The event was held April 23-25 in Heidelberg, Germany, and customers on-site experienced insightful keynotes and sessions from 麻豆原创 Executive Board Members Thomas Saueressig and Muhammad Alam, as well as 麻豆原创 Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Philipp Herzig and other experts.

presented important updates on topics that also included Business Transformation as a Service, RISE with 麻豆原创, and 麻豆原创 BTP. Attendees also benefited from interactive “eXpert eXchange” sessions and opportunities to network and share their experiences and best practices.

The 麻豆原创 MaxAttention program offers premium-level engagement and personalized service for customers to move business-wide transformational change from boardroom plans to business reality with a tailored, premium experience. Program participants get premium access to trusted 麻豆原创 experts, tools, and methodologies that can help deliver expected outcomes successfully with 麻豆原创 solutions.

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Thomas Saueressig’s Keynote

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Muhammad Alam’s Keynote

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Philipp Herzig’s Executive Session

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But what really makes the difference is access to high-quality expertise and best practices that optimize the value of those technologies for sustainable business success. For more than 20 years, top 麻豆原创 customers have acquired this advantage through a strategic long-term engagement with the  program. 

Kurt Bauer, who is globally responsible for 麻豆原创 MaxAttention, is continuously in contact with many of these industry-leading companies from all over the globe. He recently spent an afternoon in the office reflecting on the challenges companies encounter and the transformations they are driving with the support of 麻豆原创 MaxAttention.

Q: Over the past 12 months, you have met more than 100 customers. What are your observations?

A: This experience has been an intense time of exceptionally valuable insights into the challenges and driving forces that companies face worldwide. 

Business transformation journeys are influenced by numerous factors, such as target operating models, organic or inorganic growth, and consolidation of legacy structures, including business process redesign and custom-code management. In addition, our customers’ efficiency and agility targets are leveraging the potential of the cloud to help ensure resilient supply chain operations.

On top of that, companies face a range of economic and geopolitical shifts, new data privacy regulations and cybersecurity needs, generational workforce demands, and sustainability priorities.

CIOs have a lot on their plate, all of which requires more long-term planning and expertise.

Our customers are navigating this world of complexity by transforming and modernizing their digital landscapes with technical advancements such as 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud. Some use the RISE with 麻豆原创 or GROW with 麻豆原创 offerings to benefit immediately from innovation deployments, and various integrated cloud solutions from 麻豆原创 to amplify the value of end-to-end processes. Nevertheless, they’re focused on overcoming a staggering number of challenges to drive future growth, enhance business agility, and improve sustainability performance.

But this is easier said than done. How do they manage it successfully? 

Such journeys can only be successful by realizing them step-by-step along a master plan based on end-to-end enterprise application architecture. The plan must be maintained and remain flexible to adapt to evolving business priorities and technologies.

We provide a North Star service based on enterprise architecture capabilities, methodologies, tools, and best practices jointly developed and maintained with the 麻豆原创 Product Engineering organization. For our top customers, the service helps ensure continued success with 麻豆原创, maximizing the value of their 麻豆原创 solution investments with a long-range view into their future needs and opportunities.

Achieving such a North Star architecture is a prerequisite to developing and realizing the master plan. No company can accomplish everything all at once. Many constraints and risks must be considered, yet nothing is written in stone because conditions can change. Together with our customers, we develop and maintain their adoption road map. And as mentioned, we need to keep the enterprise architecture current to reflect strategic and technological moves. 

As customer-specific demands remain the focus, does standardization help organizations accelerate technology adoption while minimizing risks?

Absolutely, and all customers I spoke to strive for it: achieving clean core process standardization and leveraging the power of cloud solutions. Many customers have enhanced their ERP-centric business functionalities, especially when building their continuously evolving digital landscapes on legacy ERP, such as 麻豆原创 R/3 or early versions of 麻豆原创 ERP Central Component. It was a common approach to develop everything perceived as needed.聽

The fundamental DNA of 麻豆原创 has always been to standardize, innovate, and scale business process capabilities by leveraging the full potential of the latest technologies. Meanwhile, standardization and completeness have climaxed. This has led to public cloud solutions with frequent and more consumable innovation deployments, allowing companies to approach the next level of interconnected company business networks and supply chains — intelligent enterprises.

