Last month in May, we hosted an event titled “Revolutionize with Lumen for RISE with SAP” at PARKROYAL Collection Pickering. It was the first face-to-face event by Lumen APAC in two years and I was very glad to see a great turnout, with attendees coming from various industries such as manufacturing, real estate, security, and financial institutions, among others.
Our guests got the opportunity to hear from and engage with experts from our partner Amazon Web Services (AWS) and our SAP specialist team at Lumen. Over the course of the morning, our experts outlined the ins and outs of deploying SAP in the cloud, the benefits of a cloud-based SAP deployment, and when it might make sense to stay on-premises. The main highlight of the event was around the buzz of RISE with SAP and how the offering can help enterprises accelerate innovation.
As an SAP platinum partner, I believe it is our responsibility to provide the right support and guidance for our customers, enabling them with the solutions that match their organisational needs. We work closely with our counterparts at SAP to not only educate buyers on their choices and options, but also demonstrate the benefits of using new offering such as RISE with SAP.
Tailoring our solutions to customer needs
When we speak with our customers, they have many questions in their minds about their SAP deployments. They want to know what is next for their on-premises deployment, if they should migrate to the cloud now, and which cloud to select. They also want to know whether licensing in the cloud differs from on-premise.
SAP S/4HANA for digital transformation
Our Account Director of Strategic Solutions, Timothy Nam, raised some pertinent points on digital transformation that are challenging to most organisations today. He talked about how COVID-19 has pushed everyone to pick up the pace to evolve the way they operate, and they are turning to digital transformation to achieve it.
In a nutshell, Timothy has brought up some proof points on why SAP can be a great companion for transformation:
- SAP’s vision is for customers to use S/4HANA as a transformation tool for the capabilities, features, and functions to pull ahead. If you are on SAP ECC [ERP Central Component], go for S/4HANA. If you are already on S/4HANA, but on a lower version, go for the latest version.
- SAP ECC may be complex for some but things are considerably easier with S/4HANA. S/4HANA has been improved so much that you don’t have to set up a complex tablespace that made analytics so difficult to access in the past. Now, everything is simplified and delivers the accuracy you need; you also get highly accurate predictive reports.
- S/4HANA gives you end-to-end analytics, automated workflows, and next-generation intelligent processes. Instead of grappling with legacy processes, you are ready to face the world and take on new challenges. Production planning, marketing, and other advanced capabilities are all available in the system. It’s modern and it’s very intuitive.
- Customers can realise the full benefits of SAP S/4HANA in the cloud to achieve faster time to value with an infrastructure that can be rapidly provisioned without upfront cost for hardware or long-term commitment. For example, with SAP S/4HANA on AWS, you pay for only what you need while enjoying extensive, high-performance services to drive greater business results.
Understanding RISE with SAP
On its part, RISE with SAP gives businesses cloud-powered SAP solutions while taking the guesswork and complexity of multiple contractual agreements out of enterprise planning. Bundled products are offered at a single price and under one contract, giving businesses the ability to easily manage their Service Level Agreement (SLA), operations and issue management without signing contracts for each.
RISE with SAP is what SAP terms business transformation as-a-service. Their intention is to help you move your ERP into a cloud-based service platform. What they offer is that is one contract and SAP will take care of the responsibility. You have a choice, however. You can either go with SAP, deploy on a public cloud, or opt for the private cloud edition.
As a technology enabler, it is absolutely important for us to give customer the power of choice. We have various options with customisable commercial options and requirements for licensing, delivery, and operations. Here are some quick use cases, just to give you an idea:
- SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud: For organisations ready to embrace the future of ERP with a modern new SaaS implementation that comes with pre-defined processes.
- SAP S/4HANA Private Cloud: Designed to give businesses innovation and cloud value while allowing them to retain their existing investments by converting existing systems.
- SAP S/4HANA On-Premise: For customers that require maximum, control of their ERP systems, typically deployed within their data centres.
The value of RISE with SAP is its simplicity. Traditional SAP ECC environment might result in customers dealing with up to five different contractual agreements. You need to deal with your infrastructure, the SAP implementation, the software support, AMS, as well as the technical managed services – so as many as five different vendors.
On the other hand, organisations that go with RISE with SAP can access the pertinent solutions, tools, and services, including the S/4HANA Cloud Suite license through a single contract for a significantly shorter time to value.
Succeed with Lumen
So where does Lumen Technologies come into the picture? We partner with our customers on their SAP transformation journey by performing discovery and advisory workshops, design future state blueprints to providing implementation and AMS.
Lumen is one of the few SAP partners who has extensive experience and credentials working across the various public cloud providers such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google cloud. We also run our own private clouds and have strong cloud-centric capabilities; being able to support both public and private cloud deployments for our customers. We are equipped with the knowledge to help you succeed on this journey.
We have various success stories to prove our point:
A Singapore-headquartered fashion retail with a global footprint that was faced with growing cost inefficiency and recurring downtime from their near end-of-life infrastructure. The company engaged Lumen for our SAP Upgrade and Cloud Migration Services, and with a new SLA-backed managed cloud environment, they experienced a significant improvement in system performance that allowed them to refocus on their business and to innovate.
Another story follows a luxury retailer that needed to remake their ERP systems to consolidate three different systems after acquiring two companies in complementary segments. The two companies they acquired did not run SAP and their systems were incompatible. Lumen was chosen to design a custom SAP solution implemented by our professional services consultants in three phases: 1) global finance across the organisation; 2) integration of one additional brand’s global operations and their specific financial needs; and 3) supply chain integration. The luxury conglomerate now has one view of the business through the SAP implementation, while the minimum customisation allows each brand to prioritise areas that make their business model unique.
Summing up the event, I spoke about how it is important to make the right decision, and making the right decision is hard. For this very reason, Lumen is here to help customers and support their decision.
And as an expert with decades of experience, Lumen can help organisations like yours – both new to SAP or existing customers – tailor the right implementation or migration strategies.
Want to learn more about how Lumen Technologies can support your enterprise with our end-to-end SAP capabilities? Contact us today.
RISE with SAP
Simplify and accelerate your journey to an intelligent enterprise with Lumen and SAP
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