In a joint survey, the German-speaking SAP Users’ Group (DSAG) and the Americas’ SAP Users’ Group (ASUG) asked their members for the first time about the SAP offering RISE with SAP. According to the survey, only one-third of DSAG members are somewhat familiar or very familiar with the content of RISE with SAP. The figure for ASUG members is 23%.
The survey participants also expressed their views on the expected benefits of RISE with SAP. 24% of ASUG members and 12% of DSAG members consider the SAP offering for business transformation to be of rather high or very high value. Conversely, 11% of ASUG members and 39% of DSAG members see little to no added value in it at the present time.
37% of respondents in North America and 10% of respondents in German-speaking countries said that RISE with SAP would be suitable for their own company. Although both user groups generally have a high level of confidence in SAP, 58% of ASUG members but only 26% of DSAG members are convinced that SAP will meet expectations with regard to RISE with SAP.
The joint DSAG and ASUG survey also focused on the spread of SAP S/4HANA. The most important finding: it is continuously increasing. Just under a quarter of German and U.S. SAP user companies (24% each) are now live with SAP S/4HANA, and another 20% (DSAG) and 21% (ASUG) are currently in the transformation process. 37% of DSAG members and 30% of ASUG members are planning to implement SAP S/4HANA in the future, but have not yet started a corresponding project.
The difference in the preferred deployment option is striking. While 57% of companies from the German-speaking region have chosen or will choose SAP S/4HANA on-premise, the proportion is significantly lower among American companies (27%). For private cloud deployment, the figures are almost identical at 23% (DSAG) and 24% (ASUG). Managed cloud is used by 12% of German-speaking companies and 19% of American companies. The public cloud has so far played a minor role as a deployment option for SAP S/4HANA on both sides of the Atlantic.
Differences can also be seen in the general attitude towards the cloud. Just under three-quarters of ASUG members have a somewhat positive or very positive attitude, but less than half (46%) of DSAG members. “Approval for cloud solutions continues to increase in the DACH region, although not to the same extent as among the American SAP Users’ Group,” says DSAG Executive Board Chairman Jens Hungershausen. “This could be related to the reservations of many companies in the DACH region about placing sensitive company data in the cloud. Viable concepts and persuasion are still needed here.”
In terms of their experience with cloud solutions from SAP, 57% of ASUG members and 30% of DSAG members are somewhat satisfied to very satisfied. In the non-SAP sector, the satisfaction figure among German-speaking companies is significantly higher at 60% – a result that also surprised the DSAG Executive Board Chairman. “It shows that SAP has obviously not yet satisfactorily solved important issues such as integration, licenses and security,” says Jens Hungershausen. “In this respect, vendors in the non-SAP sector are probably much further ahead.”
For both user groups, the issue of license models and costs is the biggest challenge (DSAG: 72%, ASUG: 41%) to be overcome when using cloud services. Data protection and information security (DSAG: 53%, ASUG: 25%) and integration (DSAG: 41%, ASUG: 15%) follow in the next places.