It remains to be seen whether SAP users will follow the path of their software supplier. The German-speaking SAP user group (DSAG) is under no illusions. “SAP has not built any new software,” says Thomas Henzler, DSAG Board Member for Sales, Production & Logistics. “The Business Suite is first and foremost a target image, but not a product.”
SAP is building “managed integration”
In future, customers will buy a Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, either Cloud Public or Private Edition, explains the user representative. The new Rise and Grow journeys announced as part of this process are intended to guide customers towards this goal. From SAP’s perspective, the strategic ERP product is the S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition or now Cloud ERP Public.
With regard to integration, the DSAG representative states: “In the past, SAP developed a technical platform with the Cloud Integration Suite and a corresponding mapping. However, customers had to implement, pay for and operate this themselves.” In future, SAP wants to offer more and more “managed integration”, where the software group also takes over the technical operation. Henzler cites the announcement at Sapphire 2024 regarding the customer relationship management (CRM) solution Sales Cloud, which became part of the Grow-with-SAP bundle, as an example of this. Such a “managed integration” already exists here — albeit in the context of S/4HANA Cloud, Public Edition.
