This article is an excerpt taken from the IDC Vendor Spotlight detailing IDC’s views summarised as 5 key business risks that access control solutions can help manage.

5 Key Business Risks

1. Financial

Financial processes must be designed to prevent fraud by those inside the business. Segregation of duties is a key technique to protect against fraud, the principle being that transactions must always require action from two or more staff, making it extremely difficult for an individual to commit fraud and more errors are likely to be picked up.

2. Reputational

Organisations must protect their reputation among customers and investors. The failure of risk management processes can have a big impact on the reputation of a business as well as direct financial losses or legal repercussions.

In Europe, a series of corporate scandals and failures have made the public aware of the fact that not all businesses meet the standards required of them, reducing trust in the business in question. This loss of trust can have a material impact on brand value and the share price of listed companies.

3. Regulatory

Applying processes that manage risk goes beyond good business practice. All businesses are legally required to comply with regulations determined by the jurisdictions in which they operate. Organisations in certain industries such as financial services and pharmaceuticals must adhere to a specific set of regulations driven by the types of products they develop and sell.

Auditors will check compliance with these regulations. Critically, it is not enough for an organisation to show that no failures occurred; regulators and auditors must see that robust processes are in place to ensure continued compliance.

4. Privacy

An example of a set of regulations that apply to all organisations in Europe are those set out in the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). All businesses that operate in Europe must treat personal data in line with a set of rules that control the way data is collected and consent for its use, storage, and retention is handled. There are serious penalties for organisations that breach these regulations.

5. Access Control

Processes designed to mitigate financial, reputational, and legal risks are the first part of the solution; access control is the second. The effectiveness of business processes is contingent on the correct people actioning each step of the process. Risk management is ultimately in the hands of people who must perform the role defined for them precisely. Individuals with access rights to systems that are too broad may find they are able to circumvent or compromise processes designed to protect the business.

Compliance is a Complex and Evolving Challenge

The CFO is the primary owner of risk management, answerable to the board, and holding a personal legal responsibility. In Europe, the regulatory burden has been rising as the EU in particular seeks to protect consumers and investors and reduce systemic risks in certain industries.

The financial crisis of 2008 in particular triggered a wave of new regulations. CFOs had to respond quickly and received investment to upgrade systems and processes to meet emerging requirements, but in most cases, compliance was achieved by adjusting existing systems to meet the new requirements of regulations such as MIFID, IFRS, and SOX.

Is your access control solution working for you?

It’s worth revisiting your access control processes to ensure they’re keeping up with changing regulations and best practices. Get in touch with one of Soterion’s SAP security consultants to explore how we can help solve your GRC objectives.

More about Soterion

Soterion is an international leading provider of governance, risk, and compliance solutions for organisations running SAP. Soterion’s user-friendly GRC solutions provide in-depth access risk reporting to allow organisations to effectively manage their access risk exposure.

Soterion is passionate about simplifying the governance, risk, and compliance processes, with a focus on translating this complexity into a business-friendly language to enhance better decision making and business accountability. Email info@soterion.com for more information.

Download the full IDC Vendor Spotlight

Source: IDC Vendor Spotlight, Sponsored by Soterion, Soterion: Managing Risk and Ensuring Compliance Through Application Access Management, Doc. #EUR148915922, March 2022

Original article published on Soterion’s Website

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The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the global economy and world trade like never before, exposing supply chain vulnerabilities that left many companies grappling with solutions to help them accelerate supply chain transformation. SAP’s logistics and supply chain management solutions have been front and center of many organisations’ business strategies during the pandemic and in developing their supply chain road map.

SAP partners help ensure a successful implementation of mission-critical SAP applications, especially during these unprecedented times. Wipro, an SAP Global Services Partner since 2007 and one of the respected innovators in SAP supply chain management solutions, was recently recognised as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Supply Chain SAP Ecosystems Services 2021 Vendor Assessment report.

A leading global information technology, consulting, and business process services company, Wipro emerged as a Leader in both quantitative and qualitative assessment of the characteristics and capabilities– the research’s two primary categories– that affect a vendor’s success in delivering supply chain management transformation for manufacturers and retailers. The Capabilities score measures vendor product, go-to-market, and business execution in the short term. The Strategy score measures the alignment of vendor strategies with customer requirements in a 3-5-year timeframe.

Simon Ellis, Program Vice President at IDC, said:

“Wipro’s business consulting capability focuses on building a unique roadmap for each customer’s enterprise digital journey, adding significant value. With processes that are underpinned by design-led transformation and focused on delivering business outcomes, Wipro is an ideal digital transformation partner.” 

