PAC study on SAP Application Management: executives advocate the involvement of external service providers (FOTO)

Bielefeld/Munich (ots) -

The SAP portfolio is subject to constant change, and this has an
impact on the operation of SAP applications in data centers. While
the management of SAP applications used to be strongly driven by
processes and governance considerations, the continuous advance of
the digital transformation means that it now also has to provide
support for the modernization of the company itself and ensure the
successful integration of mobile devices, data analyses, cloud
computing, and social media, explains the new PAC Study
(http://ots.de/CuBoke).

"The study showed us that there is hardly any area where a
business does not collaborate with external service providers.
Particularly where SAP applications are concerned, itelligence has
extensive expertise that enables it to provide customers with a
comprehensive offering, from strategy consulting to transformation to
long-term support and the optimization of their applications,"
stresses Norbert Rotter, CEO of itelligence AG.

The current "Application Management in Europe"
(http://ots.de/X9eUjK)study provides an overview of the status quo
and future development in the field of SAP Application Management.
For this study, the market researchers from PAC - a teknowlogy Group
company (https://www.pac-online.com/) - questioned IT decision-makers
of large companies throughout Europe on behalf of SAP consulting
company itelligence.

"As is the case for many other areas of IT, traditional
application management is also undergoing significant changes and
developments. At the same time, internal IT departments are trying to
handle the current tremendous challenges with ever more limited
resources in terms of headcount and specialist knowledge. This is
precisely where we as itelligence can provide support to companies
with agile and flexible Managed Services," says Lars Janitz,
Executive Vice President, Head of Global Managed Services,
itelligence AG.

Successful migration into the cloud with SAP

For many of the respondents, cloud applications have become
ubiquitous. A large number of them (39%) stated that they had
implemented the cloud version of SAP's latest ERP suite, SAP S/4HANA.
56% confirmed that they were already using or planning to use SAP
Cloud Platform & SAP Leonardo. The figure for SAP Analytics Cloud was
53%. And many companies use solutions to support separate processes,
such as Ariba for Purchasing and Procurement (63%) and SuccessFactors
for Human Capital Management (77%).

PAC analyst Karsten Leclerque too believes that external service
providers such as itelligence are enormously important in the era of
digitalization: "The digital era demands a new approach to
application management; one which helps automate businesses as well
as improve agility, speed, and efficiency."

Complexity as the dominant challenge

96% of the respondents perceive their own SAP landscape as a
challenge due to the high degree of customization and adaptations. As
a majority of the companies are using or planning to use a number of
different cloud applications and deployment models in parallel, they
are also having to deal with the complexity of the integration and
the management of these solutions. 91% of the respondents perceive
the complexity of hybrid IT landscapes as a challenge. Such hybrid IT
landscapes often comprise legacy IT, private and public cloud models,
as well as self-operated and (out)sourced infrastructures. All this
requires consistent end-to-end governance, compliance, and security
across numerous different applications and infrastructure platforms
(see Fig. 1).

Automation of SAP System Management

Over recent years, cost pressures in particular as well as labor
shortages within Europe have led to increased demand for services
provided from offshore and nearshore locations. This was reflected in
a total of 79% of respondents stating that they were using nearshore
resources. 69% of the companies are using offshore resources.
Experiences with nearshoring appear to be more positive: 46% of the
companies that make use of nearshore resources are convinced that
this share will increase over coming years.

Offshoring and nearshoring will experience increasing competition
from rising automation. 41% of respondents are already using or are
planning to use automation or technologies based on artificial
intelligence (AI) to manage their SAP systems. At the same time, a
further 46% professed an interest in using these technologies in
their organization (see Fig. 2).

Majority of executives advocate use of external service providers

66% of the companies thus prefer involving an external service
provider such as itelligence for general tasks such as Application
Management or Application Hosting. That said, the requirements
relating to the management of an SAP application landscape have
changed. In future, the requirement will no longer just be to "keep
everything running," as used to be the case for SAP Application
Management services in the past. Instead, customers will demand their
providers to have greater industry-specific know-how that will
facilitate closer integration with the business.

Ideally, by collaborating with external providers in implementing
and operating their SaaS solutions, companies will have the
opportunity to benefit not only from their providers' technical
capabilities, but also from their innovativeness, as cloud migration
can often be a trigger for business transformation.

The study document "Application Management in Europe" is available
for download at https://itel.li/ams-study-europe-en.

itelligence

itelligence is a leading international full-service provider of
solutions in support of SAP solutions, employing more than 7,500
highly qualified employees in 25 countries. itelligence is an SAP
Hybris Gold Partner and global value-added reseller that has won
numerous SAP awards. itelligence is an SAP-certified provider of
cloud services and an SAP platinum partne rand realizes complex
projects in the SAP solution-based environment worldwide. The
company's services in support of SAP solutions range from consulting
and licensing to application management services and hosting services
to proprietary industry-specific solutions. In 2017, itelligence
generated total sales of EUR 872.2 million.

Contact:
Silvia Dicke
Public Relations
itelligence AG
Königsbreede 1
D-33605 Bielefeld
e-mail: silvia.dicke@itelligence.de
phone: +49 (0) 521 / 9 14 48 - 107
http://itelligencegroup.com/de/

Original-Content von: itelligence AG, übermittelt durch news aktuell