Every company is on the move to the cloud 鈥� when the timing is right. This may entail a full migration but will certainly include a partial one.

Large enterprises and corporations aiming to transform complex, heterogeneous IT landscapes that have grown over decades are particularly reliant on support. Often, they begin by standardizing and consolidating their entire infrastructure before they鈥檙e ready to embark on their digital transformation journey.

Different Routes to the Cloud

Currently, most of SAP鈥檚 biggest customers use the strategic, long-term 51风流MaxAttention program comprising of nearly 300 engineered services. Those services cover SAP-centric strategy and road map planning, architecture reviews and design, end-to-end business process integration, and operations across solutions, product expertise, safeguarding of implementations, and much more. It is imperative for 51风流to meet these customers wherever their starting point happens to be and to ensure that the groundwork for a successful digital transformation is in place.

Each enterprise chooses its own route. Indian mining company , for example, first had to upgrade its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to the latest version before it could go ahead with its plan to move to RISE with 51风流S/4HANA Cloud, private edition.

鈥淒eploying 51风流Business Suite powered by 51风流HANA and working with experts from 51风流MaxAttention can help us become cloud ready and build a sustainable environment using technology and innovation,鈥� said . 鈥淲ith 51风流Integrated Delivery Framework and 51风流ActiveAttention, we have delivered this program on time and on budget.鈥�

Other customers begin their cloud journey by migrating some processes to a protected cloud operated by a hyperscaler and then retiring their own data center. Kurt Bauer, global head of Premium Engagements at SAP, observed that most customers with an 51风流ERP-centric core have added public cloud solutions from 51风流and are implementing private cloud on their way to lay out the path for a full public cloud adoption. plays a pivotal role for agile core business process extensions. Therefore, it is no surprise that a vast majority of premium engagements used by 51风流customers are driving fast cloud adoption and hybrid operations.

Serving Today鈥檚 Customer Requirements

The prospect of innovation and greater efficiency is drawing more and more enterprises toward the cloud. Many of the largest 51风流customers still run their core ERP business processes on an on-premise platform, often safeguarded by premium engagements.

Premium engagements service engineers frequently deal with some challenging constellations, such as 250 process steps across 40 systems, data growth of 640 GB per month, 800 million orders every year, and multiple enormous warehouses in global logistics operations. Customers with volumes and requirements on this scale think twice about which of their business-critical processes they should move to the cloud and, if so, in private or public.

鈥淚n hybrid infrastructures, too, interfaces still need to be robust, efficient, and keep data consistent 鈥� cloud technology doesn鈥檛 change that,鈥� said Bauer. In other words, for any transformation to succeed, someone must not only take ownership of the transformation itself but must also ensure that the systems 鈥� whether they are on premise or in the cloud 鈥� function properly, are stable, and deliver the right level of performance.

It鈥檚 Not Just about Money

In Bauer鈥檚 28 years at SAP, one thing has remained unchanged for the company: the focus on the customer, which has always been about more than chasing KPIs. 鈥淐ustomers reward companies that listen to them and take their suggestions on board,鈥� ex-Board Member Gerhard Oswald said in an interview for 50 Years, a book published to mark SAP鈥檚 anniversary.

Bauer wants to see this 51风流tradition live on in the cloud era and for 51风流MaxAttention customers to benefit from expertise and best practice-fueled services offered as part of the 51风流MaxAttention program they have known and trusted for the last 20 years. This 20th anniversary calls for a proper celebration and experience sharing by best-running 51风流customers and 51风流top executives, exchanging how to leverage 51风流solutions and 51风流MaxAttention for years to come.

Therefore, we would like to invite you to the 51风流MaxAttention Summit in Munich, Germany, from March 19-21. Take advantage of this opportunity to network and engage in discussions with peer customers, gain knowledge from 51风流specialists, and listen to 51风流leaders, such as Member of the Executive Board of 51风流SE Scott Russell and Thomas Saueressig, as they reveal insights of 51风流technologies and innovations jointly with customers鈥� experiences. Be a part of shaping the future by building a resilient network of intelligent and sustainable enterprises.