Innovating with SAP Supply Chain Management Software

Wipro’s SAP portfolio offers end-to-end consulting, implementation, and application management for building an Intelligent Enterprise. Leveraging SAP’s supply chain management software, the company further developed a range of preconfigured solutions for supply chain processes, such as production planning, inventory management, sales & operations planning, and extended warehouse management to improve efficiency and resiliency.

In this particular report, IDC specifically analysed the 11 vendors’ offerings within the SAP supply chain management suite. Based on the IDC MarketScape model, below are the identified strengths of Wipro: 

• Consulting and process-mining capabilities, analytics, and business outcome-based approach
• Innovative services with technology capabilities built on machine learning (ML), blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, big data, and analytics in a supply-chain context
• Rapid deployment solutions and SAP supply chain–focused industry accelerators used across three key themes: applied intelligence, connected enterprises, and trusted networks
• Skilled and certified resources
• A dedicated supply chain practice and co-innovation relationship with SAP

“The pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities in global supply chains and many organizations have had to make quick transformation decisions, to manage risk and ensure seamless business continuity. Wipro understands these challenges, and remains committed to help enterprises modernize their supply chains and make their operations more resilient,” said Harish Dwarkanhalli, President, Applications & Data, iDEAS, Wipro Limited,” said Harish Dwarkanhalli, President, Applications & Data, iDEAS, Wipro Limited.

Aside from this IDC recognition, Wipro has also recently achieved the Leader rank in the NelsonHall NEAT vendor evaluation for SAP Cloud Migration Services in the Overall, Legacy Migration Capability, and S/4HANA Transformation Capability market segments.

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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.

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The last quarter of 2020 opened with back-to-back recognitions for select SAP applications from distinguished independent research bodies. The German software firm has been named a Leader in “The Forrester Wave: Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM), Q4 2020” and in the “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide B2B Digital Commerce Platforms 2020 Vendor Assessment”.

IDC MarketScape Report

This year is the second time SAP has been recognised as a Leader in the “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide B2B Digital Commerce Platforms 2020 Vendor Assessment”. 

Designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT suppliers in a given market, IDC MarketScape’s vendor assessment model applies a research methodology that utilises a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria. 

In the recent report, aside from the comprehensive assessment framework, IDC MarketScape also gathered customer feedback via surveys and phone interviews. SAP took the leadership position based on its strategies and capabilities against 17 other vendors offering B2B digital commerce platforms. The report stated:

According to the report, SAP received an above average rating from customers when asked whether SAP Commerce Cloud is ‘built for the future.’ The SAP Commerce Cloud offers sourcing, consignment, complex ordering, delivery options, products, services, and pricing solutions that support B2C use cases and complex B2B scenarios.

“Consider SAP if you are an enterprise looking for an all-in-one digital commerce platform that can handle complex enterprise requirements and can support both B2B and B2C business models or you use SAP for other CX applications. Consider it if your organization is primarily focused on differentiating by building a unique and highly customized commerce experience with a platform offering deep functionality,” the report further noted.

Bob Stutz, President, Customer Experience at SAP highlighted that the tremendous shift seen in the B2B market is in sync with the B2C commerce. He explained:

“Consumers and now businesses are in control of their e-commerce experience, and they expect the best. With SAP Commerce Cloud, organizations courting business buyers can be sure they are offering a top-notch digital commerce experience and building lasting relationships.”

The Forrester Wave Report

SAP took the Leader position against 12 other vendors in “The Forrester Wave: Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM), Q4 2020″. SAP was recognised for the CIAM capabilities in its SAP Customer Data Cloud solution portfolio, which includes SAP Customer Consent, SAP Customer Data Platform, SAP Customer Identity, and SAP Customer Profile.

The report highlighted that CIAM customers should consider vendors with the ability to enable seamless, frictionless customer privacy and consent management; integration with identity verification systems; and the ability to scale to large numbers of users in both technology and price. It further stated:

“[SAP’s] solution offers outstanding consent management, expansive customer self-service, and a very well thought through CIAM administration interface.”

Stutz explained the essence of building trust in managing customer data. He said:

“Trustworthiness in the management of customer data is incredibly important, and organizations must provide transparency and deliver personal data control to customers while engaging in new ways and using different channels.

“SAP Customer Data Cloud has native integrations and completely secure, seamless consent management built-in, which enables organizations to handle customer data respectfully, while still deriving valuable insights.”

