Hyperscalers, SAP and Service Providers are Assessed
Boston, MA – September 14, 2021 – UpperEdge, an independent third-party advisory company that empowers organizations to get the most value from their IT supplier relationships, describes how a majority of SAP customers are now compelled to move their SAP environments to the cloud.
AWS, Google, Microsoft, SAP and the service providers have responded to this demand with a surplus of service offerings, partnership strategies and commercial models – and in doing so, have significantly disrupted traditional sourcing, vendor evaluation, selection and negotiation strategies.
The movement to the cloud is driven by a combination of factors, including:
- SAP ECC to S/4HANA greenfield and brownfield upgrades
- Decommissioning of legacy datacenters via a broader cloud strategy
- A desire to move away from monolithic managed services agreements.
Selecting a hyperscaler like Microsoft Azure, AWS, or GCP, comes with adjacent and long-term implications, including impacts on existing relationships, migration services, run management services, financial incentives and contractual structures.
But the hyperscalers also come with commercial, organizational, and architectural flexibility to drive an organization’s own destiny. And most companies already have existing relationships with Microsoft, AWS, or Google. However, the movement of their SAP infrastructure is a major relationship and commercial inflection point.
“Companies that are considering a transformation are best served with anticipating the nature of the engagement that will occur with SAP and various partners and proactively defining an engagement strategy that will dictate how the engagement will be managed. This will enable — and not distract — the decision-making process,” said Len Riley, Commercial Advisory Practice Leader at UpperEdge.
“Options include SAP RISE, going direct with a hyperscaler, bundled SI solutions and other multi-sourced vendor scenarios. Current market dynamics are encouraging the consideration of these options but overwhelming the companies evaluating them,” Riley added.
UpperEdge will offer insights into pricing, contract terms, and understanding the lines of demarcation between hyperscaler offerings, service provider offerings, and SAP’s RISE in a webinar, “Defining Your SAP Cloud Strategy: Azure, AWS, GCP and RISE Compared,” on September 28th at 11:00 EDT. Register and you will be sent the recording even if you cannot attend. Visit UpperEdge’s SAP Advisory Services page for more information.
About UpperEdge
UpperEdge maximizes the value its clients receive from their key IT supplier relationships by helping them develop and execute fact-based sourcing, negotiation, and program execution strategies. Visit www.upperedge.com for more information.
