As AI continues to advance, an on-premises exodus is in full effect for customers. This presents a massive addressable market opportunity for partners, making it the right time for you to help your customers with modernization of their on-premises enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to the cloud. You can achieve this with RISE with SAP, the packaged platform as a service offering that bundles SAP software licensing, cloud infrastructure, and managed services in a single SAP contract.
Organizations want to embark on this journey with a cloud provider they trust and on a comprehensive platform that’s proven to handle complex workloads. SAP migrations to the Microsoft Cloud can give you security and AI benefits through tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot, plus help you derive valuable insights from previously siloed data. Migrating can also help organizations tackle challenges like remote access, data center management, and increasing the speed and agility of infrastructure platforms.
As a partner, you are providing services and solutions designed to support your customers and align with their values and needs. With the Microsoft Cloud, your customers can uncover innovation and efficiency that is trustworthy, sustainable, and compliant.
With more than 30 years of trusted partnership between Microsoft and SAP, RISE with SAP on Azure is an ideal way to assist customers with migrations—and to help your organization generate revenue. Microsoft has several offerings available to reward partners for driving SAP migrations to Azure.
Expand revenue opportunities through RISE with SAP
As a Microsoft partner, helping SAP customers make their transition to the Microsoft Cloud comes with the opportunity to generate significant revenue—and our dedicated team of SAP cloud architects and engineers can help toward this goal. According to IDC1, for every $1* of Microsoft revenue, services and software partners earn $8.45 and $10.93, respectively, making this an advantageous opportunity for you to pursue.
The 2024 SAPinsider survey2 revealed that familiarity with RISE with SAP is growing, and 86% of respondents from organizations with annual revenue over $2 billion report they are familiar or very familiar with the offering. Familiarity is valuable, as it increases the likelihood that customers will adopt it. By combining SAP’s ERP expertise with Azure’s advanced cloud capabilities, RISE with SAP provides a robust framework for achieving cloud success, enhancing security, and preparing for an AI-driven future.
The same SAPinsider3 report uncovered that while cost had been the primary factor in choosing a cloud provider for RISE with SAP for two years, in 2024, security took precedence. The shift highlights a growing emphasis on safeguarding systems and data, especially as enterprise workloads migrate to the cloud. Fortunately, across Microsoft solutions, security is the top priority. Microsoft solutions empower customers to detect, monitor, and respond to threats in SAP using a built-in SAP connector—helping to build trust, foster customer confidence, and drive adoption.
As outlined in a previous blog, the additional value partners can offer to SAP customers migrating with Microsoft is extensive. It includes powerful joint capabilities, such as SAP Joule with Microsoft 365 Copilot and support from Azure and the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP). Customers can also benefit from SAP AI Core, an integral part of BTP, including Generative AI Hub and Joule on Azure. And thanks to the deployment of SAP AI services in Azure data centers, customers can easily run joint AI use cases.
Finally, the power of Microsoft and SAP has significant benefits for your customers' bottom line. According to a commissioned Forrester Consulting study,4 interoperation between SAP data and Microsoft cloud solutions improved end-user productivity, resulting in reduced operating expenses by $657,000 over three years.
Explore relevant tools and resources
To help encourage the migration of your SAP customers to the cloud, we have a collection of comprehensive resources that can help you address customer needs across scenarios, from secure migrations to AI innovation.
You are uniquely positioned to provide value to SAP customers migrating to the cloud, assisting them to meet business demands and innovate for the future. If you are ready to help your customers discover the full potential of their SAP investments, be sure to check out these additional resources:
We're committed to supporting your success, and we invest in your growth by providing these resources to help both you and your customers adopt Microsoft solutions.
* Throughout this page, $ refers to USD.
1 IDC White Paper, sponsored by Microsoft, “Microsoft Partners: Driving Economic Value and AI Maturity,” IDC #US52483124, September 2024.
2 SAPinsider, "SAPinsider Research Report RISE with SAP 2024," Robert Holland, 2024.
3 SAPinsider, "SAPinsider Research Report RISE with SAP 2024," Robert Holland, 2024.
4 Forrester: “The Total Economic Impact™ of SAP on the Microsoft Cloud,” commissioned by Microsoft, Forrester Consulting, 2023. Results are for a composite organization representative of interviewed customers.
