As digital transformation became ever more critical to enterprises around the world, 麻豆原创 Services and Support took a leading role in helping clients to avoid disruption and maintain critical functions and infrastructure. This steady hand through troubled times did not go unnoticed. 鈥淚’m hearing from customers that they are a combination of relieved and impressed that we didn’t let them down and really upheld our operations,鈥� said Andreas Heckmann, executive vice president and head of Customer Solution Support and Innovation at 麻豆原创. 鈥淭here was no disruption whatsoever, quite the opposite since we reached historical highs in customer satisfaction in recent quarters.鈥�

Here, Heckmann discusses the lessons learned last year and his goals for customer support in 2022 and beyond, including everything from the future of to new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) to why this is the 鈥渂iggest moment of transformation鈥� that support has ever seen.

Q: What are you most excited about for support in the year ahead?

A: I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say the biggest transformation in support鈥檚 history will commence in 2022. For one thing, we will further harmonize our acquisitions, working on infrastructure and joint 鈥渘ext practices鈥� so that our customers have an even more streamlined experience. It will truly be one 麻豆原创. Machine learning has advanced substantially, and we are now set to provide some of the greatest innovations imaginable. Also, support will become much more prescriptive. Along the entire solution life cycle, we want to answer the question, 鈥榃hat’s the client鈥檚 best option here?鈥�

We’ve been super successful in 2021 with advancing 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM. It’s evolved wonderfully and ahead of schedule, so now we want to start offering it to customers as a default 鈥� right from the very first project. Then they鈥檒l continue with data migration, handing over to operations, doing optimization, monitoring, and things like that.

I’m very excited that in 2022 we will start moving all these pieces of the puzzle together to create a fully integrated, end-to-end experience. During the entire customer life cycle, we will be able to take customers by the hand better than we’ve ever done before and offer a lot of technology on top of our already great customer service.

Why are these changes happening now?

It’s definitely driven by customer insights. We are focusing on the things that we know customers are struggling with most, and we are thinking of the different personas we are now interacting with through support. Years ago, we mostly dealt with IT departments 鈥� with 麻豆原创 competence centers. And while they are still there, the mix is changing fast. We see a lot more business users. They have very different expectations on how they want to interact. They’re not very technical. They don’t want clumsy user interfaces (UI).

We want to provide them with the best possible, consumer-grade experience 鈥� a really delightful experience. And yes, evolving technology helps us with that, for sure. It’s a lot easier for us to do it now than it was five years ago. But the impetus comes from meeting customer needs, not using technology for its own sake.

We’re entering a fundamentally different game now. In the past, it was a finite game. Now, with the cloud, we are finding ourselves in an infinite game. We have to win our customers time and again, and their life cycle keeps repeating itself. So mainly what we’re trying to do now is meet all these customer requirements by anticipating the needs that we encounter ourselves.

Can you share a little bit about why you鈥檙e excited about Built-In Support in 2022?

I鈥檓 very excited about this service right now. In the past, if a user had a question or ran into a problem, they would have to leave the space they work in completely and open a different portal. Then they would need to authenticate, choose the type of problem they’re experiencing, and work their way through the process.

This process was good for us. But it wasn’t necessarily providing the best customer experience. I would say that the most intuitive experience would be if you’re experiencing a problem, you shouldn’t have to tell us where the problem is, right? If you are right there working, then we can take the context of your working environment with no effort from you. It should be an integrated UI and it should support you seamlessly, starting a meaningful dialogue right there on the spot. That is the vision we had for Built-In Support. It took several attempts to optimize it, but today it is an absolutely beautiful, lightweight UI. It鈥檚 like a little helper that flies in over your software.

And another good thing is that it’s technically not part of the product code. We created it this way because we wanted to provide a unified experience 鈥� the exact same thing should happen no matter what solution you use. So, we developed a tool outside of the products and made it very easy for our development units to integrate this support tool with local integration. That way, they can focus 100% on developing the actual product, and we can focus 100% on developing all the supporting functions. I think that’s quite revolutionary. I’m not aware anyone else is doing that. I think we get the best of all worlds.

How have AI and machine learning become more integral to support processes?

