some of its latest technology innovations, including in AI and sustainability, only in its cloud software.

Rise with SAP, launched in January 2021, bundles S/4HANA with transformation services, business analytics and partner expertise to help customers migrate to the cloud. Last October SAP debuted a new Premium Plus package for Rise with SAP offering additional tools for developing tailored systems for businesses with complex requirements. (At the same time the company launched the 2023 release of its private cloud edition of SAP S/4HANA Cloud that provides greater flexibility and more functionality for enterprise customers.)

The new Rise with SAP Migration and Modernization program is designed to address the issues of scope and cost that businesses may face when moving even the most complex ERP systems to the cloud. The program elements are also designed to help eliminate the challenges around custom code, data silos and process complexity that often come with cloud migration.

The need to drive business outcomes – not just overcome technical hurdles – and minimizing cost and risk are key to successful cloud migration initiatives, van Rossum said.

“Every company needs a cloud-first business strategy,” he said. “It’s more important than ever for customers to start their migration and modernization journey, so they can harness the potential of the latest cloud innovations, including AI and sustainability solutions.”

Through the end of 2024 SAP is offering credits to SAP ECC and SAP S/4HANA customers who move to the cloud, either with Rise with SAP or Grow with SAP (targeting mid-size companies) to offset the cost of maintenance, cloud services or cloud subscriptions. The incentives include S/4HANA Cloud and line-of-business solutions such as supply chain, human resources, spend management and CRM applications, as well as business transformation tools and the SAP Business Technology Platform.

Businesses and organizations moving an S/4HANA on-premises implementation to the cloud will get back 60 percent of their average annual contract value, Rossum said, while ECC owners will get back 45 percent. And some smaller customers can get back 100 percent of their average annual contract value.

For business and organizations that need more time for cloud migrations SAP launched the S/4HANA Cloud Safekeeper, a paid extended maintenance service for Rise with SAP customers that enter customer-specific maintenance for older releases of S/4HANA.

S/4HANA Cloud Safekeeper includes upgrade services and infrastructure optimization along with system updates and patches for two additional years beyond SAP’s standard five-year maintenance schedules. (SAP recently adopted a product release cycle that provides a major new release of its software every two years with “innovation packs” updates every six months.)

SAP is also doubling down on the Rise with SAP Methodology for all project implementations – including those done by SAP partners. The methodology includes KPIs that the company says “drive predictable timelines for projects” and “provide progress transparency, with key milestone checks” supported by SAP services and specialists who confirm the methodology is being applied from discovery through go-live.

SAP is currently training and validating partners to use the Rise with SAP Methodology. “The ecosystem plays an important role,” Rossum said. “Most of our [Rise with SAP] projects are done by SAP’s ecosystem. So we’re going to be qualifying them. We’re actually qualifying them already.” And he said SAP will be making those partner training and qualification credentials “transparent to our customers” as they enlist partners for cloud migration initiatives.

“The adoption of the [Rise with SAP] methodology is so important to get the outcomes from a business perspective. And this was not always consistently being used,” Rossum said. Rise with SAP is sold both directly by the vendor and by the SAP ecosystem, but Rossum said most implementations are done by partners including VARs and systems integrators. He said that today “almost all partners leverage the methodology to a large degree.”

Last week SAP launched expanded self-training resources for partners on the SAP Learning website. The new offerings include free, self-paced courses on SAP technology, access to hands-on practice systems, certification exams, and AI-supported searches across content repositories.