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In a recent IDC white paper about digital transformation for SAP environments commissioned by the independent open source provider SUSE, IDC predicted that at least 55{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of organisations will be leveraging technology to transform markets, develop new business models, products, and services this 2020 with organisations investing on technologies that help businesses “to achieve speed, scale, and agility.” As the year nears to a close, SUSE’s third-quarter financial results of its fiscal year 2020 that ended July 31 somehow reflected IDC’s prediction.

Despite COVID-19 disrupting the global economy, SUSE achieved a 14{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} increase year over year for its Q3 revenue, including a stellar growth in ACV bookings for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications, a 35{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} increase in high-value customer deals, and strong growth in North America and the Asia Pacific and Japan.

Closing a Strong Quarter

SUSE APJ President Phillip Miltiades shared with Inside SAP his insights on the company’s Q3 performance and its commitment to customers leveraging SAP business applications. He said:

“ In Q3, many of our net new customers chose SUSE for powering and transforming their SAP solutions across several industry verticals such as manufacturing, pharmaceutical, IT, and transportation. This affirms SUSE market position as the leading and trusted open source platform for SAP business applications.

Furthermore, we are pleased to be the open source vendor of choice, supporting our partner ecosystem and their solutions to enable high double-digit year on year growth. Our evolution and focus on being the easiest and most trusted open source provider is translating to increased subscription revenues. We will remain steadfast and committed to providing the most innovative and adaptable open source solutions to support our customers’ desired business outcomes. ” 

Melissa Di Donato, CEO of SUSE, shared how the company was able to perform even in the times of pandemic. She said:

“As the world works through the challenges of the current pandemic, SUSE continues to deliver value as a partner, community member, and provider of transformational technology solutions.

Our ongoing growth reflects our dedication to customer satisfaction as well as SUSE’s strong business model and resilience as a company. And we aren’t stopping here as we plan to further accelerate our growth trajectory with the announcement of a definitive agreement to acquire Rancher Labs, which will significantly expand our portfolio and share in the Kubernetes market.”

In July, SUSE has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire California-based Rancher Labs, a privately held open source company that provides a market-leading Kubernetes Management platform. This has contributed to the organic growth of the company in Q3.

Q3 Highlights

Below are SUSE’s third quarter performance highlights:

• 81{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} growth in Cloud ACV (Annual Contract Value) bookings, marking 14 consecutive quarters of year over year cloud ACV increase. 
• 35{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} increase year to date in customer deals, which are larger in sizes, worth more than $1 million
• 50{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} increase in ACV bookings year over year for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP Applications
• 25{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} and 21{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} increases in North America and the Asia Pacific and Japan, respectively, in ACV bookings year over year.

The third quarter’s outstanding financial results are complemented with SUSE strengthening its executive team to support the company’s key growth objectives. Aside from the appointment of regional sales leads Phillip Miltiades as President of APJ and Jeff Lattomus as President of North America, Andy Myers and Michael A. Riley were also appointed Chief Financial Officer and Chief Growth Officer, respectively.

SUSE also opened a new engineering and innovation center in Sofia, Bulgaria, joining major SUSE development sites in Germany, Czechia, India, and the United States, to bolster its power to innovate.

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The International Data Corporation (IDC) study entitled IDC MarketScape: Asia/Pacific SAP Implementation Services Vendor Assessment, 2020, utilised the IDC MarketScape model to provide an assessment of service providers participating in the SAP implementation services market with specific offerings and capabilities in the segment. With the current economic climate coupled with the growing IT complexities and ongoing business disruptions, enterprises in the Asia Pacific region have shown a significant shift in the SAP implementation services ecosystem, relying on trusted and reliable implementation partners.

Rijo George Thomas, Senior Market Analyst of Software and Services Research at IDC Asia/Pacific said:

“As the competition for market share in the SAP implementation services market continues to heat up, implementation partners are driving differentiation by tying SAP implementation to the digital aspirations of the enterprise, leveraging industry expertise to enable core business transformation, running joint initiatives with SAP and hyperscalers to access new innovations, investing in technical talent and migration accelerators, and introducing new engagement models.”

“Moving forward, the success of an implementation partner in Asia/Pacific will be dictated by how the vendor is able to leverage the core capabilities to provide a high degree of localized services, accelerate time to market, and drive down cost of implementations,” he emphasised.

APAC’s Leaders and Major Players

The recent IDC MarketScape report shared the list of Leaders and Major Players among the SAP implementation partner ecosystem in the Asia Pacific region.

