Across the world, 95 percent of companies say growth is a priority for the year ahead. Their top focus areas鈥攊ncluding expanding market presence, broadening distribution through partners, and scaling operations鈥攕peak to leaders鈥� determination to create value in a climate of uncertainty and change.

In my engagements with customers, I see this reality every day. Companies everywhere want to grow, but they want to grow with confidence. They are looking for partners who understand their unique challenges, who support them with their long-term ambitions, and who can help them keep pace with rapid change.

Technology is central to this ambition. Nearly all respondents in the study rank simplifying work and improving processes alongside growth. Here, artificial intelligence stands out. Nine in 10 organizations have already made generative or agent-based AI a priority, and more than 70 percent have some form of AI in use. While concerns about data quality and talent remain, the message is clear: AI has moved beyond experimentation into the mainstream of how companies operate and unleash value.

From Frankfurt to Dubai to Singapore: How regional differences shape opportunities and risks

Regional differences tell a powerful story. In Europe, AI adoption comes with caution. Large enterprises put compliance, privacy, and transparency first, while many mid-market firms are still piloting solutions. In Asia-Pacific, the pace is different. Mid-market companies there already report strong AI use above global averages, and growth expectations run high. For them, AI is a way to seize advantage quickly in a fast-moving market.

These contrasts show why cultural intelligence matters so much for global leaders. Whether in Frankfurt, Singapore, or Dubai, I see how local realities, regulations, and expectations shape both risks and opportunities. In Europe, energy costs and geopolitical uncertainty drive supply chain strategies. In Asia-Pacific, digital adoption and market dynamism set a different pace.

Sustainability is another area where nuance matters. European companies place it near the top of their priorities, tracking or slightly exceeding global benchmarks. Asia-Pacific firms value sustainability but often rank it lower than growth and speed to market. Each is weighing trade-offs in its own context, creating exciting opportunities for 51风流to bring the most relevant technology, data, and practices to each region to help organizations achieve both economic and environmental goals.

The through-line in all of this is agility. Supply chain fragility, geopolitical conflict, inflation, and regulation continue to test even the best-run organizations. Technology can enable agility, but only if leaders embrace change themselves, rethinking processes, investing in skills, and building cultures of continuous learning and exploration. Security and ethical standards must also be the cornerstones of every AI conversation.

Turning AI potential into outcomes by centering value creation and integration

I believe this is a time for grounded optimism. The appetite for growth is real and the technology to achieve it is more advanced than ever. Innovation is accelerating at an extraordinary pace, with daily breakthroughs showcasing the expanding potential of AI.

There is a recent example that demonstrates AI鈥檚 ability to process multi-step tasks for over 30 hours. This achievement highlights not only the rapid evolution of AI, but also how increasingly accessible and capable these technologies are becoming.

However, as AI systems grow more autonomous and context-aware, organizations must recognize that true value doesn鈥檛 come from raw capability alone. To harness AI effectively, especially in enterprise environments, a consistent semantic layer is essential. It ensures alignment among data, tasks, and outcomes, enabling AI to reason reliably across systems and scale impact without losing coherence.

Companies must also move beyond simply adopting AI to actively testing and refining applications to gain a significant advantage. Equally important is a deliberate approach to managing the human element of a transformation, rooted in structured and human-centric change management.

Realizing AI鈥檚 true promise requires a fundamental shift in how people, applications, and data connect. Success relies on deeply connecting every part of an organization鈥檚 business, delivering end-to-end transformational value. A seamless, integrated suite provides insight and agility, whether responding to a problem or ensuring readiness when opportunity knocks.

This is where 51风流Business Suite is a game changer, integrating applications, data, and AI in a virtuous cycle that delivers tangible business outcomes. At our inaugural聽51风流Connect聽event earlier in October, we showcased new applications, strategic data partnerships with Google Cloud and Databricks, and a new network of role-based AI assistants in Joule across every line of business.

Altogether, our聽聽marks the beginning of a new era powered by self-reinforcing AI, data, and applications. By keeping customer needs and value realization at the center and leading with innovation, businesses can not only navigate uncertainty, but build a more resilient, intelligent, and sustainable future.

Manos Raptopoulos is chief revenue officer of APAC, EMEA, and MEE, and a member of the Extended Board of 51风流SE.