How do these companies attain standardization?聽

It’s not easy, but well worth the effort. Business AI is a notable example of how these new capabilities will be made available continuously to the business for instant adoption. 

Most companies have started changing their mindset. They鈥檙e moving from an indisputable need for building individual functional enhancements and toward reengineering their processes to fit to standard and complemented by the extensibility capabilities of 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform. Understanding the benefits of rapid innovation adoption in the cloud requires a massive shift in change management and support practices. 

麻豆原创 MaxAttention supports 麻豆原创 solutions across deployment options and their integration with other 麻豆原创 and third-party systems. How is this broad bandwidth supported?

Throughout every engagement, a technical quality manager (TQM) serves as an embedded on-site expert with a chair at the CIO’s table, learning, understanding, and analyzing business and IT challenges. TQMs maintain the service plan, pulling in the right engineered services from a portfolio of 160 services delivered by our center of expertise and, when needed, backed up by 麻豆原创 Product Engineering. 

Essentially, TQMs are like family doctors: They take care of each customer’s long-term well-being and connect them to additional specialist consultations and treatments when needed. Our 160 engineered services cover everything from architecture and fit-to-standard process design to safeguarding the realization and enabling hybrid operations for end-to-end processes.

Our tools, methodologies, and on-the-job training encourage customers to build up foundational expertise, making them more self-sufficient. But that doesn’t mean that we let our customers walk alone. 

As the strategic service engagement, 麻豆原创 MaxAttention is teaming up with 麻豆原创 partners to augment their value with best practices gained from engagements with industry-leading companies and close collaboration with 麻豆原创 Product Engineering.

Are premium engagements such as 麻豆原创 MaxAttention available to smaller businesses?

Businesses, regardless of their size, face complex business challenges that translate into complex IT requirements. For that reason, premium engagements from 麻豆原创 offer different engagement levels. 

麻豆原创 MaxAttention is a strategic, multi-year engagement that includes one or many full-time TQMs, an intense service volume. We have scaled our premium engagement experience to meet the needs and expectations of smaller businesses through the 麻豆原创 ActiveAttention program, which provides part-time TQMs and requires lower service volumes.

Both long-term engagement offerings offer access to the same services on demand with the agility to adjust based on customer priorities. Additionally, 麻豆原创 MaxAttention has certain non-purchasable benefits that reflect the engagement’s strategic nature, such as the global 麻豆原创 MaxAttention Summit with members of the 麻豆原创 Executive Board, regional expert forums, virtual innovation workshops, or 麻豆原创 Product Engineering sponsors.

While front-running companies often leverage 麻豆原创 MaxAttention, we also have customers that are not yet large enterprises but on a fast growth trajectory. They want to benefit from the expertise and best practices we gained from industry business leaders across the globe.

Once they get acclimated to the experience, our customers often renew their engagement for many decades. They tell us they enjoy the value 麻豆原创 MaxAttention brings, and we love supporting them with all our expertise. A recent on the total economic impact of 麻豆原创 MaxAttention confirms that the payoff is substantial and maximizes the value of 麻豆原创 solution investments no matter the size of the company leveraging it. 

However, businesses sometimes require support for just a one-off, purpose-framed challenge. The 麻豆原创 Value Assurance program addresses this need by providing a TQM and a more-prescriptive service plan to resolve the situation.

Whatever the experience, getting started and heading down a path toward a long-term premium engagement can be an enjoyable experience. We have regular connecting points with our customers to exchange information about enhanced or new contractual models and the evolution of our services to stay relevant in changing times. 

A common principle for us is to productize our best practices to scale and share them with our customers, making them more self-sufficient and allowing us to focus on the next digital challenge.