Leaders

• Accenture
• Capgemini
• Deloitte
• EY
• Infosys
• NTT DATA
• PwC 

Major Players

• Abeam
• Cognizant
• DXC
• Fujitsu
• HCL
• NEC
• Samsung SDS
• Tech Mahindra
• Wipro

Thomas explained that buyers in the region are seeking for an opportunity to reinvent core business processes, apart from a technical upgrade exercise, with S/4 HANA implementations. He stated:

“Consequently, implementation partners in Asia/Pacific have positioned S/4 HANA led business transformations as a key pillar in their go-to-market strategy for SAP services. Moving forward, success of an implementation partner in Asia/Pacific will be dictated by how the vendor is able to leverage the core capabilities to provide high degree of localized services, accelerate time to market, and drive down cost of implementations,” 

Vendor Assessment

IDC MarketScape employs a rigorous scoring methodology that looks beyond market share and provides a clear framework comparing the product and service offerings, capabilities, and strategies, including current and future market success factors for each vendor.

In the recent report, IDC MarketScape’s highly comprehensive assessment framework evaluated vendors on their current ability to support customers with end-to-end SAP implementation services as well as how well placed they are to grow the adoption of SAP solutions with their sound growth strategy in the Asia Pacific. 

The vendor assessment delved into 20 different elements across a range of criteria such as:

• Information gathered from vendor responses to IDC’s request for information (RFI) questionnaire
• Vendor briefings and sharing sessions
• Customer references
• IDC’s internal research

Enterprise buyers in the Asia Pacific can take advantage of this recent IDC study as a guide if they intend to venture on an SAP implementation journey, especially since the report was able to identify the key differentiation elements brought by 16 SAP implementation partners that maximises the value of customer’s investments.

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Early on, SAP has laid out its global initiatives to help businesses better manage and adjust to the changes that are happening inside their companies, with their customers, and with their supply chains in these unpredictable times. SAP offered select supply chain solutions at zero cost to help companies easily identify and address potential supply chain disruptions as well as pinpoint alternative sources of supply and move goods efficiently and cost-effectively.

The German company’s dedication and efforts to aid the global supply chain challenges have not gone unnoticed in the recent Gartner Magic Quadrant report. Gartner Inc. announced that SAP received several recognitions for its logistics, transportation, and supply solutions.

Outstanding Logistics and Supply Chain Management Solutions

Franz Hero, Head of Development for SAP Digital Supply Chain, commented that this year has disrupted the supply chain without warnings that may have immediate and long-lasting impact. Appreciating Gartner’s recognition for SAP, he said:

“Companies must operate resilient supply chains that are agile, predictive, and intelligent in order to make informed decisions quickly and confidently. These third-party recognitions show SAP’s leadership in helping organizations continue moving forward — even in times of disruption.”

According to recent Gartner reports, SAP has been:

• A Leader in Gartner “Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems” for the sixth time in a row

SAP Extended Warehouse Management (SAP EWM) helps companies reduce warehouse and distribution costs by improving productivity and visibility into processes, labor, and stock. It covers all the facets of warehouse and distribution management, including multichannel fulfillment and distribution, inventory management and control, cross-docking, labor management, and billing for companies of all sizes and industries.

Basic features of SAP EWM are included in SAP S/4HANA Enterprise Management.

• A Leader in Gartner “Magic Quadrant for Transportation Management Systems” for the sixth year in a row

The SAP Transportation Management solution helps organizations optimize logistics and improve services by increasing visibility and control and streamlining goods movement, integrating fleet and logistics management.

In May 2020, SAP has released the functionality of Normalized quantity (NLQ) in embedded Transportation management (TM ) with S/4HANA 1909 release and in standalone TM with TM 9.6 release

• Ranked by Gartner as the number one market share leader in supply chain management software, worldwide, for the 18th year in a row

According to Gartner:

“The supply chain management software market grew 8.6{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} in 2019, exceeding $15 billion in vendor revenue. Cloud revenue grew 2.5 times faster than the overall market, accounting for nearly 34{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} of the market as all leading vendors transitioned their new product strategy to cloud.”

• Ranked by IDC as number one by market share for supply chain management applications

Published in April 2020, the “IDC Semiannual Software Tracker 2019H2” reported that SAP ranked number one in supply chain management revenue and overall market share.

Other Q3 2020 Recognitions 

September has just begun but SAP has already received several recognitions from Gartner and IDC in various categories this third quarter of 2020.

• A leader in Gartner “Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools” report based on its “ability to execute” and “completeness of vision.” 
• A Leader in Gartner’s July 2020 Magic Quadrant for Sales Force Automation for SAP’s completeness of vision and ability to execute.
• International Data Group Inc. named SAP Business One as Leader in the worldwide software-as-a-service (SaaS) and cloud-enabled small office ERP applications market.

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