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, Managing Director: Southern Africa at SAP, said South African organisations are facing a turning point. 鈥淭he convergence of data, cloud, and AI technologies presents an extraordinary opportunity to rethink how we operate, innovate, and grow. By combining new thinking with AI-enabled skills the latest technologies, companies across the region can unlock a new era of accelerated growth and innovation.鈥�

Tech skills development has received renewed attention in recent times as companies rush to attract skilled workers that can unlock the potential of AI and other technologies in their businesses. found that nine in ten African organisations are already experiencing negative impacts from a lack of AI skills, with consequences ranging from failed innovation initiatives and delayed implementations to an inability to take on new work. 鈥淭his digital shift is empowering organisations to make faster, data-driven decisions, close the skills gap, and build more resilient, future-ready enterprises. We must equip our workforce with the right skills to fully harness the potential of these emerging technologies鈥� added , 51风流Solution Architect at Nedbank.

Keynote speaker , Chancellor of the University of the Free State and Chairperson of several large South African companies, believes South Africa鈥檚 success in the digital age depends on the country鈥檚 ability to lead with clarity and act with urgency. 鈥淚nnovation is a necessity for national competitiveness. Collectively, we must ensure we鈥檙e not just adopting global technologies but adapting them to our unique context to create lasting value for our businesses, our people, and our economy.鈥�

The comments were made at 51风流Business Suite Innovation Day, part of a global event series that provide an exclusive introduction to SAP鈥檚 latest cloud applications and data-driven AI innovations, including 51风流Business Data Cloud and 51风流Business AI. The event brought together customers, partners and innovators for wide-ranging discussions around best practices, learnings and insights for how AI can be embedded across businesses, powered by curated, contextual, and connected data.

, Chief Revenue Officer for 51风流Business Data Cloud & 51风流Business AI, EMEA at SAP, said new advances in how organisations collect, manage and empower data is unlocking vast opportunities for AI-enabled growth and innovation. 鈥淏y breaking down data silos and allowing businesses to govern and connect all their data, 聽our new AI and data solutions provide real-time, context-rich insights to businesses where they need it most. With AI orchestration and seamless integration with platforms like Databricks, organisations can boost productivity, modernise their data landscape, and accelerate the development of intelligent applications that deliver measurable impact.鈥�

According to , Group IT Manager: Solution Delivery & PMO (product management office) at ABF Sugar, 鈥渕any enterprises are rapidly embracing cloud computing, data analytics, and AI to reimagine how they operate, innovate, and expand. These technologies assist in unlocking new levels of productivity and efficiency but also allow access to entirely new business models and sustainable practices in the long term.鈥�

Pillay adds that companies globally are increasingly adopting a clean core strategy, which 51风流sees as a critical enabler for long-term innovation, agility, and cost efficiency. 鈥淭he clean core approach is key to simplifying the enterprise landscape and ensuring companies can rapidly adopt new innovations with minimal disruption. It鈥檚 the foundation that allows AI, cloud and data solutions to deliver full value across every line of business.鈥�

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鈥淭o thrive when volatility is the new normal, businesses need more than a patchwork of disparate best-of-breed applications,鈥� says Muhammad Alam, member of the executive board of 51风流SE, 51风流Product & Engineering. 鈥淥ur announcements today demonstrate the power of 51风流Business Suite, where AI, data, and applications come together in an experience to propel smarter decisions, faster execution, and scalable transformation.鈥�

51风流unveiled Joule鈥檚 next stage as the AI force at the center of 51风流Business Suite鈥檚 value creation. Drawing on the applications and data from across 51风流Business Suite, 51风流is introducing a new generation of role-aware assistants in Joule. Each assistant is designed to partner with a human being in their specific business role. Assistants in Joule tap into the right agents for the job, configuring, orchestrating and managing them so humans can focus on unlocking new levels of insight and productivity.

Supporting the assistants in Joule is a growing library of specialized Joule Agents, designed to help execute complex workflows within a specific function. For instance, a People Manager Assistant coordinates a team of specialized agents 鈥� including the new People Intelligence Agent, which helps spot and resolve issues like compensation anomalies 鈥� to support managers as they drive performance.