We now have a very potent data lake with a lot of detailed information and with that, we are able to do a lot more complex AI and machine learning. And we are also technologically capable of responding in a split second to things that are happening. The use cases we are working on right now are to help us become truly predictive. I’ll give you an example. If we see a customer encounter a problem, and we see a second customer sending a problem that pretty much sounds the same, and then another, and another, we automatically detect the pattern. Then we can easily identify what other customers have the same criteria and will encounter the same problem, thereby stopping it before it occurs. Once we identify them, we can be truly proactive by going to the customer before they come to us.

If the problem is within our control, we could enter into a world that is typically described as self-healing. In other words, we could make all the corrections as soon as we detect the pattern, so that the customer will never even know that they were about to experience a problem.

What鈥檚 your greatest hope for 2022?

My number one priority for the year is getting this vision on the road. And it’s going to take us a few years to complete all of these ambitious goals. But this year, I want to have the groundwork done. I want to have early successes; I want to make it tangible for our first customers. That’s by far my number one wish.

Martin Gwisdalla is part of Global Public Relations at 麻豆原创.

Q: How would you describe the experience of using 麻豆原创 for Me?

A: As a customer, it’s your digital portal. It’s basically the same thing you probably have with your utility provider or bank. You log into a private environment, and you can see your account, manage your preferences, and more. This portal is, of course, more complex, but generally speaking, it is your digital access into your relationship with your supplier.

What sparked the creation of the portal, and why was it a priority?

The impetus for the project was customer feedback saying that it was challenging to do business with 麻豆原创 at that time because it felt like dealing with multiple enterprises. We had acquired some new companies and they all had their own processes with their own tools, their own environment, and their own engagement. It was difficult for customers to see 麻豆原创 as a unified solution.

I took over the project when we were still calling it My Home. The goal all along has been nothing less than to change the way customers do business with 麻豆原创. Customer experience is so important, even more so in the cloud because there are many digital touchpoints. We wanted every interaction between us and the customer to improve their experience and provide them with better outcomes. That鈥檚 why we believe that the introduction of 麻豆原创 for Me marks the beginning of a new customer experience.

What happens with other entry points now that 麻豆原创 has streamlined down to just 麻豆原创.com, 麻豆原创 Community, and 麻豆原创 for Me?

The others become what we are calling secondary entry points. One example would be the Cloud Availability Center service. We are still in the process of determining exactly how these will be accessed because they contain great relevant content, but they are siloed from one another, which runs counter to our customer experience goal. In some cases, certain applications will be migrated or integrated into one of the three primary entry points. A few will be retired. Others will remain as a content provider but will be accessible through one of the main entry points. There are many applications in the support area, like the example with Cloud Availability Center, which we are already integrating successfully into 麻豆原创 for Me.

Will 麻豆原创 for Me also be the go-to place for engagement with 麻豆原创 support?

Yes. Getting 麻豆原创 support is an important element that 麻豆原创 wants to enable customers and partners to do in 麻豆原创 for Me. Therefore, it is planned to transition all support features from 麻豆原创 ONE Support Launchpad to 麻豆原创 for Me in a phased approach. As a first step, we have recently released the newly designed services and support and systems and provisioning dashboards. With this, more than one million support users can now perform all their support-related tasks by accessing the support applications directly via 麻豆原创 for Me.

What are some of the benefits of 麻豆原创 for Me?

Internally, we created an employee view so that our relevant employees can see exactly what the customer can see now, which is great for our colleagues. It allows us to answer customer questions easily and to find information much more quickly.

For our customers, it empowers them to answer questions on their own, especially for certain recurring activities. For example, with regards to tenants, how many do I have on my list of licenses? And how much did I consume? These are standard questions, but it was difficult for a customer to find this out on their own previously, and it was time consuming for both parties when they regularly had to inquire with us. It鈥檚 also much easier for customers to know who to contact with specific questions, which, again, will increase efficiency for both our colleagues and our customers.

And there are, of course, many more benefits, such as easily purchasing additional licenses for over 1,400 cloud solutions from 麻豆原创 with your individually pre-negotiated terms and conditions and tracking details of each order including renewal periods and fees, license materials by order and contract, payment details, and addresses.

Please join us at the on December 7!

Martin Gwisdalla is part of Global PR at 麻豆原创.

As a recent on future-ready companies noted, increased connectivity is one of the guiding trends that will define the year to come.

