In 2022 cloud computing, in its many guises, continues to enjoy double digit growth as organisations recognise that it offers much more than the basic ability to “run your business systems on someone else’s computer”. Nowhere is this more evident than in those incumbent companies that are leading the charge when it comes to digital transformation. And nowhere is this more important than with the mission-critical ERP systems that underpin every company’s core business processes.
How does cloud computing translate into better business transformation in the heart of your enterprise?
Across the board, CEOs are on the hunt for better business performance. They know that in a VUCA world yesterday’s performance is a distant memory and tomorrow’s success is never guaranteed. They must grow – profitably and sustainably while building a culture, organisation, and systems that foster flawless execution, innovation, agility, and resilience. In these inflationary times they must balance growth against margin protection and liquidity management. They must do all of this through a strategic blend of differentiated customer experiences, talent deployment, financial performance, supply chain, and ecosystem design and innovative products and services. This is the essence of business transformation – it’s not new, but it is getting more complex, more urgent, and more dynamic. And leaders know this rests on exploiting data with digital technologies which can be delivered fast and at scale via the cloud.
So, what if any, is the connection between ERP and cloud computing?
To do all the above tasks, you need a robust digital core and powerful digital technologies to fuel data driven insights and decision making. You need highly automated, yet flexible business processes to deliver outcomes and productivity. And you need an information-empowered workforce able to do what humans do best – strategy, relationships and solving complex problems. And by the way those processes and the people who work with them, extend beyond the boundaries of your organisation – so you need a platform that enables secure process and people collaboration across your ecosystem.
This is the world of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the Chief Digital Officer (CDO) – translating the possibilities and potentials of a myriad technologies into business capabilities that the CEO needs for their strategy to succeed. Historically CIOs have done this in their on-premise data centres – buying, assembling, and running all the different elements of the technology “stack” needed to run their businesses with ERP systems as the foundation. And then customising, augmenting, and integrating those monolithic ERPs to suit the way “business gets done here”. It’s been a complex and arduous business, even with the help of systems integrators. It takes time, which businesses don’t have, and talent which is hard to come by. And in many cases, those old approaches to customisation have cut organisations off from the innovations that their vendors deliver.
Legacy ERP systems, constrained by the limitations of yesterday’s technologies, are no longer fit for purpose and struggle to keep up with the pace of innovation demanded. Simply lifting and shifting them to the cloud will not deliver the step changes in required business performance.
It is now time to modernise and replace those old ERP systems with a simple, future-ready business foundation. A modern ERP with comprehensive and powerful business processes, infused with AI and machine learning for greater productivity. An ERP offering an engaging consumer-grade user experience. An ERP that enables business model innovation and comes with embedded analytics and predictive capabilities to steer the organisation in an agile manner. This is the essence of SAP S/4HANA Cloud. In mid-2022 some twenty thousand customers have chosen SAP S/4HANA and 72% of those are live and reporting significant and wide-ranging business benefits.
RISE with SAP – the answer to crucial questions
RISE with SAP answers a couple of key questions. How do we help companies reap the benefits of SAP S/4HANA and the advantages of cloud? How do we do this whilst also recognising that ERP does not live in a vacuum and each company’s situation is different?
To do all this, RISE with SAP brings together, in a single, subscription-based contract (built for each customer’s unique journey) relevant SAP software including SAP S/4HANA (as a service), cloud infrastructure, tools and accelerators and SAP technical services.
While each RISE with SAP contract is customer-specific, common to all of them is that SAP takes accountability for providing all these elements as a service with a 99.7% SLA. This frees customers up to focus on applying this SAP solution to their business to achieve their transformational objectives.
RISE with SAP is now 18 months old with a growing cohort of projects and live customers – hear from some of them.
SAP’s customers are embracing RISE with SAP as the solution to the challenges of moving to SAP S/4HANA in the cloud. It enables them to reduce risks and costs and deliver ongoing business transformation, process optimisations and digital innovations.
The videos below will give you additional insights into why companies have elected to go with RISE with SAP, and will help you plan your own journey to a better future for your business.
ATOS. Richard Filby, Global Head Finance Systems at ATOS talks about why ATOS selected RISE with SAP
Unipart. Yiannis Levantis, CIO on how RISE with SAP will help Unipart drive innovation
Unipart. Yiannis Levantis, CIO full interview on why Unipart selected RISE with SAP