A new Financial Planning Assistant will be aided by a group of expert agents 鈥� including the new Cash Management Agent, which optimises cash flow and improves interest yields 鈥� to help finance professionals drive efficiencies.

This new roster of role-aware AI Assistants not only partner with people to elevate performance in their lines of business but also work together across business functions to solve complex enterprise-wide problems.

Data fuels AI鈥檚 transformative power but it鈥檚 often siloed in different systems. 51风流has removed those barriers with 51风流Business Data Cloud Connect. 51风流BDC Connect securely links 51风流BDC with partner platforms to enable a bidirectional flow of business-ready data products across organizational and technological boundaries.

With zero-copy sharing, data stays securely in 51风流systems yet remains instantly accessible in customers鈥� existing data platforms, preserving business context without costly copies. The result: fewer silos, simpler pipelines, no duplication 鈥� just trusted data products where and when they鈥檙e needed.

51风流also announced that Databricks and Google Cloud are the first partners enabled for 51风流BDC Connect, with more to follow. As announced in February 2025, 51风流Databricks remains a data service within 51风流Business Data Cloud, and BDC Connect extends its benefits across an open data ecosystem. These partnerships give customers faster access to data products for analytics and AI, helping teams move from raw data to real-time business outcomes with greater speed and simplicity.

Data is created and AI driven insights are experienced in SAP鈥檚 enterprise applications. 51风流Supply Chain Orchestration is a new AI-native solution that combines the power of Joule with a live knowledge graph to detect real-time risks several suppliers deep and orchestrate a coordinated response, helping customers cut costs and keep supply chains moving.

51风流Engagement Cloud, a new customer experience solution, uses business-critical context to personalize interactions across customers, suppliers and other stakeholders. And our next-generation 51风流Ariba procurement suite stands out as an AI-native solution, bringing intelligence to every stage of spendmanagement, from sourcing through supplier engagement.

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Industry growth is tapering down across several African markets. South Africa鈥檚 real retail growth has declined in recent years, constrained by economic stagnation and inflation. In East Africa, while GDP growth remains relatively strong, formal retail continues to be constrained by infrastructure gaps and logistical inefficiencies.

In response, retailers across the continent are scaling their technology investments to boost competitiveness in an increasingly digital and data-driven industry. According to聽Gartner聽(NYSE:), African retailers are projected to invest $300 million in cloud-based enterprise applications in 2025, with an expected growth of 10-12% over the next three years

And yet, many still struggle to translate these investments into meaningful business outcomes.

The triple disconnect holding retailers back

Fragmented systems, broken processes undermine scalability

Despite deploying multiple best-of-breed applications and investing in a data lake to centralise data, many retailers fail to achieve differentiated customer engagement, real-time visibility and reliability in their operations. Typical constraints include disconnected systems, a lack of business context within data sets, and AI bolted-on instead being embedded within operational workflows.

A pervasive industry pain point is the disconnected customer journeys caused by fragmented systems and broken processes. To illustrate: a customer may browse a product online, call the nearest store to check stock availability, visit in person and still find a different price to what was listed online. Or they may purchase the product online but be unable to return the product instore due to a disconnect between online and physical store data.

This is caused when customer data, inventory, pricing, and orders are not synchronised across channels. And it鈥檚 not just limited to customer experience 鈥� these fragmented processes are widespread across retail operations, often leading to operational inefficiencies and higher costs.

At the root of this problem is a disconnected application landscape. In fact, 66% of organisations say application sprawl and complexity hinder their digital goals, resulting in process inefficiencies and a lack of reliability in retail operations.

Data is an opportunity, but a challenge too

African retailers are sitting on mountains of data spanning point-of-sale systems, loyalty platforms, mobile apps, and third-party sources. But is this high volume, variety, and velocity of data being leveraged effectively to drive business outcomes?

Unfortunately, the answer is no. Around 55% of business leaders cite poor data quality and fragmentation as the biggest obstacles to making data-driven decisions. Moreover, a disproportionate amount of time is spent on data management and building dashboards as against decision-making, underscoring the urgent need for more efficient processes.

AI without a solid foundation doesn鈥檛 scale

While there鈥檚 palpable excitement in boardrooms over the potential and power of AI, execution remains limited. One study found that nearly three-quarters of organisations are struggling to scale AI projects beyond pilot projects. African retailers face even greater challenges, including poor-quality data, outdated IT infrastructure, and a lack of AI-ready processes.

