TRICENTIS & ASUG PRESENT

The future of SAP delivery

ASUG and Tricentis surveyed SAP customers worldwide in 2020 to explore the latest SAP modernization trends and challenges. Download the report to learn about the latest trends, emerging challenges, and the strategies innovative SAP shops are implementing to address them.

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SAP delivery trends

Cloud migration

Plans for cloud implementations are on the rise. More than half of respondents are planning on running their SAP applications in a cloud or hybrid environment. The bulk of those respondents are also in the process of migrating to SAP S/4HANA (80%).

More frequent updates

Respondents who are operating in cloud or hybrid environments make updates monthly or daily – significantly more often than their on-premise counterparts. These respondents expect update frequency to increase even more over the next 12 months. Delivering SAP innovation faster is at the top of every CIO’s agenda, but the increased pace can also create new delivery challenges.

Use of Agile & DevOps methodologies

We asked respondents about whether they are currently using or plan to shift to Agile or DevOps methodologies in their SAP environments.

Methodology Usage

Currently Use Agile

57 %
Plan to Shift to Agile

21 %
Currently Use DevOps

28 %
Plan to Shift to DevOps

32 %

SAP delivery challenges

Balancing speed, risk, and cost

Nearly half of respondents indicate that they experience challenges with speed, risk, and cost when delivering SAP updates. More than a quarter of respondents also struggle with adoption and quality-related issues. (About 15% say their quality challenges go as far as finding critical issues in every release.) Download the report for a detailed analysis.

Testing is the #1 delay in the SAP release process

When we asked respondents what caused delays during the SAP release process, testing topped the list. The increased release frequency that many of them have planned will require even more testing – and leave significantly less time for post-go-live bug fixes in hypercare. Yet a majority of respondents are automating less than a quarter of their SAP test suites. In the report, we share the reasons behind this discrepancy and outline the steps successful organizations have taken to break the bottleneck.

Regional differences

We found some notable regional differences among SAP customers in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region (APAC).

Shift to DevOps

Respondents from APAC are more likely to be shifting to DevOps (38%), versus customers in the Americas (27%) and EMEA (27%).

Test automation adoption

The largest share of respondents using some form of automated testing when updating their SAP systems are in APAC (51%), followed by the Americas (45%) and EMEA (32%).

Delivery challenges

Respondents in Europe are most likely to experience cost-related delivery challenges, while APAC respondents most frequently cite quality challenges. Those in the Americas were most likely to report challenges related to the risk of interruption to critical business processes.

Testing challenges vary by region

Respondents from APAC note the high frequency of SAP changes as their top testing challenge, while respondents in Europe are more likely to struggle with availability of test data and environments. In the Americas, respondents were most likely to report a lack of dedicated testing resources as their top challenge.