Business

IBM, SAP Strengthen Partnership to Help Clients Move Workloads From SAP Solutions to the Cloud

As clients look to adopt hybrid cloud strategies, moving the workloads and applications that are the backbone of their enterprise operation requires a highly secured and reliable cloud environment. With today’s launch of the premium supplier option with IBM for RISE with SAP, clients will have the tools to help accelerate the migration of their on-premise SAP software workloads to IBM Cloud, backed by industry-leading security capabilities.

IBM is also unveiling a new programme, BREAKTHROUGH with IBM for RISE with SAP, a portfolio of solutions and consulting services that help accelerate and amplify the journey to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Built on a flexible and scalable platform, the solutions and services use intelligent workflows to streamline operations. They provide an engagement model that helps plan, execute and support holistic business transformation.

Clients are also offered the flexibility and choice to migrate SAP solution workloads to the public cloud with the support of deep industry expertise.

Today’s announcement of IBM becoming a premium supplier makes IBM the first cloud provider to offer infrastructure, business transformation and application management services as part of RISE with SAP.

IBM’s premium supplier designation is a continuation of SAP’s long-standing efforts to provide choice and optionality to customers and further support IBM customers that have a preference for their RISE with SAP package to run on IBM Cloud.

Additionally, migration to SAP S/4HANA on IBM Cloud from on-premise data centres can potentially deliver the following benefits, according to a study by IDC, sponsored by IBM.**

—Return on investment: Migrating to SAP S/4HANA on IBM Cloud delivered revenue increases for up to 90% of organisations making the transition according to users surveyed.
—Reduced costs: More than 80% of the organisations in the study said they experienced a reduction in operational costs.
—Greater productivity: 9 out of 10 businesses in the study said they improved their productivity after migrating to SAP S/4HANA on IBM Cloud.

“We are thrilled to advance our long-standing partnership through RISE with SAP,” said John Granger, Senior Vice President, IBM Consulting. “Our shared commitment is to meet our clients, especially those in highly regulated industries, where they are in their digital journey, while giving them choices for migrating or modernising their mission-critical workloads with a hybrid cloud approach.”

“BREAKTHROUGH with IBM is an outstanding complement to RISE with SAP as it lays the foundation for our customers to embark on or advance their business transformation journeys. Further, it reaffirms the value customers recognise from RISE with SAP and the impact and innovation opportunity RISE with SAP offers to organisations that move to the cloud. I have every confidence that the combined expertise and experience SAP and IBM offer will accelerate cloud adoption and business growth for customers across the globe,” said Brian Duffy, President of Cloud, SAP.

IBM and SAP have worked with hundreds of clients globally on thousands of individual projects to modernise their systems and business processes based on an open, hybrid cloud approach. Recent examples include Coca-Cola European Partners, Parle Products, Harmont & Blaine, Puravankara Ltd and Virgin Megastore KSA.

Underscoring its commitment to SAP S/4HANA both as an SAP customer and a business partner for 50 years, IBM has also made a significant investment in RISE with SAP to help transform its own infrastructure. IBM is a new premium supplier for the RISE with SAP offering and is using the IBM Hybrid Cloud, including IBM Power–enabled Infrastructure as a Service, to enhance the performance, availability and security of deployments of private editions of SAP S/4HANA Cloud.