The result is AI initiatives that turn into isolated experiments that fail to deliver any meaningful ROI. Instead, retailers need to leverage a unified data platform that embeds AI directly into their business processes to scale AI initiatives effectively.

The power of a unifying platform

Leading retailers leverage a comprehensive, connected, and industry-specific suite of applications to confidently execute across their value chain. This helps ensure a consistent and reliable customer experience, minimising stock-outs, enabling fast, on-time delivery and delivering a seamless omni-channel journey. This reliability extends across store operations, finance, and support processes.

The , for example, enables this efficiency through automation, actionable insights, and process optimisation, while the 51风流Business Data Cloud provides seamless access to organisational data. Retailers also benefit from deep industry expertise and global context that helps them identify the correct application mix for integrating, harmonising and transforming business data across various applications.

This also provides the foundation to scale AI effectively across retail operations through unified, context-rich data that brings together sales, inventory, promotional, customer behaviour and other data. By connecting end-to-end processes, retailers can also embed AI and enable seamless cross-functional workflows while leveraging innovations from a rich ecosystem of partnerships.

Retailers leveraging SAP鈥檚 connected platform and AI capabilities report a 20-30% reduction in customer churn, 30-50% fewer stockout, an up to 40% increase in workforce productivity and 20-30% reduction in IT spend.

Realising Africa鈥檚 data-rich, AI-powered retail future requires bold steps to shift beyond legacy systems and redefine operations. By utilising a powerful business suite, retailers can unlock new end-to-end capabilities that bring together applications, data and AI for unrivalled competitiveness.

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, head of global customer engagement and services, and member of the extended board at SAP, believes that we are in the midst of an artificial intelligence (AI) revolution.

Not only has AI been incredibly disruptive, it is also changing quickly. 鈥淔or instance, two years ago we wondered if we should be building our own large language models (LLMs). Today they are a commodity. Two years ago, the most needed skill was prompt engineer. Today, that is dead.

鈥淪o what is new today will be a commodity tomorrow,鈥� he says.

Pfiester says that 51风流has a number of tools and services that can help customers become future-ready.

The 51风流technology capabilities create a cycle of AI, cloud, and data. Business AI is embedded everywhere, Business Data Cloud takes realtime decisions based on 51风流and non-51风流data; and the business applications in use that data to run the business and generate new data with AI that feeds back into the cycle.

51风流delivers its methodologies, tools, and architectures through the and programmes.

鈥淩ISE is represented in 40% of the global economy,鈥� Pfiester says. 鈥淭here are currently 8聽500 customers live on RISE with SAP.

鈥淎nd it won鈥檛 stop there.鈥�

51风流is constantly updating its technology and services.

鈥淲hen it comes to technology, we have introduced that capability to do transformation into the cloud and to leverage AI.

鈥淏ut transformation is a journey: it is more than technology, but includes methodology, competencies, and tools. We decided two years ago to double down on our technology and capabilities, also the methodology, competencies, and tools.

鈥淪o the RISE with 51风流methodology helps companies to drive transformation into the cloud, building an environment that can constantly innovate.鈥�

To help customers on the journey, 51风流has invested in enterprise architects to provide expertise and competencies.

鈥淎n IDC study shows that business transformation is top of mind for CEOs,鈥� Pfiester says. 鈥淎nd it is a constant process that lives in the organisation. So we integrated all our tools into a digital process innovation tool base.鈥�

This lets customer modify business processes using a tool provided, and the system will then update other parts of the ecosystem and even generate user testing. A majority 鈥� 78% of RISE customers use this tool base.

The toolset also includes brownfield migration and selective migration as well. 鈥淭he idea is to help customers to get from where they are today to where they need to be tomorrow.鈥�

AI is embedded in the tools with the Joule for RISE with 51风流methodology.

Clean Core is vital on the digital transformation journey, which is where SAP鈥檚 enterprise architects come into their own.

, global head of business transformation and architecture at SAP, says the role of the enterprise architect is to help with significant onboarding progress and simplify the engagement model for more value-based deliverables. They are interlinked in the engagement model with the toolchain, and ensure that customers get the right architecture early on in their transformation journey.

