Explore the Secrets of SAP Software Contracts to Optimize Spend and Reduce Compliance Risk

Overspending and becoming noncompliant with SAP is easier than you think. Assess your contract and build a strategy to negotiate from a position of strength.

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Your Challenge

SAP has strict audit practices, which, in combination with 50+ types of user classifications and manual accounting for some licenses, make maintaining compliance difficult.
Mapping and matching SAP products to the environment can be highly complex, leading to overspending and an inability to reduce spend later.
Beware of indirect access to SAP applications from third-party applications (e.g. Salesforce).
Products that have been acquired by SAP may have altered licensing terms that are innocuously referred to in support renewal documents.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

Focus on needs first. Conduct a thorough requirements assessment and document the results. Well-documented license needs will be your core asset in navigating SAP licensing and negotiating your agreement.
Examine indirect access possibilities. Understanding how in-house or third-party applications may be accessing the SAP software is critical.
Know what’s in the contract. Each customer agreement is different and there may be terms that are beneficial. Older agreements may provide both benefits and challenges when evaluating your SAP license position.

Impact and Result

Conduct an analysis to remove inactive and duplicate users as multiple logins may exist and could end up costing the organization license fees when audited.
Adopt a cyclical approach to reviewing your SAP licensing and create a reference document to track your software needs, planned licensing, and purchase negotiation points.
Learn the “SAP way” of conducting business, which includes a best-in-class sales structure, unique contracts and license use policies, and a hyper-aggressive compliance function. Conducting business with SAP is not typical compared to other vendors, and you will need different tools to emerge successfully from a commercial transaction.
Manage SAP support and maintenance spend and policies. Once an agreement has been signed, it can be very difficult to decrease spend, as SAP will reprice products if support is dropped.

Start here – read the Executive Brief

Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you need to understand and document your SAP licensing strategy, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.

Explore the Secrets of SAP Software Contracts to Optimize Spend and Reduce Compliance Risk – Executive Brief

1. Establish licensing requirements

Begin your proactive SAP licensing journey by understanding which information to gather and assessing the current state and gaps.

2. Evaluate licensing options

Review current licensing models and determine which licensing models will most appropriately fit your environment.

3. Evaluate agreement options

Review SAP’s contract types and assess which best fit the organization’s licensing needs.

4. Purchase and manage licenses

Conduct negotiations, purchase licensing, and finalize a licensing management strategy.

Guided Implementations

This guided implementation is an eleven call advisory process.

Guided Implementation #1 - Establish licensing requirements

Call #1 - Engage in a scoping call

Call #2 - Assess the current state

Call #3 - Determine licensing position

Guided Implementation #2 - Evaluate licensing options

Call #1 - Review product options

Call #2 - Review licensing rules

Guided Implementation #3 - Evaluate agreement options

Call #1 - Review contract option types

Call #2 - Review vendors

Guided Implementation #4 - Purchase and manage licenses

Call #1 - Determine negotiation points

Call #2 - Finalize the contract

Call #3 - Discuss license management

Call #4 - Evaluate and develop a roadmap for future licensing

After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this Blueprint, and what our clients have to say.

Client

Experience

Impact

$ Saved

Days Saved

Testimonial

NZ Department of Corrections

Guided Implementation

9/10

$127K

Meeting was set up at short notice - thanks Great that Scott had read and understood the documentation that we sent through the day before. Well structured conversation from Scott. Scott was able to daw on his experience and ptovide tangible examples ...

Distribuidora la Florida S.A

Guided Implementation

7/10

$12,733

Alcoa Corporation

Guided Implementation

10/10

$127K

N/A

Great participation of everyone and good suggestions made during the call. Thank you.

Landus Cooperative

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

Distribuidora la Florida S.A

Guided Implementation

9/10

$63,667

Sedgwick Cms

Guided Implementation

9/10

N/A

Verso Corporation

Guided Implementation

9/10

$254K

We appreciated Info-Tech being able to get a call scheduled quickly with an Analyst (which was very important to us given the time constraints and that we needed to make a decision quickly). The Analyst also provided us with an option that ended up saving us money this year (instead of having to wait until 2019 to receive any savings).

Toronto Catholic District School Board

Guided Implementation

10/10

N/A

Stora Enso Oyj

Guided Implementation

7/10

N/A

Gainesville Regional Utilities

Guided Implementation

9/10

$16,553

Scott was professional and extremely helpful. He pointed us in the direction of some very useful tools to use in our license tracking for SAP software licenses. I had no worst part for the experience.