As part of SAP’s cloud strategy, more organisations in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region are embracing RISE with SAP in a bid to accelerate business transformation by leveraging cloud technologies.
Through the RISE with SAP cloud transformation program, the enterprise software giant aims to deliver business transformation as a service to help companies jumpstart their journey to the intelligent enterprise. Scott Russell, Executive Board Member and Head of Customer Success at SAP, said the solution is gaining traction in the APAC region as businesses look to accelerate their transition towards cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications.
Initially outlined in January, RISE with SAP is a collection of subscription-based software and services built on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). During a regional media briefing on the sidelines of SAPPHIRE NOW 2021, Russell said that more than 100 customers, including Thai Medical Glove and Ra Chem Pharma in Thailand, have already signed up for the RISE offering since its launch. Claiming that “Asia is going to lead the way” with RISE, Russell went on to say that roughly 80{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of SAP customers on the program are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). According to Russell, the solution is not just about helping move organisations’ workloads to the cloud but also enabling them to understand which processes drive the greatest value. He maintained:
“That’s what RISE with SAP brings – we’re bullish and we’ve received great feedback so far in the market, and we expect to continue that as we’ve got a modular breadth of capability.”
“We look forward to bringing that to life with companies across Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Vietnam, and the entire region because I think Asian companies will continue to expect to transform and lead the world going forward,” Russell added.
Expanding SAP’s Cloud Strategy in APAC
Meanwhile, Tadashi Kanzawa, Senior Vice President at SAP APJ, also weighed in on how regional organisations can transform using SAP technologies. In a session during SAPPHIRE NOW 2021, he stated that they have launched the “very comprehensive” RISE with SAP solution this year. He further shared:
“S/4HANA is the core of RISE and the BTP, the Business Network and some tools have been practiced. I believe that those solutions will be the platform to implement the intelligent enterprise.”
Moreover, Kanzawa also leads the SAP S/4HANA Cloud in enabling the success of over 400 customers and many partners in the region. He added:
“SAP is trying to launch some additional values. The biggest value here at SAP, it’s a different way to business process. Through the history at SAP, we have been working to build the best practice and some specific solutions for the industries and business functions.”
One of these specific solutions is the RISE with SAP for Modular Cloud ERP, which extends SAP’s S/4HANA core ERP solution with new software modules in other areas and lines of business.
Unveiling RISE with SAP for Modular Cloud ERP
The launch of Modular Cloud ERP was one of the major announcements at this year’s SAPPHIRE NOW. Procurement, human experience management (HXM), analytics, and governance are among the current modules included in the offering, with more planned to be added later. The modular capabilities, according to Russell, will allow businesses to map their transformation paths using a single contract and subscription service that is underpinned by a common data and security model.
Furthermore, Thomas Saueressig, Member of the Executive Board at SAP SE for SAP Product Engineering, said the modular architecture was developed in response to customers who want an agile way of embracing innovation quickly. He explained:
“The work we did in the last 18 to 24 months was really to invest in all integrations. We can now deliver a full modular cloud ERP, including industry-specific innovations from the Industry Cloud which we deliver together with our customers and partners.”