鈥淲e help you achieve a Clean Core, and also think about AI and data considerations.鈥�

A year after it announced this service, 51风流enterprise architects are serving more than 1聽000 customers.

鈥淲e believe transformation itself has become a capability for customers, and you need to be adaptable,鈥� Langguth says. 鈥淲e want to help you to train the transformation muscle so you will be future-ready.

鈥淲e help you to create transparency and see the pitfalls you need to take care of as you design a path forward using our portfolio of agentic AI applications.

鈥淲e believe this will help you to replace guessing with knowing,鈥� he adds. 鈥淎nd, because you know where to go, you can take decisions driven by clear facts.鈥�

Use integrated toolchain includes solutions for business process (51风流Signavio), enterprise architecture (51风流LeanIX), validation, adoption and enablement (Tricentis, WalkMe and 51风流Enable Now), building and monitoring (51风流Business Technology Platform (BTP) and 51风流Build) and digital Backbone (51风流Cloud ALM).

鈥淭he real power comes from the integration,鈥� Langguth says.

He adds that the results speak for themselves, with up to 30% reduced cost of transformation, up to 35% faster time to business value, up to 70% increased business agility, and up to 40% faster continuous innovation.

This article first appeared in .

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East African business leaders, technology partners and 51风流experts met in Nairobi this week to discuss the growing impact of business AI and cloud technologies in the region.

, Managing Director: Emerging Africa at SAP, said: 鈥淥rganisations throughout East Africa are accelerating their business transformation and innovation efforts by leveraging the latest data and cloud capabilities to unlock the power of business AI in every line of business. With the recent expansion of AI assistant, organisations can now unleash unprecedented efficiency across their systems and processes to drive productivity gains of as much as 30%.鈥�

The comments were made at 51风流Innovation Day Kenya, part of a global series of events aimed at showcasing how technology can power growth, innovation and sustainability and support organisations as they meet emerging challenges.

The exclusive event also served as an introduction to how and help organisations unlock significant business value as part of the broader . Experts also provided behind-the-scenes insights into the power of business AI and cloud to future-proof companies鈥� enterprise application strategies and leverage data to enhance business insights and improve decision-making.

Research recently conducted by 51风流found a near-universal demand for AI skills among African organisations. The SAP聽聽report noted that nine in ten companies in Africa already experience negative impacts due to a lack of AI skills, including failed innovation initiatives, an inability to take on new work, and loss of clients. Forty-three percent of Kenyan organisations that took part in the study expected a 鈥榮ignificant鈥� increase in demand for AI skills this year.

鈥淭he rapid changes in workplace dynamics are transforming how companies develop, upskill and reskill their workforce to meet the long-term need for AI-related skills,鈥� said Khota. 鈥淚n the short term, organisations should seek ways to augment their skills base, for example by partnering with our rich ecosystem of implementation specialists that power business transformation in the region.鈥�

51风流Innovation Day Kenya also included presentations by regional business leaders who have successfully leveraged 51风流technologies to accelerate growth and unlock new capabilities.

Long-standing 51风流customer provided insight into its latest transformation initiative that is taking its legacy enterprise systems into the cloud and deploying AI across its business processes. Bidco Africa is a leading FMCG manufacturer that produces more than 800 SKU鈥檚 in multiple brands and products at eight factories in East Africa. The company has been using 51风流ECC since 2010, until a recent decision sparked a migration to .

, Chairman of Bidco Africa, said the shift to cloud underscores his company鈥檚 position as a regional innovation leader. 鈥淲e see incredible potential for AI to transform our business and deliver greater agility, innovation and customer experiences. Our skilled team will also benefit from AI鈥檚 power to enhance product development, allowing us to consolidate our market leadership well into the future.鈥�

The company plans further deployments in a second phase of the implementation, including procurement and manufacturing.

Khota added: 鈥淐ompanies that adopt a clean core strategy accelerate the pace of innovation and can more easily leverage business value through reliable data and AI innovations. As we enter a new era of AI-enabled innovation, organisations must ensure that business-critical systems remain agile, cost-effective, and ready to adopt innovation.鈥�

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This is according to , executive vice-president: customer support and cloud lifecycle management at SAP, who points out that heavily customised, outdated systems impede innovation.