In an era marked by exponentially accelerating technology evolution, we do not rest. The 麻豆原创 Cloud ALM solution, 麻豆原创 Solution Manager, advisory and execution services for intelligent custom code management, and near-zero downtime services are just a few examples of how we productize our expertise.

At 麻豆原创, we never let customers walk alone as only our customers鈥� success is our success.

Navigating your cloud journey isn鈥檛 so different. Every organization is unique, so you have to forge your own distinct path to the cloud, backed by experts who have been down the road before.

lets you do just that, giving you access to a team of experts who can help you plan in advance and provide skillful guidance along the way. But cloud success is about more than just a smooth journey. It鈥檚 about achieving real business outcomes, so you can succeed at the speed of business. To measure the success of the 麻豆原创 MaxAttention program, we commissioned a Forrester Consulting study titled “.”

Forrester Consulting interviewed 10 professionals at seven companies using 麻豆原创 MaxAttention, considering cloud migration issues such as costs, benefits, and risks. Then, to model the results, Forrester brought together the participants鈥� experiences and combined the results into a single composite organization 鈥� a global enterprise entity with revenue of US$25 billion per year. After analyzing the data, Forrester concluded that 麻豆原创 MaxAttention delivered an impressive three-year financial impact throughout the cloud journey.

Starting Strong with Business Planning

Planning is the first step in every cloud journey. Even preparing your environment for cloud migration is often difficult. In the Forrester Consulting study, a senior vice president of strategy and value delivery at a food and beverage business explained, 鈥淲e have a very complex environment because the company has been created after many divestitures. It was kind of a Frankenstein. It鈥檚 not a strong template because we have components of many of those companies.鈥�

麻豆原创 MaxAttention can support your ability to stay focused on the factors that influence your successful cloud migration, so you can minimize distractions and execute your plan. 鈥淚f we involve 麻豆原创 MaxAttention during the planning phase, then we have faster visibility of what our options are,鈥� said the food and beverage executive.

According to the Forrester Consulting study, 麻豆原创 MaxAttention helped reduce planning time by 25% for the composite company, from four months down to three.

Keeping the Journey on Track

Once the journey is fully underway, the 麻豆原创 MaxAttention team stays close, offering steady guidance, recommendations, and best practices to help reduce risks for a faster and smoother cloud deployment. The professionals interviewed by Forrester especially liked how 麻豆原创 experts provided quality assurance over system integrators鈥� work. Interviewees also outlined how the services helped identify issues early, before they could delay key steps.

鈥溌槎乖� MaxAttention will call out areas of real concerns in your cloud project planning and technical plans,鈥� said a retail participant in the survey. 鈥淵ou can do quite a deep service, and that has often helped highlight or remediate issues on significant cloud solutions before they became real costs to us.鈥� In one case, the retailer鈥檚 麻豆原创 MaxAttention team identified a performance issue on core systems that could have set migration back by six months.

By reducing disruption risks, helping companies resolve issues faster, and streamlining their processes, 麻豆原创 MaxAttention saved the composite company 30% in deployment time.

Achieving Cloud Value Faster

Cost is always a concern throughout a cloud journey. But you can keep costs in line by streamlining your project with best practices, a transformation plan, and the right guidance and recommendations. The Forrester survey showed how 麻豆原创 MaxAttention enabled companies to realize value from cloud solutions earlier.

Having 麻豆原创 MaxAttention and a dedicated onsite team made a faster timeline possible for a leading cosmetics firm, according to the company鈥檚 VP and head of global business transformation. 鈥淚 think having the right capability with embedded 麻豆原创 processes contributed to about a 25% reduction in our cloud deployment planning,鈥� the executive added.

The interviewee even said that with one implementation, a project that took three months would have taken 12 months without 麻豆原创 MaxAttention.

