BREAKTHROUGH with IBM for RISE with SAP

Adil Zafar is an Associate Partner and Global Leader for RISE with SAP at IBM

In my previous blogs, I’ve talked extensively about De-mystifying the Cloud Strategy for S/4HANA and RISE with SAP. In this blog I want to focus on the BREAKTHROUGH with IBM offering, which combines an end-to-end offering that brings a transformative approach adopting S/4HANA as a digital platform on hybrid cloud and then extending the capability to provide value driven and outcome-based results for our clients.

The Watershed Moment

In my conversations with our clients, I see a similar theme developing where they are telling us that they need to become more flexible, agile, and adaptive to change as a business. They are telling us that the Pandemic has impacted their way of working; with increased pressure on resources and unpredictable demand, causing them to rethink about how they function as an Enterprise. As a result, it provided a watershed moment in rethinking their strategy and forcing their hand in accelerating the digital journey.

The Challenge

Consequently, in my discussions I’m now being asked to advise on how to accelerate the adoption to Hybrid Cloud, which would in effect give them a lower cost base combined with a flexible and consumable platform but what has been a surprise is that our clients want to understand how their business processes can reflect the same adaptiveness that we expect from the hybrid cloud, so that they don’t have to re-implement their business processes due to a shift in market forces as we saw last year. Furthermore, they want the shift to the hybrid cloud to make their organisation competitive, cost effective for their customers and deliver a differentiation in the market, through unique customer experience.

The Way Forward

The questions raised by clients are varied and I tried to give you a glimpse of just some of the challenges they face as they contemplate how to effectively set the next Strategic Imperatives for their organisation. So, what is the way forward? Here are some thoughts on things that should be considered:

Know your platform

Let me address the elephant in the room. If you are still contemplating designing your Infrastructure Platform and how to manage and support your ERP application, then serious questions need to be asked as to what is the future digital strategy of your organisation? My point is that the ERP platform on which you will lay your future digital strategy should never be the first thought. Gasp!!!! Yes, you heard that right! We have moved on from the days of stitching together layer upon layer from Network, Storage, Hypervisor, OS, Database and Application. So, chose a platform that delivers value from the get-go. The focus should be to unburden your organisation from the IT Administration to focus on delivering value for the business.

Know your Why

For too long the narrative of Cloud Transformation has been led by the TCO mantra – so what! Harsh as it may sound but it’s a very important question. Why would you want to adopt a strategy that only looks to reduce cost of running the IT systems, but it does not bring your organisation any competitive advantage in the market, it doesn’t improve your customer experience, nor does it equip you with the agility to adapt to the changing business conditions. So, it’s vital to understand all aspects of your future digital strategy from a Business, Strategic and Technical perspective.

Know your How

Let’s not underestimate the challenges I outlined above, they are by no means easy nor are they simple to achieve, but at least they are necessary in the steps you need to take in shifting to an Intelligent Enterprise. Now comes the interesting part. How do you take that next step? What is the next step?

What BREAKTHROUGH with IBM offers you?

Building off a long-standing foundation of collaboration, co-development, co-innovation and trust, IBM is in a unique position to offer our clients a clear path in becoming an Intelligent Enterprise by capturing the value of RISE with SAP.

• BREAKTHROUGH with IBM brings the capability to accelerate and amplify the outcomes of your digital transformation that you deserve.
• We are driving faster business transformation with accelerated time to value and Rapid, repeatable and Scalable Migration.

• With industry innovation and industry-specific data value offerings we are helping our clients achieve continuous business process and delivery optimization as they make their move to the cloud and beyond.

• BREAKTHROUGH with IBM helps our clients leverage their investment where it matters most with an Innovative portfolio of value driven advisory services, industry solutions, robust migration accelerators and much more…
• Together with SAP we’re helping our clients navigate through this constantly changing marketplace by reinventing the core business processes into intelligent workflows with the help of technologies like AI, automation and leveraging data to make more informed decisions.
• The Transformation journey does not stop but remains in constant flux. IBM Consulting has been helping customer deliver value through continuous innovation, automation and ML. That’s why IBM has been Ranked #1 by Gartner for two years in a row for SAP Managed Services

IBM is not only trusted to deliver ERP Transformation for the Fortune 500, but the new ‘IBM Consulting’ has also developed its services to deliver that same level of trust and support to small and mid-sized organisations, covering the full spectrum of customers regardless of size or industry.

BREAKTHROUGH with IBM is here to advise the why and how to move to S/4HANA and to go beyond the S/4 Digital Core to create connected and Intelligent Sustainable Enterprises that we deliver using our end-to-end services portfolio. BREAKTHROUGH with IBM is the antidote needed to deliver on the challenges our customers are facing today.

If you would like to learn more about how IBM is helping customers RISE with SAP, visit us at BREAKTHROUGH with IBM or reach out to me at [email protected]