S/4HANA and RISE: Top Takeaways From the 2021 UKISUG

At the 2021 UKI SAP User Group, I joined a group of my Snow Software colleagues as we met face-to-face, spoke with other attendees about their SAP priorities and learned about their challenges — a welcomed change from home office routines. Our discussions revolved around two topics; how crucial migration to S/4HANA is and how RISE with SAP can help companies move forward.

The move to S/4HANA is still top-of-mind

During the opening keynote, Paul Cooper, U.K. and Ireland SAP User Group chairman, talked through the recent UKISUG survey results that echoed the importance of the S/4HANA migration:

• 74% of organizations say they are using or planning to use S/4HANA
• The number of organizations using S/4HANA has risen to 26% from 16% since last year
• Nine out of ten organizations who have moved to S/4HANA are satisfied with it

The survey wasn’t entirely encouraging, though. According to the numbers, existing customizations are proving to be an issue for organizations looking to make the move, with 92% of respondents saying that these customizations represented a challenge for them and 58% saying they plan to rebuild their customizations on the SAP Business Technology Platform. What is clear from the survey is that the migration to S/4HANA is top-of-mind for the SAP user community. While there are challenges involved, organizations are still looking for ways to migrate successfully.

RISE with SAP adoption

In the second part of the keynote, Michiel Verhoeven, U.K. and Ireland SAP managing director, focused on putting the customer first through three key initiatives:

1. SAP is investing in the U.K. and strengthening their presence for customers by building new offices in the Scalpel, London area 

2. SAP is committed to improving customer experience by putting the customer at the heart of everything they do

3. SAP believes RISE with SAP will play a key role in ensuring customer success and increasing SAP accountability to its customers

We heard a story from a company about their SAP journey and adoption of RISE with SAP and, interestingly, they haven’t planned their move to S/4HANA yet, but they have used the RISE offering to consolidate their contract and move their ECC systems to the cloud. Overall, they were very happy with RISE, are ahead of where they expected to be and are in the great position of being able to accelerate their project.

During their lessons learned session, they highlighted the importance of understanding their legacy on-premises licensing and knowing which licenses had been superseded with the RISE contract as each entity moved to the RISE platform to ensure they were not paying for licenses and maintenance they no longer used.

The discussions we had with companies looking to adopt RISE or modernize their SAP landscape with the adoption of SAP Business Technology Platform or other SAP Cloud products highlighted the often unrecognized value of existing SAP investments. Some of the delegates we spoke to on the exhibition floor were looking at how to move to S/4HANA but were struggling to justify the business case now. Everyone we talked to agreed that the chance to renegotiate the contract with SAP is not something that happens often, so it’s important to take advantage when it does.

Establishing a baseline

Regardless of whether organizations choose to adopt RISE with SAP or migrate to S/4HANA in the original way, via a product or contract conversion, they need to establish a baseline of what they actually use by optimizing their current systems. Optimization is key to identifying any redundant shelfware and maximizing ROI from the original investment. Snow helps organizations establish this baseline and identify their future licensing needs by:

• Helping you estimate how many Full Use Equivalent (FUE) licenses would be required through the use of our ruleset engine
• Measuring your current engine consumption today to assist with future planning
• Measuring and monitoring compliance of the HANA database
• Estimating the number of digital documents required, utilizing the SAP passport measurements for those on the latest SAP basis releases (Note: There was no announcement made at the UKISUG about whether the Digital Access Adoption Program (DAAP), introduced in April 2018 as an incentive to move to the Digital Access license model, would be extended beyond December 2021)

Every customer scenario is unique. Before deciding on going with RISE or renegotiating your contract, it’s important for you to know what your current license investment is and what the most cost-effective contract and licensing model will be for your business going forward. See how Snow can help. 

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