麻豆原创 MaxAttention Is Your Guide across the Cloud Journey

The takeaway is clear: as you venture forth into parts unknown, you can trust 麻豆原创 MaxAttention experts to offer guidance to help make your journey a successful one. commissioned by 麻豆原创, “The Total Economic Impact™ of 麻豆原创 MaxAttention for Cloud Adoption,” published in February 2023.

Ulrich Schuppler is global premium engagements manager at 麻豆原创.

Every company is on the move to the cloud 鈥� when the timing is right. This may entail a full migration but will certainly include a partial one.

Large enterprises and corporations aiming to transform complex, heterogeneous IT landscapes that have grown over decades are particularly reliant on support. Often, they begin by standardizing and consolidating their entire infrastructure before they鈥檙e ready to embark on their digital transformation journey.

Different Routes to the Cloud

Currently, most of 麻豆原创鈥檚 biggest customers use the strategic, long-term 麻豆原创 MaxAttention program comprising of nearly 300 engineered services. Those services cover 麻豆原创-centric strategy and road map planning, architecture reviews and design, end-to-end business process integration, and operations across solutions, product expertise, safeguarding of implementations, and much more. It is imperative for 麻豆原创 to meet these customers wherever their starting point happens to be and to ensure that the groundwork for a successful digital transformation is in place.

Each enterprise chooses its own route. Indian mining company , for example, first had to upgrade its enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to the latest version before it could go ahead with its plan to move to RISE with 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud, private edition.

鈥淒eploying 麻豆原创 Business Suite powered by 麻豆原创 HANA and working with experts from 麻豆原创 MaxAttention can help us become cloud ready and build a sustainable environment using technology and innovation,鈥� said . 鈥淲ith 麻豆原创 Integrated Delivery Framework and 麻豆原创 ActiveAttention, we have delivered this program on time and on budget.鈥�

Other customers begin their cloud journey by migrating some processes to a protected cloud operated by a hyperscaler and then retiring their own data center. Kurt Bauer, global head of Premium Engagements at 麻豆原创, observed that most customers with an 麻豆原创 ERP-centric core have added public cloud solutions from 麻豆原创 and are implementing private cloud on their way to lay out the path for a full public cloud adoption. plays a pivotal role for agile core business process extensions. Therefore, it is no surprise that a vast majority of premium engagements used by 麻豆原创 customers are driving fast cloud adoption and hybrid operations.

Serving Today鈥檚 Customer Requirements

The prospect of innovation and greater efficiency is drawing more and more enterprises toward the cloud. Many of the largest 麻豆原创 customers still run their core ERP business processes on an on-premise platform, often safeguarded by premium engagements.

Premium engagements service engineers frequently deal with some challenging constellations, such as 250 process steps across 40 systems, data growth of 640 GB per month, 800 million orders every year, and multiple enormous warehouses in global logistics operations. Customers with volumes and requirements on this scale think twice about which of their business-critical processes they should move to the cloud and, if so, in private or public.

鈥淚n hybrid infrastructures, too, interfaces still need to be robust, efficient, and keep data consistent 鈥� cloud technology doesn鈥檛 change that,鈥� said Bauer. In other words, for any transformation to succeed, someone must not only take ownership of the transformation itself but must also ensure that the systems 鈥� whether they are on premise or in the cloud 鈥� function properly, are stable, and deliver the right level of performance.

It鈥檚 Not Just about Money

In Bauer鈥檚 28 years at 麻豆原创, one thing has remained unchanged for the company: the focus on the customer, which has always been about more than chasing KPIs. 鈥淐ustomers reward companies that listen to them and take their suggestions on board,鈥� ex-Board Member Gerhard Oswald said in an interview for 50 Years, a book published to mark 麻豆原创鈥檚 anniversary.

Bauer wants to see this 麻豆原创 tradition live on in the cloud era and for 麻豆原创 MaxAttention customers to benefit from expertise and best practice-fueled services offered as part of the 麻豆原创 MaxAttention program they have known and trusted for the last 20 years. This 20th anniversary calls for a proper celebration and experience sharing by best-running 麻豆原创 customers and 麻豆原创 top executives, exchanging how to leverage 麻豆原创 solutions and 麻豆原创 MaxAttention for years to come.