At 麻豆原创, we are committed to providing the connection that our service partners need. That鈥檚 why we are introducing two new services for our partners that will empower them to guide customers through transformational implementations more seamlessly than ever before: partner coaching service and partner mentoring service.

A year ago, we approached 80 partners about how we could best support them. What we found was a surprisingly simple answer: there was a desire for a streamlined process through which they could connect with an 麻豆原创 expert to answer questions directly. These two new programs do just that.

The partner coaching service allows 麻豆原创 service partners to gain fast access to 麻豆原创 coaches鈥� knowledge, so that they can get the answers they need to support their customers quickly and effectively. It will help them short-circuit complexity to help customers in the midst of an implementation and build up their knowledge for the future.

The partner mentoring service, on the other hand, provides ongoing support from a mentor in the role of a project manager, technical architect, solution architect, or integration specialist. Rather than a one-off conversation, this service is a relationship that builds expertise over the life of a project.

At 麻豆原创, we know that when our partners, which perform over 80% of our implementations, succeed, we also win. And we are confident that these new services will aid in the success of our partners and our joint customers.

To learn more about these two new programs, we spoke with John Olson, global vice president and head of Ecosystem Offerings Management, for some insider insights.

Q: What are the key differences between the coaching and mentoring services?

A: The partner coaching service is a reactive service intended to allow a partner to call an expert for 30 to 60 minutes and ask any how-to questions as they arise. The partner mentoring service is proactive and more of an educational service. Say a partner is working in a new competency or they have a consultant who is new, that’s learning and hasn’t had a project on say, 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud for manufacturing before. They would need to get their certification, and then once they鈥檙e on their first project 麻豆原创 will assign someone to guide them through the project and mentor them.

Based on partner assignment need, we’ll assign a field expert who has experience in that area. The 麻豆原创 mentor will then meet with the partner weekly throughout the project and guide them — such as, 鈥淚n this phase, these are the things that you’ll be doing and what you need to be aware of.鈥� It鈥檚 not intended to replace the coaching service, although the mentor will, of course, answer how-to questions for the mentee. It鈥檚 less ad hoc and more focused on the future, on building longer-term capabilities. Mentors can say, 鈥淭his is what’s coming that I want you to know about, the pitfalls, and so on.鈥�

What type of questions would a partner bring to the coaching service?

This program is meant to support partners with very specific needs. Our partners are extremely well educated in our products, but may need help in a new skill or a new region that they’re working in, where they don’t have as much experience. Or perhaps it’s a new technology, and they haven’t yet built their competency in that area. These programs will also be helpful to partners implementing a hybrid system who need our help on one part of the implementation.

By plugging these holes for our partners, we鈥檙e helping them get to what we’re calling 鈥渄elivery ready.鈥� By making sure that they’re completely delivery ready, they鈥檒l minimize delays, escalations, and missteps, resulting in a better customer experience.

What are these new services not intended to do?

This is not an issue resolution desk and is not intended to replace the support programs that we already have in place. Most customer issues will continue to be run through 麻豆原创 Support. However, 麻豆原创 Support is not intended to address how-to questions or give advice on architecture, design, or project management. Partner coaching is designed to address those questions.

Also, if we can鈥檛 answer the question in a 30-minute phone call, it can be extended to 60 minutes. Most issues should be resolved in this time. However, if the partner鈥檚 issue is really in depth, we will direct them to another service that is better equipped to handle the deeper issues.

This is something we haven鈥檛 previously offered because it鈥檚 extremely complex to offer small-scale services when the 麻豆原创 Services organization is designed to engage in long-term implementations. Think about it as the difference between a taxi dispatch and a long-term car service. It would be difficult for a company designed to hire out a car for six months to suddenly operate an on-demand taxi service. However, we hear partners asking for small services and we believe we can have a big impact by meeting that need.

In an interview, Peter Flohrer, global vice president of 麻豆原创 Services Manufacturing discusses Industry 4.Now, 麻豆原创鈥檚 Industry 4.0 strategy, and how its accompanying service package is designed to support the entire Industry 4.0 transformation journey.

Q: Why is it so important for customers to take on Industry 4.0?

A: All industries are facing increased volatility resulting from the lasting impacts of COVID-19, such as the reordering of trade relationships, climate variability, technology advancements, and other forms of economic, environmental, and social disruptions. By prioritizing end-to-end processes rather than siloed thinking, companies are better positioned to achieve objectives specific to their business needs and footprints.