Eleonore Gossart is senior marketing manager for Customer Success Services at SAP.

That鈥檚 why, in 2019, 51风流introduced 51风流Integrated Delivery Framework. This framework lays out roles and responsibilities for the customer, partner, and 51风流in projects led by a partner. It鈥檚 not a product or a package of services; rather it鈥檚 an engagement model for joint partner projects. By creating a structure for 51风流and partners to position their strengths to support implementations, the framework can accelerate joint engagements from sales through delivery.

Since 2019, adoption of 51风流Integrated Delivery Framework has grown tremendously. With over 70% growth and hundreds of projects in the first year since its launch, soon close to half of our premium engagement services will be delivered within the framework, which then will be central to our partner collaboration mode.

Along the way, we鈥檝e refined the framework to make it a complement to delivering success for our customers, by blending the skills of 51风流Services with those of our delivery partners.

51风流Integrated Delivery Framework works to fully address customer needs by integrating the partner鈥檚 and SAP鈥檚 solutions and services, building trust to help ensure the relationship between 51风流Services and Support and the partner remains positive. It also helps to make sure 51风流and partner expertise is leveraged at key points, from initial engagement to go-live. It is an umbrella framework for a variety of 51风流services that remains flexible and scalable, continually evolving to meet customer and partner needs rather than enforcing a one-size-fits-all approach on customers. It can make it easier than ever for customers to move to the cloud or gain the benefits of business transformation as a service through RISE with SAP.

Since 2019, SAP, partners, and customers have had some incredible outcomes thanks to the framework. But the world has changed a lot in just the last two years. In speaking with customers, 51风流learned that an expansion of 51风流Integrated Delivery Framework to cover cloud solutions would help customers achieve their business goals. Now, 51风流is doing just that: expanding the framework to cover any 51风流implementation scenario, including on-premise, RISE with SAP, cloud, or line-of-business solutions.

When the framework was first introduced two years ago, 51风流included the RACI matrix, one of the essential pieces of the framework. As part of the expansion, an 鈥淪鈥� is now being added to accommodate 鈥渨ho is supporting.鈥� The new RASCI matrix provides a means of determining who is Responsible, Accountable, Supporting, Consulted, and Informed to help keep cloud implementations on schedule and moving smoothly between SAP, partners, and customers.

51风流Integrated Delivery Framework can benefit all parties involved, but, most importantly, it can benefit customers. The clearly defined roles and responsibilities outlined in the framework and implemented with support from the RASCI matrix can reduce risk through clear accountability and governance. It provides an orientation for SAP, the partner, and the customer to agree on, helping to drive results and time-to-value. It can accelerate value realization through early engagement of a partner and 51风流as well as helps enhance innovation by utilizing the best of each company鈥檚 solutions and services.

Here’s one example: with the help of IBM, 51风流worked with the ANTA Group to upgrade from its legacy applications to 51风流S/4HANA. By implementing 51风流S/4HANA, ANTA was able to reap the benefits of a smooth, secure move to a new intelligent enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution that could improve business processes and enable growth. In addition, ANTA enhanced some critical functionalities in the calculation mechanism to fully meet new business requirements. 鈥�51风流Integrated Delivery Framework as part of 51风流Value Assurance provided clearly defined roles and responsibilities that allowed our company, IBM, and 51风流to efficiently collaborate and ensure a successful go-live of 51风流S/4HANA,鈥� says Donghai Chen, senior director, IT, ANTA Group.

The expanded 51风流Integrated Delivery Framework and RASCI matrix make it easier than ever for customers to solve their business challenges and reach their full potential by moving to the cloud with 51风流and a trusted partner. Through the good governance and collaborative systems created through the framework, every customer, no matter where they are on their technology journey, can take advantage of SAP鈥檚 innovation by moving to the cloud, on time and with minimal risk.