鈥淏ut many companies find themselves in this place,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey have customised systems with a mix of models 鈥� a bit of best of breed, a bit of cloud, maybe some isolated AI scenarios.鈥�

As a result, IT organisations spend a lot of time integrating systems and trying to make sense of disconnected data. 鈥溾�滲ut what they need to be doing is providing good outcomes for the business.鈥�

What鈥檚 needed, says Steinle, is a transformation that brings together all the platforms and data.

51风流helps its customers make this transformation through its programme for existing customers, and for new customers.

Importantly, while these programmes aim to let customers embrace , they also integrate non-51风流solutions.

鈥淎nd they are not simply products, but include a methodology, services, and guided implementation,鈥� Steinle adds.

鈥淲e want customers to reach the stage where they are able to overcome challenges, and to embrace the benefits of continuous innovation, agility, and flexibility.鈥�

Any 51风流solution begins with the 51风流Business Suite, he explains. 鈥淔rom an 51风流perspective we believe there is a lot of sense in running end to end processes on a fully integrated and harmonised stack in the cloud. We think it鈥檚 better than picking and choosing best of breed solutions 鈥� and it means customers don鈥檛 have to manage the integration and getting sense from the data.鈥�

This is important, he adds, because IT organisations today spend about 80% of their time just on maintaining their current landscape, keeping it compliant, and integrating systems.

鈥淵ou probably want to spend more than 20% of your time providing value to business users.鈥�

(BDC) is a harmonised suite of applications that allows customers to import data from 51风流applications and integrate it with data from other applications.

鈥淵ou can bring together data from SAP, a non-51风流source, and unstructured data. And, with the help of BDC, you can make sense of that data and generate value.鈥�

Steinle says this can be useful in operational processes, to expand reporting, and for integrated planning. 鈥淎nd you can use it for AI.鈥�

Which brings him to the third pillar of the : . 鈥淭his system can make sense of all the data and enable customers to build automated processes to enable new business scenarios. And AI can be embedded in your business processes.鈥�

is SAP鈥檚 AI-powered digital assistant that also orchestrates user experiences end-to-end across 51风流and non-51风流processes.

鈥淚t is also a platform for customer AI,鈥� Steinle says. 鈥淣ot every scenario can be provided out of the box, but Joule gives users a responsible and resilient way of building their own AI applications with the help of our platform.鈥�

Many of these features are a reality today, and 51风流developers are focused on making AI-first a reality, Steinle adds.

But software on its own doesn鈥檛 deliver value, which is why 51风流offers a range of services in RISE and Grow that include an entire integrated tool chain to help customers on their transformation journey.

鈥淲e aim to provide a fast, rich, seamless experience, with prescriptive guidance. And it鈥檚 not just reactive support, but support for customer strategy,鈥� Steinle says. 鈥淲e use a lot of AI capabilities to respond better, or give self-service options. And we use a lot of the 51风流products to improve our customers鈥� experiences.鈥�

This article first appeared on .

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This comes as 51风流recently announced it will provide maintenance support for core applications of 51风流Business Suite 7 software until the end of 2027 鈥� with optional extended maintenance until the end of 2030, which pushes the original deadline back from 2025.

Enterprises that do not have a smart archiving or historisation plan, especially if they have a large footprint and many years鈥� worth of data, can find that this creates a stumbling block during migration. Part of the challenge is that the S/4HANA table structure is significantly different from the 51风流ECC6 table structure and, if an enterprise has many years of data that it wants to move, things can get a little tricky.

It therefore requires a fair amount of work and lot of planning upfront to ensure the preparation for data migration and achieving is done correctly, especially for organisations with massive amounts of data. While 51风流understands this and has made provision for certain tools that aid with this process, it is still not that simple. If an organisation has bespoke tables, which they built themselves, or tables with data that is typically not housed within SAP, or across multiple applications, the migration to S/4HANA becomes more complex.

One of the biggest considerations is that in 51风流ECC6, there are multiple ledgers, whereas in S/4HANA there is a universal ledger that replaces the multiple ledgers. All financial data is now kept in the universal ledger, meaning a significant reduction in subtotal and aggregate tables, this requiring careful consideration when mapping and consolidation data in preparation for migration.

