Just under two months ago, SAP announced a new product it named RISE with SAP. Just what is this solution and what does it mean for current holders of SAP licenses?
RISE with SAP is not a new product the same way that SAP HANA was when it was introduced in 2011. Rather than create a set of new functionalities, RISE with SAP is described as a bundling of existing SAP assets that focus on providing customers with business-transformation-as-a-service.
The day that RISE with SAP was announced to the public, a handful of official blog posts were released on the SAP Community and SAP News outlining some of its key functionality and reasoning behind the genesis of the product. For as many answers as it provided, however, more questions about its purpose popped up. Let’s dive into the product and get a better understanding of RISE with SAP.
RISE with SAP Basics
RISE with SAP helps companies to get started with cloud SAP solutions. It accelerates cloud adoption as it takes a lot of the guesswork and piecemeal license purchases out of enterprise planning: It provides customers with all the tools they need The solution revolves around six key areas of business that were selected for RISE with SAP after analyzing customer trends and other in-house analysis of SAP products.
SAP has a long history of implementing simpler and more efficient workflows into its products; for example, the simplification lists included with each release of SAP S/4HANA and the idea of a single source of financial truth for accountants and controllers to utilize in reporting. RISE with SAP draws inspiration from those ideas and presents itself in a set of “ones,” defined as:
- One offer: bundled products for a single price
- One contract: ability to manage SLA, operations, and issue management without signing contracts for each
This is particularly beneficial for companies with smaller IT footprints, technical expertise, or budgets and are looking to move to SAP without breaking their existing systems or bank accounts. The idea here is that implementation is more flexible and tailored to the specific needs of a company.
Solutions Included in RISE with SAP
Those who purchase a RISE with SAP license will be able to access solutions, tools, and services in the following areas.
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Suite
SAP S/4HANA is SAP’s flagship enterprise resource planning suite, and SAP S/4HANA Cloud is the hosted version for companies that are looking to avoid running the solution on-premise. Included in this suite is a collection of line of business solutions that cover finance, supply chain and supplier relationship management, sales, and R&D, with more options being planned. The solution runs on SAP HANA, which provides real-time business statistics and analytics.
System Hosting Options
Since SAP S/4HANA Cloud is run, well, on the cloud, customers need to choose a system host. While SAP offers customers the chance to run the solution on SAP servers, a number of hyperscalers also offer the ability to host an SAP S/4HANA Cloud solution. Historically these include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud.
SAP Business Network Starter Pack
The SAP Business Network Starter Pack is a set of functionality that helps customers get connected with trading partners involved in the source-to-pay process, such as suppliers, carriers, and other assets. The pack helps managers find and qualify suppliers with ease, manage inventory, track assets in transit, increase transparency with customers via support, merge asset management and maintenance processes, perform performative analytics, and more.
SAP BTP Consumption Credits
Since every business is different, SAP provides RISE with SAP license holders with cloud credits to use on different areas of SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), rather than providing a set of predefined tools.
SAP BTP is platform-as-a-service focused around the intelligent enterprise. It consists of four pillars, and includes all of the functionality that was part of the sunset SAP Cloud Platform brand name. The pillars focus on analytics, application development and integration with non-SAP solutions, database and data management, and intelligent technologies.
There are thousands of options to choose from when spending credits, from SAP S/4HANA integration (including over 2,000 prebuilt integrations) to database management to SAP Intelligent Robotic Process Automation (SAP Intelligent RPA) and other analytics tools. More information on the cloud credit program can be found on the RISE with SAP site here.
Business Process Intelligence
There are seven key components to the business process intelligence capabilities of RISE with SAP. Below is a little bit on each option.
- The analyze component allows data scientists to take a deep dive into system data to see what is working well and what is not, understand how users work within the system, and more.
- The design and simulate component allows users to use existing business data to create and run business simulations to see which would make for the best result.
- The improve component provides ways to increase efficiency through artificial intelligence, no-code automation, and more advanced process automation tools such as SAP Intelligent RPA.
- The roll out and govern component focuses on process management and governing for end users, and allows collaboration and roll out of key documentation to all users from a single source.
- The monitor component keeps tabs on solution performance and makes sure everything is running smoothly.
- The model and manage “Home Base” component ties back to the roll out and govern component by giving departments a management area to collaborate on and view core processes.
- The benchmark component shows how a business compares to aggregated industry information provided by SAP, in an effort to provide concrete comparative analysis and recommendations on where improvements can occur.
The business process intelligence capabilities are bolstered by functionality SAP acquired when it announced it was purchasing Signavio in January 2021.
Embedded Tools and Services
RISE with SAP provides access to a plethora of services that pertain to areas of lifecycle management, analytics, support, and more that you need to know when making the move to a cloud ERP solution such as SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Examples of some of these services include deployment assistance and removal of legacy code, supply chain process improvement, business scenario planning, and intelligent business design.
Paths to RISE with SAP
There are a few ways for a company interested in RISE with SAP to get itself set up on the solution. While the specific business solutions included with RISE with SAP are from SAP, companies can partner with a chosen hyperscaler and systems integrator to get tailored implementation and administration help.
Consulting Firms/System Integrators
There are numerous consultancies that focus on systems integration that have partnered with SAP for RISE with SAP implementations. Sigitek Software Services is one of the partner, who can help clients with SAP for RISE.
Resellers
SAP has a robust network that includes thousands of partners that have demonstrated SAP expertise. Rather than requiring customers to work directly with SAP, the option exists for customers to work with these resell partners to get SAP up and running, customize the offer to meet specific business requirements, and more..
Software Partners
Currently, Microsoft, Google, AWS, and Alibaba are available as cloud hosts for RISE with SAP, but there is room for growth for other private cloud hosts to join, including AWS and Alibaba, which already have a history hosting SAP S/4HANA Cloud instances.
Conclusion
SAP has made it known for a while now that they want to become a cloud-first company, and RISE with SAP helps overcome many of the hurdles that many existing on-premise and SAP ERP customers are facing. By combining what was once disparate (licensing and maintenance, for example) into one offering, they’ve helped pave the way for easier cloud implementations.
This product is still very new, so if you have additional questions about RISE with SAP, I recommend heading straight to the experts. You can search hashtag #RISEwithSAP on Twitter and hop in on the conversations happening there. I also recommend reading and commenting on the SAP Community posts by SAP leadership listed below.
“Accelerating Innovation, Speed, and Agility with RISE with SAP” – Thomas Saueressig
“Achieve Business Value with SAP S/4HANA … and Rise with SAP” – Sven Denecken
“A Robust Platform for RISE with SAP” – Juergen Mueller
