How SAP is going to simplify its ERP

It is fair to say that the public sector’s view of enterprise resource planning (ERP) is one of a platform supporting a set of tightly knitted solutions that tends to be customized to suit individual enterprise needs, in turn requiring a complex array of maintenance and licensing agreements. But the disruptive forces of cloud provide buyers with a chance to reconsider this preconception. Vendors must now puzzle over how buyers can carry on consuming best-of-breed services that allow for customization while satisfying their increasing demand for flexibility that cloud-based services purport to bring.

SAP provided more insight into how it would address this issue at its annual event, Sapphire Now. Though it reaffirmed that HANA would continue to be the core path for its customers’ migration to the cloud, it recognizes that it needs to make the journey simpler. SAP will need to articulate clearly the value that such a platform can bring to public sector customers and what this means in terms of licensing and support.

It has been clear for some time that for SAP this meant HANA, but it has not been clear what this means in terms of practicalities for existing and new SAP users in the public sector, or how SAP intends to enable a clean and simple transition to HANA.

This transition, it turns out, will be enabled under SAP’s Industry Cloud, a model built around collaboration and innovation supported by simplified user interfaces. Customers would be able to choose between public, managed, and hybrid cloud infrastructure, with applications designed to appeal to specific audiences.