Published on the 12/12/2024 | Written by Heather Wright
Easier S/4Hana Public Cloud Edition – for midmarket and enterprise?…
SAP is turning to AWS as it seeks a bigger slice of the SMB cloud-based ERP market.
AWS will become the first hyperscaler to offer Grow with SAP, which provides cloud-native ERP software along with adoption services to encourage midmarket companies to implement S/4Hana Cloud Public Edition, through its marketplace– marking the first time customers have been able to run S/4Hana Cloud Public Edition on their own hyperscaler infrastructure.
“Our collaboration will provide customers of all sizes a simplified path to deploy cloud ERP.”
While Grow with SAP on AWS is aimed largely at SMBs (bearing in mind that’s the US definition of SMBs too), SAP says the collaboration will enable customers ‘of all sizes’ to deploy the public cloud edition, harnessing the scalability of cloud. S/4Hana Cloud Public Edition has previously been pushed primarily as a midmarket play.
“Our collaboration with AWS will provide customers of all sizes a simplified path to deploy cloud ERP with powerful automation and insights via Joule embedded across our business applications,” says Muhammad Alam, member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, SAP Product Engineering.
Jan Gilg, SAP president and chief product officer for Cloud ERP, says by leveraging AWS’ global infrastructure, the new offering can provide a ready-to-run cloud ERP system that integrates industry best practices, preconfigured processes and continuous innovation.
Cloud has been the biggest growth driver for SAP in its Kiwi business in recent times.
Last year Kiwi cloud sales increased 28 percent to $86.9 million, as sales of traditional software licenses and support declined, dropping from $63.1 million to $53.3 million.
With the AWS offering, SAP is actively encouraging larger companies to consider the public cloud version, with Gil, saying it will provide the tools for mid-size companies looking to modernise and enterprises seeking advanced AI-driven insights.
“By leveraging AWS’s global infrastructure with SAP’s deep enterprise expertise, Grow with SAP on AWS via AWS Marketplace can empower businesses to adopt a modern, intelligent ERP system designed for agility, scalability, and innovation,” Gilg says. “It brings together the best of SAP S/4HANA Cloud Public Edition and AWS’s cloud capabilities.”
The basic Grow with SAP package includes the core SAP S/4Hana Cloud Public Edition and SAP Business Technology Platform with its built-in AI for businesses.
SAP says Grow on SAP with AWS will enable customers to access AI models through the AI core infrastructure, with Amazon’s Bedrock integrated with the offering, enabling companies to access a selection of AI foundation models from companies including Anthropic, Meta, Mistral AI, Stability AI and Amazon, complementing SAP’s own generative AI copilot, Joule.
SAP says the offering will simplify deployment and enable customers to slash the time it takes to get up and running from years to months.
Billing will be via a unified bill, with customers able to use existing AWS credits and commitments.
AWS has been offering Rise with SAP, which targets SAP customers who are migrating existing data to the cloud, while Grow targets greenfields, since May.
SAP’s cloud ERP suite is the company’s ‘growth engine’, representing 82 percent of its combined SaaS and PaaS revenues and growing 33 percent in fiscal 2023.
Cloud has been a big push for SAP. Early this year it created a Customer Service and Delivery board unit to accelerate its cloud growth and adoption.
The move coincided with a US$2 billion restructure of the business as it focuses in on cloud and AI – it has said that generative AI is its greatest opportunity since the rise of cloud – and increases in software support fees and a scaling back of on-prem updates.
CEO Christian Klein flagged during an earnings call in mid-2023 that new ERP innovations would only be available in the cloud.
AWS, meanwhile, is gearing up to launch its first New Zealand region next year.