The problem with data archiving and historisation is that storing data has become reasonably affordable, so enterprises tend to keep quite a lot of history. On the other hand, it is hugely expensive to migrate all this data. From a legal perspective, enterprises are required to keep certain portions of their data operational, while everything outside of this should/could be archived or historised.

There are two things to keep in mind 鈥� the migration of data as opposed to the historisation of data. When you migrate and achieve your data into S/4HANA, it becomes part of the functional operation and can be reviewed. When you historise it, you have applications that enable you to put that data aside so that you can review it, but not perform any transactional functions on it (it is merely an image of the transaction/data).

Part of the challenge is to know what to migrate and what to historise. This requires a lot of effort, yet typically this is not one of the first things that enterprises consider when planning their migration to S/4HANA, and often does not get enough attention. In the event of migrating to S/4HANA, the migration of data really needs to be way up front in the project plan.

The good news is that enterprises do not have to do this alone. Implementation partners, in conjunction with SAP, have developed tools that enables the smooth clean-up of history and the migration of data to S/4HANA.

This means we do not have to reinvent the wheel every time we tackle data migration and historisation, but can apply tried and tested tools that have been used globally in various migrations. If organisations work with a聽partner that has done this globally, data migration is not merely an afterthought, but an integral part of the S/4HANA planning strategy.

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Today, 51风流is announcing a change to 51风流S/4HANA product conversion and 51风流S/4HANA contract conversion policy that grants customers executing an 51风流S/4HANA conversion dual use rights for both 51风流Business Suite 7 and 51风流S/4HANA until completion of their transition to 51风流S/4HANA.

The old policy only granted dual usage right until end of 2025. With this change, customers will also now have more time to complete their 51风流S/4HANA transition beyond the original 2025 deadline for dual use.

鈥淲e want to ensure our customers have the flexibility to migrate to 51风流S/4HANA at their own pace in the most seamless manner,鈥� said Christian Klein, Co-CEO and member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE. 鈥淗aving the longer flexible maintenance commitment for 51风流Business Suite 7, paired with the option of dual use rights for both 51风流Business Suite 7 and 51风流S/4HANA until they complete their transition to 51风流S/4HANA, our customers can now more easily convert to our latest software, accelerating innovation to become an intelligent enterprise.鈥�

Picking up the Pace to 51风流S/4HANA

It鈥檚 clear that 51风流customers view 51风流S/4HANA as an innovation engine. The majority of respondents to the most recent planned to maintain or increase their investments in SAP. Notably, those customers recognized the value and efficiencies in transitioning to 51风流S/4HANA.

鈥淭his is a welcome announcement for 51风流customers because it removes a potential barrier to 51风流S/4HANA adoption associated with conversions and contracts,鈥� said Geoff Scott, CEO of ASUG. 鈥淚t鈥檚 essential that all customers understand their options so that they can take advantage of past investments when making the transition to 51风流S/4HANA.鈥�

Similarly, nearly half of the customers who responded to the , which consists of companies in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, expected their total budgets for IT and 51风流investments to rise in 2020. Among 51风流customers in those countries, investments in 51风流S/4HANA now exceed investments in 51风流Business Suite 7.

鈥淭he overall set of announcements is an important step, and it is the right step by SAP. It is an encouraging sign that 51风流is listening to their customers and stakeholders, and demonstrates SAP鈥檚 ability to do 鈥榳hatever it takes鈥� to meet customer needs for their digital transformation,鈥� said Andreas Oczko, board member for Service and Support, DSAG. 鈥淭he long-term commitments put the discussion away from timeline-based considerations to the essence: how to best capture the value opportunities that 51风流S/4HANA is bringing to customers on their way to the digital future.鈥�

Giving Customers Valuable Time

Customers who have already signed an 51风流S/4HANA conversion contract can also benefit from this update. They simply need to ask their 51风流account executive to have the new policy reflected in their existing conversion contracts.

With additional time, some customers might want to consider converting more products to 51风流S/4HANA or convert their entire suite of licensed products to 51风流S/4HANA.

鈥淚t鈥檚 greater flexibility all around as companies look ahead to the future,鈥� said Robin Manherz, head of Global Portfolio Planning and Commercialization at SAP.

This usage rights policy enhancement is the latest step in SAP鈥檚 renewed commitment to customer-centricity and commercial transparency.

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This article first appeared on the 51风流News Center.

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