When companies are connected from end to end and shop floor to top floor, they can capture, process, and analyze more critical data to stay ahead of the pack. A highlights how the current global pandemic has also underscored this need to coordinate and optimize production beyond the shop floors and plants, ultimately helping ensure more resilient manufacturing and supply chain operations.

It鈥檚 clear that now is the time for Industry 4.0.

Can you tell us about the 麻豆原创 Industry 4.Now initiative?

Industry 4.Now is 麻豆原创鈥檚 strategic initiative for helping companies thrive in volatile times through Industry 4.0 intelligent processes. This means helping them bring their manufacturing and full product experience process to a new level by combining manufacturing automation with enterprise business execution.

While Industry 4.0 is a broad topic that has been around for some time 鈥� and we often consider the concept more of a philosophy than a concrete solution 鈥搘e created this enhanced Industry 4.Now strategy to guide customers in achieving their specific Industry 4.0 transformation goals.

With every customer鈥檚 situation looking entirely different, there is no cookie-cutter solution, which is why the consultative approach is so key and why we draw on our cross-industry expertise to counsel customers in how to integrate all these processes.

How is the new Industry 4.Now service package positioned to meet the needs of today鈥檚 users?

To support the customer鈥檚 overall journey to Industry 4.0 processes, 麻豆原创 created an accompanying innovation service package for Industry 4.Now 鈥� and the included advisory and implementation services. The four key pillars of Industry 4.Now 鈥� intelligent factory, intelligent asset, intelligent product, and empowered people 鈥� are the foundation of these services. As I mentioned, Industry 4.0 is an expansive concept, so this service package helps users to home in on specific opportunities where they can improve and excel. They provide actionable road maps for customers to reinvent production and connect their entire company across multiple business areas and shop floors.

For example, the intelligent factory service uncovers intelligent automation opportunities; the intelligent asset service identifies ways to extend the useful life and safety of assets through connected devices; the intelligent product service links to the circular economy; and the empowered people service advances a motivated and engaged workforce that, in turn, drives innovation, growth, and resilience.

In addition, these services help leaders quantify the improvement and benefits resulting from their Industry 4.0 initiatives to show how they contribute to overall customer success.

When leveraged together, this service package allows customers to effectively explore their business vision and personalize a road map to success. We start with a free maturity assessment to evaluate where a customer is in their Industry 4.0 transformation. Once an entry point is identified, the advisory services package offers a big-picture view of opportunities and agile approaches for reimagining processes and realizing business goals. For example, this helps customers determine which area they should prioritize, whether it be management or product design.

The implementation service package then assists with the necessary steps for each customer鈥檚 road map to success, including identifying the optimal partners and tools required. What is unique about this package is that it is tailored to specific business scenarios, providing key insights into how businesses can drive time to value as they automate processes and improve the resiliency of their operations and supply chains along their journeys to Industry 4.0.

Now, 麻豆原创 is introducing improved capabilities to simplify the implementation experience, add operations capabilities to manage cloud solutions, and support additional offerings like 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors and 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions, among others.

Tim Steuer, vice president of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) at 麻豆原创, reveals how he and his team have been helping improve the solution since launch.

Q: What are some of the updates you and your team have been working on since the launch of 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM?

A: When we first launched, the initial scope was focused and strategic, simplifying the implementation experience for customers on their way to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud. With 50 customers within our implementation portal at the time, we received great feedback from customers that did not use ALM tools from 麻豆原创 in the past. This included a 12-week 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud project at a small company with only five employees in IT.

We鈥檙e now adding operations, expanding the full capabilities of 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM to support other cloud products, including 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions, and integrating parts of 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM to solutions including 麻豆原创 Customer Experience, 麻豆原创 Ariba, and 麻豆原创 Concur solutions, among others. It鈥檚 exciting to get this opportunity to support so many more customers with their transformation projects and help them grow as organizations.

Additionally, we鈥檝e added several capabilities to 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM to enhance the initial implementation phase and assist with streamlining operations for customers looking to deploy and operate cloud solutions from 麻豆原创, including:

• Process management
• Task management
• Test management
• Release timelines
• Integration monitoring
• Exception monitoring
• Business process monitoring
• Event and alert management

How are these updates impactful for customers?