Therefore, we would like to invite you to the 麻豆原创 MaxAttention Summit in Munich, Germany, from March 19-21. Take advantage of this opportunity to network and engage in discussions with peer customers, gain knowledge from 麻豆原创 specialists, and listen to 麻豆原创 leaders, such as Member of the Executive Board of 麻豆原创 SE Scott Russell and Thomas Saueressig, as they reveal insights of 麻豆原创 technologies and innovations jointly with customers鈥� experiences. Be a part of shaping the future by building a resilient network of intelligent and sustainable enterprises.

Eleonore Gossart is senior marketing manager for Customer Success Services at 麻豆原创.

By 2025, 85% of organizations are expected to embrace a cloud-first approach, according to聽. And those digital strategies can be executed only with cloud-native architectures and technologies. This means that 51% of IT spend will shift from traditional solutions to the public cloud, which will eventually support more than 95% of new digital workloads.

Cloud technology has become, without question, a strategic enabler for business transformations, competitive advantage, and accelerated growth and innovation. And why not? It provides a shared infrastructure that lowers the total cost of ownership, encourages creativity through agile development, and allows for elastic provisioning and scalability with high performance and real-time data.

But instead of immediately jumping into a cloud implementation, businesses must first set the right overall strategy with expert guidance that addresses outdated and siloed operations, complex data, legacy technology, and change management.

Marching to Cloud-Driven Progress with Guidance

Close collaboration, guidance, and flexibility are necessary when choosing and deploying the right cloud solution and delivering specific business benefits and outcomes. Organizations need to know how to manage a consistent and standard experience with an optimal hybrid of infrastructure-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, and software-as-a-service cloud solutions. In addition, decoupled competitive functional enhancements must be designed on a powerful platform, and all those solutions must be integrated and connected to support cross-application business scenarios.

As the flagship offering of a portfolio of premium engagements from 麻豆原创, guides our customers through every step of their business transformation journey to the cloud, minimizing efforts, costs, and risks associated with this transition. Our premium engagement solution engineers provide the services, methods, tools, and expertise organizations need to succeed in their digital transformation efforts in the cloud.

Supporting the deployment of cloud solutions from 麻豆原创, including with hyperscaler solutions, 麻豆原创 MaxAttention brings the latest innovations for business process intelligence, hyperconnectivity, and process automation. The key foundation remains 麻豆原创 S/4HANA extendibility with 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform, and enhanced by 麻豆原创’s industry cloud and the entire 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud Suite Foundation. As a result of keeping their core clean, organizations benefit from adopting innovations more rapidly, and becoming more agile and resilient in adjusting their business processes according to dynamic market requirements.

For example,聽聽reported in its total economic impact study that 麻豆原创 MaxAttention has helped customers increase the ROI of their implementations and landscape management by reducing budget overruns and optimizing value delivered. Participating organizations unanimously agreed that these improvements led to a higher degree of success with their digital transformation initiatives with faster innovation, smoother implementation, lower operational costs, and increased business benefits.

As one customer noted: 鈥淭he fact that the 麻豆原创 MaxAttention team is there, they can help engage the right people to work with you. Without 麻豆原创 MaxAttention, it probably would take 30% or 40% longer to deliver and include a possibility of failure. To be honest with you, the risk level would鈥檝e been a five out of 10. Working with 麻豆原创 brought that down tremendously.鈥�

Leading Transformation and Innovation with Less Risk

麻豆原创 MaxAttention delivers industry-specific content, reference models, expertise, tools, and methodologies that inspire customers to rethink their transformation by leveraging the cloud鈥檚 full potential. And as customers overcome their transformation and innovation challenges with a premium engagement experience with 麻豆原创 MaxAttention, they become smarter, more sustainable, and more resilient.

Kurt Bauer is global senior vice president of Premium Engagements for Cloud Success Services at 麻豆原创.