As a rapidly updating and emerging technology, cloud migration strongly impacts SAP landscape simplification.
Cloud migration has become a trend in the SAP space for a reason. As more businesses migrate to the cloud, they consolidate their systems and reduce the number of customizations, simplifying their SAP system. As a result, they have a more streamlined and efficient system that is easier to manage and maintain. Additionally, cloud migration can reduce business costs, as it eliminates the need for expensive hardware and infrastructure.
However, the cloud migration trend also poses unique challenges.1 For example, many businesses need to start their cloud implementation in a hybrid format and with varying, disconnected tools, which can cause inconsistencies and confusion. Even the default tools often lack visibility into important metrics. Additionally, if a business does not properly scale the cloud implementation, it may experience surprisingly high costs.
In summary, successful businesses need to be aware of both the benefits and challenges of cloud migration for SAP landscape simplification. Fortunately, some of SAP’s new cloud-related programs can overcome the challenges, or at least provide insight into how you can mitigate them.
Landscape Simplification Requires an Intelligent Enterprise
Businesses that truly want to achieve SAP landscape simplification need agility. If an organization cannot assess its current processes and applications in a way that provides business value, the business cannot streamline and consolidate them properly to fit its specific needs.
As the market demands more agility out of businesses, the cloud appears to be a promising technology for landscape simplification. An agile business that uses SAP (or intelligent enterprise, as this article states) needs to constantly find ways to streamline and improve its existing core applications.2 This need is where the cloud comes in: The technology allows the business to consolidate its applications, increasing process efficiency and reducing risk.
The SAP Business Technology Platform (BTM) is an excellent way for businesses to consolidate and integrate through the cloud. After all, the platform evaluates existing data to provide business value and analytics, allowing businesses to take educated steps.
SAP’s website provides more information on the platform, and how it employs the cloud for SAP landscape simplification.
Datasphere: SAP’s New Solution for Landscape Simplification
SAP recognizes that businesses need intelligent analysis and agile processes to successfully implement the cloud for SAP landscape simplification. Because of this, the ERP system introduced the Datasphere last March.3
The Datasphere is a data management portfolio that is part of the Business Technology Platform. The system has partnered with solutions such as Collibra NV and DataRobot, so it can provide those crucial insights for an agile, streamlined (or simplified) business. Ultimately, SAP designed Datasphere to allow businesses to reconnect disjointed systems and landscapes, promoting quality data access. Between the new system’s consolidation approach and strong focus on the cloud, Database allows for a simplified landscape.
While a business may choose not to employ the Business Technology Platform or Datasphere, their approach is an excellent example of how you can consolidate your own landscape. From their techniques, you can conclude that a successful cloud migration requires you to look at your existing processes, and consider how you can consolidate them into one place. Additionally, their approach indicates that you need to consider how those processes provide data, so you can properly analyze said data and be an agile enterprise.
SAP’s Future Approach to the Cloud—and How to Prepare
By 2027, SAP plans to fully change its landscape approach from Landscape Management 3.0 to Landscape Management Cloud.4 As a result, businesses not only benefit from cloud for SAP landscape simplification, but also need to have a working understanding of the upcoming cloud application to achieve continued success.
Currently, SAP is working to help businesses transition between the two systems by providing some of SAP Landscape Management Cloud’s features in the Landscape Management 3.0 system. SAP allows partners to take a look at the new system for free (and will allow customers to do so in the beginning of 2024), so you can evaluate their strategies and prepare for the system change.
Conclusion
Now is the time to consider incorporating cloud into your landscape simplification strategy. To ensure a successful cloud implementation, take a look at SAP’s current and upcoming approaches, and tailor them to your specific business needs. When you focus on consolidation and landscape simplification, the cloud is not only an updated technology, but also a vital way to analyze data and transform into an agile enterprise.
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1 “3 Challenges of Running SAP in the Cloud.” https://www.asug.com/insights/3-challenges-of-running-sap-in-the-cloud
2 “The Way Forward: Integrating and Extending SAP Landscapes in the Cloud.” https://news.sap.com/2020/11/integrating-extending-sap-landscapes-cloud
3 “SAP Introduces SAP Datasphere to Simplify Customers’ Data Landscape – Partners with Collibra, Confluent, Databricks, and Datarobot.” https://news.sap.com/2023/03/sap-datasphere-simplify-data-landscape-partnerships-collibra-confluent-databricks-datarobot/
4 “Future of SAP Landscape Management.” https://blogs.sap.com/2023/11/07/future-of-sap-landscape-management/
