No IT tool is definitely not a solution: Contract Conversion and Rise with SAP

Many existing SAP customers are under massive time pressure and have no time for experiments or failures. Quick and valid recommendations are now required. At Honico, we are always amazed at the extent to which existing SAP customers continue to seek their salvation with SAP and hope that a listed company has a serious interest in providing its customers with a transparent license situation, GDPR or not.

The request for "SAP for Me" and "SAM for You" is getting louder and louder. It's a bit like giving your former partner's divorce lawyer access to all your documents. It even makes me a little sad, after all, we have been on the road as evangelists for almost twenty years to explain to people why LAW, SAP for Me and SAM for You are not optimization tools. As shown in the graphic, a maximum of ten percent is visible - just like an iceberg - the rest is hidden under the masses of water.

License by authorization

Unfortunately, there are many incomplete or even false statements circulating on the subject of "SAP licensing according to authorizations". Consultants and tool providers use the fear of excessive license costs to position their services or products. However, the topic is reduced to simple analyses to illustrate the problem - real solutions and recommendations for action are missing here. Against the background of such important decisions in the context of negotiations for a Rise contract or a contract conversion, this is a dangerous presentation. The fear of SAP licensing by entitlement: Some colleagues and competitors actually think that determining the right user distribution in S/4 Hana by authorization can be solved by a simple evaluation of SAP users and roles. But this is too short-sighted: what is missing is the use of the individual Auth objects, which make the individual role expensive.

If you want to correctly evaluate which user distribution you need to license under S/4 or which number of Full Use Equivalents (FUE) is required under Rise with SAP, the following questions must be asked and answered:

• What distribution of use types does SAP's Star S/4 Trusted Authorization Review rule set lead to for today's SAP roles?
• Which authorizations are required as a minimum in comparison to the actual use of the SAP system and which are therefore the cheapest license types that a user needs?
• Which roles are the main cost drivers for a measurement according to authorizations?
• How can I modify and combine these roles to achieve the desired optimization for the use type?
• How can I cleanly separate audit-proof use type usage from pure engine usage?
• Which Y and Z transactions still need to be considered and evaluated separately?

Do I have unclassified roles that could be Professional or Advanced Use (similar to the lack of a license type in ECC, the default setting Professional applies) according to the new measurement procedure on the part of SAP? I still need to examine and classify these in more detail. What does the future of our organization look like? What does our future SAP landscape look like? What do we need to grow and when we grow?

With the Honico Solution Dynamic License Control (DLC), we get a price tag on the existing roles, and the solution also shows which Auth objects currently increase the price of the role that is not used at all or not used by everyone who has this role. We can simulate the effect of role changes without having already implemented them.

With the help of the DLC, every organization can maintain a stable state in its S/4 Hana system so that it is not necessary to optimize the roles from a licensing perspective every year as part of the preparation for a system measurement. With Rise with SAP, customers are exposed to a permanent SAP measurement. Every role change can lead to non-compliance on the license side. With the help of our solution and a managed service, existing customers can be sure that they are compliant and have the time back to take care of really critical issues in the SAP system landscape.

DLC can display the calculated FUE values on a special results page: SAP user or use type licenses are a significant part of the costs associated with S/4. Before migrating to S/4, users should carefully review their current licenses to ensure they are optimized for actual system usage. SAP is not really known for low prices - not for licenses, infrastructure, rent and especially not for day-to-day operations.

As a solution provider and consultant, we have a responsibility to offer real solutions to our customers, who are under great time and financial pressure. Rise is not reinventing the cloud and digital transformation and there is currently no exit scenario. We make sure that users keep this in mind when negotiating their contracts and that corresponding "reversals" are planned and set out in writing within a reasonable timeframe and with the appropriate support from SAP. It is crucial to compare Rise with alternative hosting scenarios in order to make informed decisions and determine whether Rise is the right long-term choice for your company.

Migration and modernization

Users facing an S/4 Hana migration need help to evaluate whether Rise with SAP is a viable and more cost-effective alternative for them. Existing SAP customers will receive a clear recommendation for or against Rise with SAP from Honico, all SAP migration and modernization assistance and credits will be considered to provide clear direction for contract negotiations.

What else needs to be considered? For all components, existing customers only have SAP as their sole contractual partner, which has both advantages and disadvantages: they have no opportunity to negotiate with various infrastructure providers or service providers (which they should do anyway). Rise with SAP leads to technical dependencies, as the software no longer runs on the company's own systems. This allows SAP to control access, customize systems and set SLAs.

On the positive side, negotiations can be simpler. Negotiations are easier with just one contractual partner. It means less bureaucracy for users and a higher contract value. But seriously: get support!

To the partner entry: