When we last spoke with Matt Angell, VP and head of strate­gic pric­ing and com­mer­cial­iza­tion at SAP, he shared the news that SAP had decid­ed to extend its Dig­i­tal Access Adop­tion Pro­gram. This pro­gram makes two finan­cial­ly attrac­tive incen­tives avail­able to SAP cus­tomers who switch to dig­i­tal access licens­ing any­time before Decem­ber 31, 2021. 

SAP Cus­tomers Still Assess­ing the Dig­i­tal Access Model

Cus­tomers have been turn­ing to the program’s offer­ings to help them eval­u­ate what their cur­rent use looks like. Depend­ing on the com­plex­i­ty of the con­nec­tions between the SAP ERP core and third-par­ty appli­ca­tions, this can be a com­plex under­tak­ing for cus­tomers. The good news is that SAP offers tools and a con­sult­ing ser­vice to help cus­tomers nav­i­gate this process. 

John­sonville CIO Ron Gilson shared his team’s jour­ney as they eval­u­at­ed whether the new mod­el would align with the company’s tech­nol­o­gy needs. Ulti­mate­ly, John­sonville decid­ed to adopt the new mod­el for the rea­sons he shares in his final blog post of the series.

Now Is the Time to Start Your SAP Licens­ing Evaluations

If you’re inter­est­ed in whether the user-based licens­ing mod­el or the dig­i­tal access mod­el is best for your orga­ni­za­tion, now is a good time to start the eval­u­a­tion process. Although SAP has extend­ed its adop­tion pro­gram once, it does not seem like­ly that it will again. That means cus­tomers have about a year to com­plete their assess­ments and make a deci­sion in time to take advan­tage of the dis­count­ed rates offered in the Dig­i­tal Access Adop­tion Program. 

In our con­ver­sa­tion with Matt, we heard about how cus­tomers are using the var­i­ous assess­ment tools that SAP is pro­vid­ing to help with their licens­ing eval­u­a­tion process and his rec­om­men­da­tions about how to get started. 

Ann Marie: What updates can you pro­vide on the Dig­i­tal Access Adop­tion Pro­gram? How have the ben­e­fits changed since your announce­ment in May 2020?

Matt: The SAP dig­i­tal access pro­gram remains an option­al mod­el for our cus­tomers to license their indi­rect access usage require­ments. We believe this offer is a sim­pler, more trans­par­ent, and pre­dictable approach that deter­mines the customer’s licens­ing needs based on the out­come they achieve with the soft­ware — in oth­er words, by the num­ber of the nine doc­u­ment types they cre­ate ver­sus the num­ber of named users using the soft­ware. There have been no fur­ther changes to the ben­e­fits of this pro­gram since the spring when we announced the exten­sion of the dig­i­tal access adop­tion pro­gram through Decem­ber 31, 2021.

Ann Marie: So, SAP cus­tomers still have until Decem­ber 31, 2021 to take advan­tage of the benefits? 

Matt: Absolute­ly. When we made the announce­ment in the spring, we delib­er­ate­ly want­ed to make sure we gave cus­tomers an extend­ed peri­od to eval­u­ate the option and ulti­mate­ly make their pur­chas­ing deci­sions. The orig­i­nal pro­gram ran for a year, and we added a full year-and-a-half exten­sion on top of that.

Ann Marie: What num­bers can you share on how many cus­tomers have tak­en advan­tage of the pro­gram since last year?

Matt: We’ve seen deal growth of 148% since we launched the pro­gram. We put out such a cus­tomer-friend­ly pro­mo­tion that we’re now see­ing far more uptake in vol­ume than we are in actu­al rev­enue growth. I think that’s a great indi­ca­tion that the pro­gram is a fan­tas­tic option for customers.

Ann Marie: What have you learned from SAP cus­tomers as more of them adopt the dig­i­tal access mod­el? Have you made any enhance­ments to the adop­tion pro­gram based on cus­tomer feedback?

Matt: We absolute­ly have. Based on cus­tomer feed­back, we have issued sev­er­al enhance­ments to some of the mea­sure­ment tools that we that we pro­vide as a part of the pro­gram. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion is key. Cus­tomers need to under­stand their options for mea­sur­ing doc­u­ment cre­ation now and to know that SAP pro­vides the sup­port to help them through that process. 

There are two pos­si­ble ways cus­tomers can mea­sure their doc­u­ment use. The first method is through the esti­ma­tion note and the sec­ond method uses the func­tion­al­i­ty from SAP Pass­port, which cus­tomers can access in cur­rent SAP soft­ware releas­es. We’ve con­tin­ued to enhance the esti­ma­tion tool to make it eas­i­er to use and pro­vide more con­sis­tent results. We’ve also released tech­ni­cal infor­ma­tion sheets for the pass­port mea­sure­ment tool to make that capa­bil­i­ty eas­i­er to adopt.

Ann Marie: What can you tell us about the Dig­i­tal Access Eval­u­a­tion Service? 

Matt: The Dig­i­tal Access Eval­u­a­tion Ser­vice is a free-of-charge engage­ment that we’ve offered cus­tomers through our Glob­al Licens­ing Audit and Com­pli­ance (GLAC) team to help deter­mine an esti­mate of the num­ber of doc­u­ments they are cre­at­ing that are part of the dig­i­tal access licens­ing mod­el. The ser­vice pro­vides cus­tomers with a gen­er­al expla­na­tion of the licens­ing mod­el and sup­port in using the esti­ma­tion note. It also includes con­sult­ing to gath­er, ana­lyze, and ulti­mate­ly val­i­date and explain the data relat­ed to the cre­ation of the dig­i­tal access doc­u­ment types. In short, it helps cus­tomers under­stand their licens­ing needs and how they align with the dig­i­tal access model.

Ann Marie: What process do you rec­om­mend to cus­tomers who are look­ing for accu­rate doc­u­ment counts so they can make their busi­ness case for dig­i­tal access? And if you’re a cus­tomer who is see­ing some unex­pect­ed num­bers, what should you do? 

Matt: I would high­ly rec­om­mend they take advan­tage of the free Dig­i­tal Access Eval­u­a­tion Ser­vice, as well as to lever­age the esti­ma­tion note and the SAP Pass­port func­tion­al­i­ty. What we’ve deter­mined through our expe­ri­ence is that cus­tomers need to have a sol­id view of their third-par­ty solu­tions and how those solu­tions con­nect to their SAP ERP soft­ware. After run­ning the ini­tial esti­ma­tion note for all inter­faces, then cus­tomers can focus on those that are gen­er­at­ing any of the nine doc­u­ment types cov­ered under the dig­i­tal access mod­el. This will nar­row down the num­ber of inter­faces to focus on and help cus­tomers quan­ti­fy their use. 

Ann Marie: Which third-par­ty appli­ca­tions or SAP appli­ca­tions should cus­tomers pay spe­cial atten­tion to when deter­min­ing those esti­mates of use? 

Matt: There is no one type of solu­tion to pay par­tic­u­lar atten­tion to. What real­ly mat­ters is how those appli­ca­tions are inter­fac­ing with the SAP dig­i­tal core, as well as those that are gen­er­at­ing doc­u­ments that are part of the count. The cre­ation of spe­cif­ic types of doc­u­ments is how we license the dig­i­tal access mod­el. Ulti­mate­ly, cus­tomers can learn whether they have an indi­rect use require­ment and decide whether it would be bet­ter to license the dig­i­tal access mod­el or con­tin­ue to choose tra­di­tion­al user licenses.

Ann Marie: It sounds like a good idea to go into this exer­cise with a map of what is con­nect­ed to your SAP land­scape — espe­cial­ly those third-par­ty tools that are part of a busi­ness process that would gen­er­ate one of the nine doc­u­ment types cov­ered in the dig­i­tal access mod­el. What is the best process for cus­tomers to use to esti­mate their costs under the dig­i­tal access model? 