Customers t are going through cloud implementations are experiencing something totally different than an on-premise scenario. Instead of long cycles 鈥� let鈥檚 say with updates every four years 鈥� there are constant updates with the cloud. Customers need a tool to absorb and integrate the continuous innovation by cloud providers into existing business processes. 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM is designed to do just that.

In a recent conversation, for example, Leonardo De Araujo, a partner from Beyond Technologies, told us that 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM is a game-changer for them and the company recommends using the solution for implementing 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud. The road map 麻豆原创 provided convinced them, and they plan to adopt new features in the future.

Additionally, with 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM, 麻豆原创 helps ensure cloud operations, which enables customers to shift focus away from technical administration and monitoring and allows them to focus on more strategic things, like how cloud solutions work together or how to manage a seamless flow of data.

Our ambition is that ultimately customers won鈥檛 need a dedicated administrator for 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM. That means all they鈥檇 need to do is onboard team members to collaborate on the platform and select the cloud solutions that are managed by 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM 鈥� without technical knowledge.

What is the significance of these new capabilities?聽

By greatly expanding on the number of products that support 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM, we鈥檙e broadening our customer base and helping more of our customers adopt to the changes that come with transitioning from on premise to the cloud. This is also a shift for us because we鈥檙e able to not only guide our customers with the adoption, but also move into the operations space and help ensure smooth day-to-day operations after implementation is complete. This means counseling our customers in a totally different way, like solving problems of integration between various cloud solutions, as well as finding out why certain business processes aren鈥檛 working.

Can you share any plans for 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM and tell us how customers can learn more?

Expanding 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM doesn鈥檛 stop this year. In fact, we鈥檙e hoping to add 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM to all components of the Intelligent Enterprise, including 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, by 2021. We plan to increase capabilities and expand the footprint to cover hybrid solutions.

All 麻豆原创 Cloud customers will be able to leverage 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM at no additional cost through the 麻豆原创 ONE Support Launchpad. We鈥檙e thrilled about the opportunity to empower our cloud customers on their journey to becoming an intelligent enterprise.

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Paladin also shares his perspective on how his team is adapting to the new business landscape.

Q: You took the helm of 麻豆原创 Services at the start of a global pandemic. What were your first thoughts? Is there anything that prepared you for this?

A: We鈥檙e clearly facing an unprecedented challenge at the moment. Around the world, people have been hit in some personal and professional capacity. While everyone is trying to navigate between working remotely, caring for young children or elderly family members and just staying safe and healthy, it has also provided many of us with time to reflect.

Professionally, this has been a good time to truly understand the resilience of an organization and the people within it. I鈥檝e been extremely impressed with how our organization has been able to adapt and address the needs of our customers remotely, from design to ideation and project go-lives. I鈥檓 equally impressed with how our customers were quick and agile to explore new modes of operation and alter some of their business processes to address the changes within their own industries.

I don鈥檛 know that anyone was fully prepared to deal with this, but I鈥檝e learned that adaptability is key. I鈥檝e seen it both in people and in business. At 麻豆原创, with the broad range of services available within our portfolio, we were able to quickly address changing customer needs. We also released from 麻豆原创, designed to support customers in managing risk and driving continuity by enhancing off-site working environments and remote collaboration.

You are currently leading an organization of people that are largely working remotely. How do you maintain a culture of success and collaboration?

It really all comes down to transparency. It鈥檚 important to be open and honest with your team, and to let them know that you may not have all the answers. The uncertainty of this situation is leading to people being undoubtedly stressed, both at home and at work. We鈥檝e all experienced changes to our day-to-day environments, so I鈥檝e encouraged my team to raise their hands and ask for help when they need it. I鈥檓 in continuous communication with members across the 麻豆原创 Executive Board and have spent a lot of time checking in with people across our organization. While we鈥檙e all apart at the moment, I believe this situation has brought us closer together.

The nature of our work has allowed us to build collaboration tools for our customers, so there鈥檚 no lack of communications tools that we can take advantage of internally to help us work efficiently and successfully. We鈥檙e learning how to use these tools to best replicate an optimum working environment 鈥� both internally and with our customers.

