SAP users not happy about German giant's price rises

Nearly half of SAP users successful its German-speaking heartlands are either dissatisfied aliases very dissatisfied pinch nan package giant’s unreality pricing strategy, according to nan latest survey.

DSAG, nan SAP personification group pinch members successful Germany, Austria and Switzerland, surveyed organizations to find 32 percent were dissatisfied pinch SAP’s unreality prices strategy while 17 percent were "very dissatisfied" pinch nan move.

SAP has said it would beryllium applying a 3.3 percent value increase for services, including for unreality services that person been put into attraction mode aliases discontinued, DSAG said.

"Almost half of nan respondents do not for illustration SAP's pricing policy. But I spot this arsenic a basal problem that customer companies person pinch each providers of unreality solutions," said DSAG president Jens Hungershausen.

Nonetheless, he said nan planned yearly value summation for SAP unreality services had caused a batch of disapproval among DSAG members. “We are convinced that reliable mechanisms for value improvement are needed. This is different logic why these values are for illustration an echo of a guidance from SAP customers already shown past year. A recurring yearly summation successful prices makes it much difficult for companies to move to nan cloud.”

During nan DSAG keynote astatine nan 2023 Technology Days, nan liking group called connected SAP to refrain from its value increases. “If customers are asked to salary moreover much for unreality solutions that person already been discontinued aliases are nary longer maintained, this creates a antagonistic belief of nan shaper – and from DSAG’s constituent of view, that cannot beryllium SAP’s goal," Hungershausen said.

In nan survey, DSAG recovered that spending connected its latest procreation of ERP exertion — S/4HANA, first introduced successful 2015 — was a applicable for precocious levels of finance for 28 percent of users, and mean levels for 39 percent, some expanding connected past year. However, nan earlier procreation of ERP, called Business Suite but often referred to arsenic ECC, is besides seeing an summation successful finance focus. Six percent of study respondents saw it arsenic applicable to precocious finance plans, while 22 percent saw it arsenic applicable to mean finance plans, nan second up from 18 percent past year.

Mainstream support for Business Suite is group to extremity successful 2027, pinch extended support disposable until 2030. "[It] still sounds acold away. Nevertheless, nan effort progressive successful specified a migration should not beryllium underestimated. Companies request beardown partners pinch capable resources astatine their side," said Hungershausen.

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Since January 2021, SAP has been pursuing a strategy to accelerate its customers migration to nan cloud. Application improvement successful nan unreality is centred connected SAP’s Business Technology Platform.

In DSAG’s rank survey, 24 percent said they were making precocious and mean investments successful nan SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP).

In its study commentary, DSAG said it was affirmative that nan first migration services are being developed to support nan conversion of existing integration architectures to BTP’s Integration Suite. However, it said issues remained successful nan costs for development, value assurance and usage of nan services without productive reference. It said it was successful chat pinch SAP to reside these issues.

Earlier this month, nan German-speaking personification group issued a statement calling connected SAP to present caller features successful its flagship ERP strategy on-prem arsenic good arsenic successful nan cloud.

Later, DSAG committee personnel Sebastian Westphal told The Register concerns remained astir nan situation for managing nan merchandise of package successful nan cloud, together pinch nan tooling utilized for managing operational unreality software.

An SAP spokesperson told The Register: "Our customers tin beryllium judge that we return their needs into relationship erstwhile making strategical decisions and want to guarantee readying security. For this reason, adjacent speech pinch DSAG and its members is simply a peculiar interest for us."

In a connection sent to The Register, SAP said:

"SAP is engaged successful an unfastened speech pinch our customers and personification groups to connection nan correct support offerings for their needs, astatine predictable commercialized conditions. Transparency is important for SAP successful its narration pinch customers, and SAP will ever strive to support adialogue astir important areas specified arsenic support.

"Each customer has a unique, commercialized narration pinch SAP, and landscapes and requirements are different. The respective SAP relationship teams aliases section SAP relationship executives are disposable to reply immoderate questions customers mightiness have. We are assured that our customers will proceed to thrust their business outcomes by taking advantage of nan unique worth provided by their SAP support offering." ®