RISE with SAP

Many companies are struggling with the burdens of old ERP landscapes. High maintenance costs, fragmented systems and a lack of adaptability slow down innovation and make it difficult to react quickly to market changes. These legacy burdens - often referred to as technical debt - lead to inefficient business processes, increased IT operating and maintenance costs and limited data usage. A circumstance that is increasingly becoming a real competitive disadvantage in a dynamic and uncertain economy.

Companies will face a number of key challenges in 2025:

1. Security and governance:
   Increasing cyber attacks and ever stricter regulations require a reliable security architecture and clear compliance processes.
2. Market agility and flexibility:
   In a dynamic market, quick reactions and flexible adjustments are essential in order to respond to changing customer needs and competitive conditions.
3. Competitive factor IT personnel:
   The increasing shortage of qualified IT specialists is not only making system support more difficult, but is also slowing down digital innovation projects - companies need to achieve more with limited resources.
4. Cloud solutions and cost efficiency:
   Traditional on-premise solutions tie up high investment and operating costs and require highly qualified IT specialists, while at the same time innovation cycles are long and inflexible.
5. Data integration and breaking down silos:
   Distributed and inconsistent data sources lead to information deficits and hinder company-wide process optimization.

These trends highlight the biggest challenges facing many companies. Outdated systems not only cause high costs, but also hinder the ability to innovate digitally and have a negative impact on the responsiveness of business units. This is where RISE with SAP comes in: it provides a strategic framework that solves these specific problems - from security to agility to data integration.

1. Proactively ward off cyber risks

Companies often suffer from outdated security architectures that are no longer able to fend off modern threats. Gaps in IT security and unclear governance structures significantly increase the risk of data breaches. In 2023, for example, around 134,407 cyber crimes were registered, of which only a third could be solved (statista, 2024). The financial impact of such security incidents is considerable. In 2024, the average cost of a data leak worldwide amounted to 4.9 million dollars per incident - an increase of 10 % compared tothe previous year (IBM, 2024).

RISE with SAP offers an SAP S/4HANA cloud solution that is continuously supplied with the latest security updates and compliance features. Integrated encryption, automated security patches and centralized governance significantly reduce the risk of cyberattacks.

Thanks to the automated provision of security updates, integrated compliance tools and central governance, many tasks that were previously carried out manually by the internal IT team are now outsourced to SAP as the platform provider. This reduces the operational burden on the team and creates space for new projects.

2. React agilely to market conditions

Many companies struggle with rigid IT structures and long implementation cycles. The inability to quickly adapt processes to new business models or market conditions leads to competitive disadvantages.

The "clean core" approach that RISE with SAP consistently pursues is based on stable, standardized best-practice processes that remain maintainable and updatable in the long term. The SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) offers a flexible extension environment for individual requirements that go beyond the standard. This allows customized applications to be developed without changing the core of the ERP system - an upgrade path that simultaneously combines agility and future-proofing. This shortens implementation times and increases the ability to innovate without incurring technical debt.

Companies can react more quickly to market changes and take advantage of new business opportunities.

3. Cushioning the shortage of IT specialists in a targeted manner

Digitalization is progressing - but the IT specialists needed for this are scarce. While around 82,000 IT positions remained unfilled in Germany in 2018, this figure had already risen to around 149,000 by the end of 2023 - a new high. A shortage of around 663,000 IT specialists is forecast by 2040 (Bitkom, 2024).

Companies that operate their complex ERP systems internally and have to maintain them regularly are particularly affected. Outdated IT landscapes tie up valuable resources that would be urgently needed elsewhere.

With RISE with SAP, these capacity bottlenecks can be alleviated in a targeted manner. The platform takes over many previously manual tasks - from maintenance and operation to security updates and release upgrades. As the platform provider, SAP ensures that the S/4HANA cloud environment is continuously updated, significantly reducing the workload for internal IT teams.

Companies also benefit from a high degree of automation and a simplified system architecture. Recurring tasks, for example in reporting, authorization management or system configurations, can be standardized or handled via self-service functions. This leaves more time for strategic IT initiatives, process innovation or data-driven business models.

RISE with SAP not only creates a modern technological basis - it also creates urgently needed freedom for overburdened IT departments.

 

4. Reduce IT costs, promote innovation

Traditional on-premise solutions tie up considerable resources and cause high investment and operating costs. This financial burden restricts innovation and competitiveness.

In exemplary case studies, the switch to RISE with SAP has not only reduced the time required for backlog processing by 20%, but also increased developer efficiency by 35%. By using RISE with SAP, companies reduced administration costs by 50%, system response time was reduced by 15% and over 130 systems were successfully migrated to the cloud within 15 months (SAP News Center, 2024). 
A cloud-based platform enables continuous innovation while reducing costs - resources can be freed up for strategic initiatives.

5. Dissolve data silos, strengthen information flow

Distributed data sources and a lack of integration lead to inconsistencies and make a company-wide flow of information more difficult. Decisions are made on the basis of outdated or fragmented data. In three out of four industrial companies, data silos hinder internal collaboration and weaken competitiveness (AutoCAD Magazine, 2023).

RISE with SAP consolidates all relevant data in a central, standardized database. Thanks to integrated tools, data sources are merged, which leads to an improvement in data quality.

An additional key component is the SAP Business Data Cloud: it enables data from a wide range of internal and external sources - including those outside the SAP universe - to be linked securely and contextualized. This creates a company-wide database that can be flexibly expanded and forms a consistent basis for analyses, automation and AI applications.

This not only improves data quality, but also creates the basis for data-based decisions in real time - from financial planning to the supply chain and customer interaction.

By integrating SAP Business AI into the RISE with SAP construct, companies gain additional efficiency and decision-making security. Embedded AI functionalities take over tasks in the execution of business processes such as the prediction of requirements or the intelligent control of business processes. Reporting, planning and process analyses become more data-driven, faster and more precise.

At the same time, SAP Joule as a generative AI assistant enhances the user experience with intuitive self-service interactions, smart workflow suggestions and context-based recommendations for action. This makes everyday automation noticeably easier and significantly improves the user experience.

In this way, the SAP landscape is developing into an AI-supported, dynamic and adaptive system that not only digitizes processes, but also actively thinks along with them.

RISE with SAP is more than just a technical upgrade. It is a strategic lever for efficiency, innovation and future viability. In a world where speed, scalability and resilience determine the success of companies, RISE with SAP offers a digital platform with S4/HANA Cloud solutions that focuses on flexibility and security at the same time.

The key economic trends of 2025 reveal many of the problems that are plaguing companies today. RISE with SAP offers tailor-made, cloud-based solutions to overcome these challenges and drive digital transformation. By using state-of-the-art cloud technologies, standardized processes and integrated innovation platforms, RISE with SAP transforms outdated IT landscapes into future-proof systems that not only reduce costs but also strengthen competitiveness in the long term.

Take the opportunity now to scrutinize your existing ERP landscape and discover the potential for transformation. Find out how RISE with SAP can prepare your company for the challenges of tomorrow and give you a decisive competitive advantage - contact us for a consultation.