IBM And SAP Strengthen Their Partnership To Help Clients Embrace Hybrid Cloud

By Amit Chowdhry • Feb 12, 2022
  • IBM (NYSE: IBM) is partnering with SAP (NYSE: SAP) to provide technology and consulting to make it easier for clients to embrace a hybrid cloud approach. These are the details.

IBM (NYSE: IBM) recently announced it is teaming with SAP (NYSE: SAP) to provide technology and consulting expertise to make it easier for clients to embrace a hybrid cloud approach and move mission-critical workloads from SAP solutions to the cloud for regulated and non-regulated industries. And as clients look to adopt hybrid cloud strategies, moving the workloads and applications that are the backbone of their enterprise operation requires a highly secured and reliable cloud environment. With the launch of the premium supplier option with IBM for RISE with SAP, clients will have the tools to help accelerate the migration of their on-premise SAP software workloads to IBM Cloud, backed by industry-leading security capabilities.

Plus IBM is also unveiling a new program called BREAKTHROUGH with IBM for RISE with SAP, a portfolio of solutions and consulting services that help accelerate and amplify the journey to SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Built with a flexible and scalable platform, the solutions and services use intelligent workflows to streamline operations. They provide an engagement model that helps plan, execute and support holistic business transformation. And clients are also offered the flexibility and choice to migrate SAP solution workloads to the public cloud with the support of deep industry expertise.

The announcement of IBM becoming a premium supplier makes IBM the first cloud provider to offer infrastructure, business transformation and application management services as part of RISE with SAP. And IBM’s premium supplier designation is a continuation of SAP’s long-standing efforts to provide choice and optionality to customers, further supporting IBM customers that have a preference for their RISE with SAP package to run on IBM Cloud.

Plus migration to SAP S/4HANA on IBM Cloud from on-premise data centers can potentially deliver the following benefits, according to a study by IDC, sponsored by IBM:

— Migrating to SAP S/4HANA on IBM Cloud delivered revenue increases for up to 90% of organizations making the transition according to users surveyed.

— Over 80% of the organizations in the study said they experienced a reduction in operational costs.

— 9 out of 10 businesses in the study said they improved their productivity after migrating to SAP S/4HANA on IBM Cloud.

IBM and SAP worked with hundreds of clients globally on thousands of individual projects to modernize their systems and business processes based on an open, hybrid cloud approach. Recent examples include Coca-Cola European Partners, Parle Products, Harmont & Blaine, Puravankara Ltd, and Virgin Megastore KSA.

Underscoring its commitment to SAP S/4HANA both as an SAP customer and a business partner for 50 years, IBM has also made a significant investment in RISE with SAP to help transform its own infrastructure. And IBM is a new RISE with SAP Premium Supplier and is using the IBM Hybrid Cloud including IBM Power enabled Infrastructure as a Service to enhance the performance, availability, and security of deployments of private editions of SAP S/4HANA Cloud.

KEY QUOTES:

“We are thrilled to advance our long-standing partnership through RISE with SAP. Our shared commitment is to meet our clients, especially those in highly regulated industries, where they are in their digital journey, while giving them choices for migrating or modernizing their mission-critical workloads with a hybrid cloud approach.”

— John Granger, Senior Vice President, IBM Consulting

“BREAKTHROUGH with IBM is an outstanding complement to RISE with SAP as it lays the foundation for our customers to embark on or advance their business transformation journeys. Further, it reaffirms the value customers recognize from RISE with SAP and the impact and innovation opportunity RISE with SAP offers to organizations that move to the cloud. I have every confidence that the combined expertise and experience SAP and IBM offer will accelerate cloud adoption and business growth for customers across the globe.” 

— Brian Duffy, President of Cloud, SAP