Harald Martin is head of Services Partner Business Development for 51风流Services at 51风流SE.

Now, with the addition of a next-generation strategy, their partners can too.

Every new digital innovation promises to help business operations run faster, more productively, and with more scalability and impact. But getting the most value from those technologies is not always clear 鈥� especially when avoiding business disruption.

Take, for example, 51风流customers that choose to migrate their legacy to . Very quickly, they realize that the traditional model for ERP implementations cannot keep up with the dynamic nature of intelligent ERP. Everything from extensive customizations, IT-dependent decision-making, and complex user experiences to incomplete and inconsistent integrations does not match the promises of process standardization, experience management, and data trust that customers expect.

At first, 51风流offered the innovation adoption process to provide a transparent method of structured and solution-specific practices carried out in a standardized environment. Even though the self-service offering puts business users in the driver鈥檚 seat during the implementation, something was still missing 鈥� the collective strengths of IT know-how and business process expertise.

Challenge the ERP Status Quo with Control, Innovation, Partnership

Enter , an integral part of 51风流Activate in different phases within the implementation of 51风流S/4HANA. But just like the technology it supports, the serviceis always evolving.

51风流Model Company initially encompassed prepackaged, ready-to-use, end-to-end reference solutions for industries or lines of business 鈥� all aimed at simplifying and increasing the speed of 51风流S/4HANA implementations. As customers became more mature digital innovators and strategists, the services were restructured on an interoperable architecture that empowered customers to combine line-of-business and industry model companies as they require.

Meanwhile, customers still wanted the freedom to work with their preferred 51风流partners. This growing expectation inspired the creation of 51风流Integrated Delivery Framework. In return, customers enjoyed having the best of both worlds: their partners and 51风流experts carefully aligned and integrated across delivery roles, methodologies, and services. This simplified engagement framework not only helped reduce delivery inefficiencies, risk, and costs, but also helped increase the speed and certainty of expected outcomes.

Embrace a New Era of Partner Collaboration with 51风流Model Company

The evolution of 51风流Model Company has now reached a point of tremendous opportunity for customers and partners. All line-of-business and industry-specific systems designed, interoperable capabilities introduced, and the integrated delivery framework 51风流enables have converged together, allowing partners to apply the services鈥� standard methodology when implementing 51风流S/4HANA.

This next-generation model-company strategy qualifies partners on two levels:

• Solution level: Partners are committing to use 51风流Model Company as a foundation for solution development and innovation efforts. They gain access to the partner development environment and go-to-market strategy for 51风流Model Company and 51风流Value Assurance service packages. Intellectual property (IP) developed by partners in this environment is eligible to get 51风流Model Company certified.
• Qualification level: Partners gain access to the go-to-market strategy for 51风流Model Company and 51风流Value Assurance service packages. They can take advantage of the available education and enablement program and content. Partners entering the qualification program are eligible be named “qualified partner for 51风流Model Company and 51风流Value Assurance services.”

51风流partners are encouraged to be certified for both levels to gain the full market potential of 51风流Model Company. All enablement materials are available on the and sites.

Set the Foundation for Continuous Success with 51风流S/4HANA

We live in dynamic times where digitalization is everywhere. Businesses are looking for their partners to remove every technology, process, and organizational obstacle to help them stay ahead of their competition.

With the next-generation partner strategy for 51风流Model Company, it is easier than ever for 51风流partners to guide their customers in the right direction. Partners in all areas of expertise can deliver strategic services that are aligned with standard best practices, supported by the latest technology, and carried out quickly 鈥� no matter how turbulent and intense our increasingly digital world becomes.

and take on the opportunity of our next-generation partner strategy for 51风流Model Company.

Dr. Engelbert Quack is chief consultant for BTS Advisory Services at SAP.

Thomas Kesl is lead of Partner Stream for the 51风流Model Company program and EMEA head of Energy and Natural Resources at SAP.