What are some of the most common concerns you are currently hearing from customers related to their digital transformation projects? How is your organization helping to address those 鈥� from the off-site service delivery framework offerings and beyond?聽

First and foremost, the situation we鈥檙e currently facing has really tested the partnerships between 麻豆原创 and its customers. The impact is being felt across all industries, and organizations are being directly or indirectly impacted across their regular operations 鈥� whether that be their people, products, and services, or financial liquidity.

The global supply chain has basically been shut down. Disruption to the supply chain and interruptions to transportation have put some vendors in a total standstill. Many have been quick to adapt, and we鈥檝e been working with customers to allow them to maximize the features within our products and services to address changes to their operations.

While it鈥檚 important to focus on what鈥檚 critical now, our customers are also looking toward the future. They鈥檙e looking to optimize their front-office functions to address the shift in consumer demand and sentiment. Taking advantage of analytics and insights, we鈥檙e helping them make the best possible decisions today that will set them up for a successful future.

Our customers have been heavily relying on us for support and guidance to help them navigate this changing business environment. While the landscape is continuously changing, and we may not have all the answers in front of us, we do have the right services and tools to ensure business continuity. In the past, we could rely on face-to-face interaction. Today we must ensure that we are able to deliver continuity and quality in this remote working environment.

What immediate successes have you seen for customers that have had to quickly adapt their business models and processes to address this new remote environment we鈥檙e working and living in?

It鈥檚 been impressive to see how adaptable businesses have been. Of course, there are some industries that were able to weather the storm a bit better than others because they had already followed a digitized model, like the financial services industry. But even those that have had their supply chains severely hit, like manufacturing, are looking at their product pipeline and adjusting to meet new demands. There is a growing adoption of automation, and we鈥檙e seeing the digital economy pick up faster than ever now. A lot of organizations are turning to digital to optimize their businesses.

We鈥檙e even seeing many projects accelerate in the remote format. We鈥檝e integrated an off-site services delivery framework into our essential business services offering, which enables us to deliver projects 100 percent remotely. We鈥檝e been doing this successfully for years, with ready-to-run processes already available and prescriptive step-by-step guidance to ensure our customers are supported every step of the way.

How do you think digital transformation projects will be impacted during these challenging times? What kind of technologies do you anticipate companies will be prioritizing as we come out of the pandemic?

Many of our legacy customers have already gone through two catastrophic events before COVID-19: the dot-com bust in 2000 and the financial crisis in 2008. While those had severe economic impacts due to systematic failures, what we鈥檙e facing today is a health issue that is constraining the global population and forcing both consumers and businesses alike to completely change their day-to-day lives and operations.

Organizations are even more aware of the importance of digital and its role in allowing them to stay competitive. While some organizations may be slowing down their projects or stretching them over longer periods of time, most understand the need to continue to move forward 鈥� albeit a little differently.

Our customers are not only adapting for the current situation, but also looking toward the future, post-COVID-19, to determine how they will fit in the value chain. Technology is going to be the driving force that will allow organizations to thrive. My hope is that the services we provide will allow our customers to reach their customers in new ways as we move on the path of recovery.

Read the related announcement: Essential Business Services from 麻豆原创 Enhance Remote Working and Risk Management to Drive Business Continuity

The Intelligent Enterprise is centered around the digital core of 麻豆原创 S/4HANA. Here, the company is seeing great adoption, with more than 14,100 customers that already have chosen it and several thousand customers deep in the process of adapting.

麻豆原创 aims to ensure customers can transition to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA as efficiently and seamlessly as possible while leveraging the unique capabilities of the solution instead of only doing a technical upgrade.

Since every customer鈥檚 transformation journey is unique, and the usual customer approach is to indeed drive a fundamental change in their business models and processes, earlier this year, 麻豆原创 decided to give clarity and extended commitments on maintenance for 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7 and 麻豆原创 S/4HANA. The extensions were made to better serve customers and give them the flexibility to take full advantage of the opportunities 麻豆原创 S/4HANA offers.

Nearly three months since the initial announcement, Jens Bernotat, global vice president of Strategy and Ecosystem for Customer Solution Support and Innovation at 麻豆原创, discusses the strategy behind the extension, how the news was received, and why it is meaningful for customers.

Q: What were the details of the announcement and initial reactions from customers, user groups, and the market?

