The recent IDC report commissioned by SAP, “Partner Opportunity in a Changing World”, tackled the role of technology in the future of enterprise and the outlook of the SAP partner ecosystem.
Karl Farhbach, SAP Chief Partner Officer responsible for SAP’s indirect channel worldwide, shared in his article how the software giant is strengthening SAP partnerships for the next normal. He highlighted the new IDC research on the SAP partner ecosystem, which demonstrated how SAP leverages its strong business technology platform in supporting partnership expansion in the Intelligent Enterprise. IDC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world’s leading tech media, data and marketing services company.
Sharing some highlights of the study, Fahrbach said:
“Among the key takeaways: revenue expanding to $260 billion by 2024 — nearly doubling this year’s total — and job growth increasing from 1 million to 1.6 million workers by 2024.”
Role of Technology in the Future of Enterprise
Almost a year of surviving in the time of the pandemic, many businesses have accelerated digital adoption to thrive and equip for the next normal. Aside from recognising the role of technology in the future of businesses, the study conducted by IDC also focused on the SAP partner ecosystem’s response to the evolving new normal, stressing the role of technology as the transformation enabler for enterprise recovery.
According to IDC, the Future Enterprise is an organisation that is completely digitally transformed.
“Digital transformation is obviously accelerating at an exponential rate in response to work-from-home initiatives. Companies naturally seek the flexibility of cloud-based solutions. Those that have already started their digital transformation journeys are better prepared for resilience. Others find themselves in catch-up mode,” Fahrbach stated.
The 2024 forecast of $260 billion revenue is underpinned and driven by SAP Cloud growth, which will outpace revenue from on-premise deployments. Fahrbach stressed that it is a pivotal opportunity for SAP partners to be able to achieve the bottom-line in a remarkable time of need.
A Promising Future
IDC also reported on the impact of SAP ecosystem expansion on jobs. Based on the IDC ecosystem modeling, the SAP ecosystem employs 1 million workers in 2020. By 2024, with IDC’s forecasted growth of SAP revenue, the SAP ecosystem is anticipated to employ 1.6 million workers.
The accelerated workforce growth is attributed, mostly, to over 280,000 net new consultant roles that will be created within 2020-2024. Furthermore, extrapolating total worker roles into hours worked, the SAP ecosystem opportunity will equate to over one billion billable hours between now and 2024.
SAP’s commitment to supporting partnership expansion in the Intelligent Enterprise through technology was evident in the IDC study. Recognising that the pandemic challenges are far from over, SAP has laid out new offerings to enable customer success.
The LACE (Land, Adopt, Consume, Expand) operating model as a go-to-market strategy is one of SAP’s new initiatives for partners. At the recently concluded virtual event SAP MaxAttention Summit, SAP Executive Board member and Customer Success lead Adaire Fox-Martin also shared about the LACE operating model, which is being adopted by some 40{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of SAP’s workforce.
Other new initiatives for SAP partners mentioned by Fahrbach include shared partner demos as a free, integrated environment for customers and learning journey support and learning content on SAP Learning Hub.
“By helping customers to truly become intelligent enterprises, all SAP partners are ultimately primed to prevail.” Fahrbach shared.
