Welcome to the Cloud Wars Minute — your daily cloud news and commentary show. Each episode provides insights and perspectives around the “reimagination machine” that is the cloud.
In this Cloud Wars Minute, I analyze SAP, along with its strategic emphasis on the Cloud ERP Suite.
Highlights
00:16 — In this week’s earnings call, SAP rolled out what I’m calling their new superstar: the Cloud ERP Suite, which is not only S/4HANA but also related applications for HR, spend management, finance, commerce, procurement, CX, industries, as well as data analytics capabilities and the Business Techology Platform.
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01:27 — Perhaps most important, they broke out that revenue number for Cloud ERP Suite and released it publicly. That revenue was up 32%, to almost $3.5 billion, which accounts for most of their cloud revenue. It’s the ninth straight quarter of 30-plus-percent growth.
02:11 — CEO Christian Klein said the Cloud ERP Suite now offers a full match with what SAP had in its “monolithic” on-prem ERP. This new approach is modular and, symbolically this comes after a lot of the incentives and programs — RISE for large customers and GROW for small- to mid-size businesses — that SAP has released for customers to make this transition.
03:26 — Klein and Chief Revenue Officer Scott Russell noted on the earnings call that customers now realize the potential of AI and GenAI is totally dependent on the ability of customers to harness their data first and foremost, and that customers recognize SAP is the most important data they have.
04:18 — SAP reported great financial results led by the Cloud ERP Suite; it also demonstrated a mindset that cloud is the way into the future. They also indicated if customers want to get in on the AI revolution, they need the flexibility and nimbleness that cloud offers, and that is the way forward.