Matt: That, I think, is one of the real ben­e­fits of the Dig­i­tal Access Adop­tion Pro­gram. We saw the pro­gram as a two-step process, know­ing that the first step is to help cus­tomers under­stand the num­ber of doc­u­ments that they’re gen­er­at­ing. Once a cus­tomer under­stands their doc­u­ment gen­er­a­tion needs, then the sec­ond step is to make a deci­sion about whether to pro­ceed. The pro­mo­tion avail­able through the pro­gram, with its 90% dis­count, makes the costs of this change trans­par­ent for customers. 

Ann Marie: One ques­tion that cus­tomers bring up is about how their doc­u­ment gen­er­a­tion needs may change. How can cus­tomers know their costs now and project them over time?

Matt: Under­stand­ing the inter­faces and third-par­ty appli­ca­tions that are gen­er­at­ing those doc­u­ments and their under­ly­ing busi­ness process­es puts cus­tomers in the best posi­tion to pre­pare for greater uti­liza­tion as a result of nat­ur­al growth, growth through acqui­si­tion, or through oth­er means. 

The Dig­i­tal Access Adop­tion Pro­gram does not con­strain a cus­tomer from pur­chas­ing greater amounts of use in sup­port of antic­i­pat­ed growth. Cus­tomers can take advan­tage of the very aggres­sive 90% dis­count today if they feel that they will see an uptick in their doc­u­ment cre­ation over time.

Ann Marie: What changes, if any, should cus­tomers expect to see in the audit process as they engage with the GLAC team in the future?

Matt: We are giv­ing cus­tomers time before imple­ment­ing any audit relat­ed to dig­i­tal access. The GLAC team is avail­able to assist with the esti­ma­tion note, and there is no cor­re­la­tion what­so­ev­er to cus­tomers who expe­ri­ence an audit. As men­tioned before, we’ve very pur­pose­ful­ly ensured that there is a full sep­a­ra­tion of duties and respon­si­bil­i­ties between the GLAC team and the sales orga­ni­za­tion. The GLAC team is tru­ly there to help deter­mine a customer’s licens­ing require­ment. Cus­tomers should feel free and com­fort­able in tak­ing advan­tage of this ser­vice. Ulti­mate­ly, it’s the customer’s choice. Cus­tomers still have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to stay with the tra­di­tion­al user model.

Ann Marie: So, the reg­u­lar audit sched­ule wouldn’t kick in until I’ve had a chance to adapt to the new model?

Matt: That’s absolute­ly the inten­tion. We would allow for a grace peri­od because we rec­og­nize that our cus­tomers are mak­ing a transition.

Ann Marie: What role do you see dis­cus­sions about mov­ing to dig­i­tal access play­ing as more cus­tomers plan to move to SAP S/4HANA, for example?

Matt: The dig­i­tal access mod­el is an out­stand­ing way to license indi­rect access use require­ments under SAP S/4HANA because it’s an out­come-based mod­el. Cus­tomers are licens­ing their use of the ser­vice as opposed to sim­ply licens­ing any user who access­es or takes advan­tage of the service. 

Ann Marie: What steps would you rec­om­mend to cus­tomers who are inter­est­ed in dig­i­tal access, but they’re not sure how to get started?

Matt: I would encour­age cus­tomers to con­tact their account exec­u­tive first. Their account exec­u­tive can put them in touch with the GLAC orga­ni­za­tion to get a free eval­u­a­tion start­ed. Or they can reach out to the GLAC team direct­ly. They can also find ways to do this on the SAP Dig­i­tal Access microsite. Once they have gath­ered all of the rel­e­vant infor­ma­tion, they can eval­u­ate what they have learned to deter­mine whether or not the dig­i­tal access mod­el is right for their busi­ness and whether the dig­i­tal access adop­tion pro­mo­tion will offer the right benefits. 

Ann Marie: Matt, I appre­ci­ate the update on the pro­gram. Thank you for your time today. 

Vis­it our SAP licens­ing insights for in-depth cov­er­age of this top­ic. You can also vis­it the SAP Dig­i­tal Access microsite for details.