A: Back in February, we gave clarity and an extended maintenance commitment for 麻豆原创 S/4HANA until the end of 2040 and for 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7 until the end of 2027. With 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7, customers can decide for an optional extended maintenance until 2030 to support strong momentum and flexibility for all our customers based on their respective individual paces and the complexities of their projects. We understand many of our customers are undergoing deep business transformation powered by the solution鈥檚 capabilities 鈥� something that takes a different amount of time for each company 鈥� and we wanted to provide them with true flexibility and confidence to plan for the future.

Overall, we鈥檝e had a tremendous amount of positive feedback from analysts, user groups, and customers. It was clear that 麻豆原创 would comment on the future maintenance timeline of 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7 sometime soon, but I think our official commitment to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA until at least 2040 came as a pleasant surprise. Though, for us, it鈥檚 what made the most sense. We know our customers want clarity on what the future holds for their individual transformation journeys, and through this long-term commitment, we鈥檝e simply laid out what this looks like with a precise planning baseline.

In a time where businesses all over the world are experiencing unprecedented changes, why is it still important to think about a transformation to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA?

We understand our customers are focused on keeping their businesses running as best they can in the current times. One thing we clearly see is that digital transformation is undoubtedly an important aspect to consider at the moment 鈥� both to keep businesses running and as the future direction many companies will take.

Driven by the current crisis, we鈥檝e seen a massive push toward digital by businesses and consumers alike. You don鈥檛 have to look much further than today鈥檚 children, many of whom have so quickly adapted to online learning and collaboration due to stay-at-home orders. Now more than ever, digitalization is coming into everyone’s life at an accelerated rate as businesses look to digitize some of their physical processes.

The exciting thing is that 麻豆原创 S/4HANA is made for the digital world and can help businesses adapt their existing processes for digital, which will give them a head start on their inevitable transformation journeys.

Why did 麻豆原创 consider extending 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7?

The clarity and extended commitment for 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7 is clearly connected to the great momentum around 麻豆原创 S/4HANA. As of February, when we announced the extension, we had 13,800 customers decided for 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, with thousands of them already in the process of moving, and many more planning for it. Since then, the move to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA has further accelerated.

We also noticed our customers did not just want a technical migration but wanted a deep understanding of the new capabilities 麻豆原创 S/4HANA could provide that they could leverage to be more successful than ever before. A technical migration can be compared to how one might buy a new car which has a new tool such as a navigation system but still uses the car in the same way as the old one, without leveraging new capabilities. By extending 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7, we鈥檙e able to give our customers time to best understand how they can utilize the full potential of 麻豆原创 S/4HANA for maximum efficiency, just how one would by knowing how to use the navigation system in their new car.

Additionally, we also realized our customers needed clarity on what 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7 would look like after 2025. Customers knew that next steps were going to be delivered in due time. Now customers have clarity on how they can orchestrate their transition from 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7 to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA.

What does the maintenance extension mean for customers? What are the new choices and benefits?

With these volatile economic times, we鈥檙e able to give our customers investment protection, flexibility, and more time to master their transition from 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7 to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA by 2027 with no contractual change or additional cost. Following this phase, we鈥檙e also offering a choice on how they can continue with maintenance for 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7 if their transformation journey requires it. Customers needing additional support with a longer conversion phase to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA will be able to extend maintenance support to 2030. This comes with a premium of two percentage points on the existing maintenance basis for core applications of 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7 for all support offerings. For customers that do not choose extended maintenance by the end of 2027 but choose to carry on with 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7, software systems will automatically be transferred to the customer-specific maintenance model. This includes problem solving for known issues at unchanged fees.

Overall, we want to ensure all our customers have the adequate amount of time and resources to effectively make their transition towards the intelligent enterprise.

If customers decide on a transformation plan, how does 麻豆原创 support those on the journey?

There鈥檚 a specific prescribed process and methodology we follow for each customer as they move to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, whether they want a new net implementation or prefer to convert their existing system into an 麻豆原创 S/4HANA system.

We help our customers transition by providing a set of accelerators and tools that define the business case for each customer 鈥� tools in 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, how customers can drive ROI, deployment options, transitional features from 麻豆原创 Business Suite 7, and the models customers need to drive success. By giving our customers comprehensive and standard best practices for each implementation, we鈥檙e able to provide a smooth and seamless journey to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA and overall customer success.

We鈥檙e proud of how the extension announcement was received and are excited to see how this will enable our customers to innovate and further progress on their transformation journey toward the Intelligent Enterprise.