It’s a time of sig­nif­i­cant trans­for­ma­tion across the SAP ecosys­tem. As SAP works to sup­port its cus­tomers in imple­ment­ing SAP S/4HANA and migrat­ing to the cloud, gen­er­a­tive AI has quick­ly emerged as a game-chang­ing inno­va­tion for the SAP solu­tion port­fo­lio, under­scor­ing the need for SAP cus­tomers to focus on data gov­er­nance, cleans­ing, and qual­i­ty with­in their organizations. 

SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form (BTP) is par­tic­u­lar­ly crit­i­cal to set­ting the stage for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects that involve cloud migra­tion and gen­er­a­tive-AI appli­ca­tions, enabling crit­i­cal func­tions includ­ing (but not lim­it­ed to) inte­gra­tion, ana­lyt­ics, appli­ca­tion devel­op­ment, and automation. 

For the fourth year, ASUG con­duct­ed research aimed at eval­u­at­ing our mem­bers’ adop­tion, usage, and atti­tudes around SAP BTP. The newest research, con­duct­ed in part­ner­ship with Microsoft, shows that BTP adop­tion is accel­er­at­ing in the ASUG com­mu­ni­ty and pro­vides clear vis­i­bil­i­ty of which func­tions ASUG mem­bers are lever­ag­ing the most. 

Here are three key insights from the research, which you can explore in greater detail here.

1. SAP BTP Usage

Among the most sig­nif­i­cant shifts reflect­ed in the research: SAP users are lever­ag­ing SAP BTP in increas­ing num­bers, and usage has marked­ly increased since research con­duct­ed in 2023. Over half (55%) of respon­dents indi­cat­ed they are cur­rent­ly using SAP BTP, com­pared to 40% in 2023; fur­ther­more, 73% of orga­ni­za­tions cur­rent­ly lever­ag­ing SAP BTP are using the plat­form specif­i­cal­ly for their SAP S/4HANA dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects. 

ASUG also mea­sured the adop­tion of spe­cif­ic func­tions with­in SAP BTP, to under­stand where mem­bers are find­ing the most valu­able with­in the plat­form. The top five most lever­aged func­tions were: 

• Inte­gra­tion capa­bil­i­ties – 69% 

• Ana­lyt­ics – 61% 

• Process automa­tion (includ­ing robot­ic process automa­tion) – 55% 

• Appli­ca­tion devel­op­ment – 49% 

• AI – 34% 

Spe­cif­ic to AI, near­ly half (44%) of respon­dents who report­ed they are cur­rent­ly using SAP BTP are already plan­ning to lever­age AI ser­vices via the plat­form, while four per­cent are already lever­ag­ing those solutions. 

2. SAP BTP Ben­e­fits

The research also eval­u­at­ed which spe­cif­ic ben­e­fits respon­dents report­ed from lever­ag­ing SAP BTP. 

Con­nect­ing busi­ness appli­ca­tions and data across enter­pris­es was the most pop­u­lar response, as not­ed by 48% of respon­dents; that’s few­er than the 61% who report­ed this ben­e­fit in 2023. Automat­ing and opti­miz­ing busi­ness process­es was the sec­ond most real­ized ben­e­fit, with 42% of respon­dents indi­cat­ed they real­ized this ben­e­fit — an increase from 25% in 2023. 

Over one-third (35%) of respon­dents used SAP BTP to cus­tomize or extend SAP appli­ca­tions while keep­ing the core appli­ca­tion ​“clean,” an increase from 27% in 2023. Final­ly, 18% of respon­dents report­ed using SAP BTP to infuse AI into core SAP appli­ca­tions, an increase from 10% in 2023. 

3. Opti­miz­ing Suc­cess with SAP BTP 

In pre­vi­ous years’ SAP BTP research, ASUG found that respon­dents report­ed dif­fi­cul­ty tak­ing full advan­tage of all the com­po­nents of the plat­form. Recent research shows a dra­mat­ic growth — 23% — in the vol­ume of SAP BTP users who felt they were able to ful­ly use the plat­form, with 46% indi­cat­ing they were able to com­plete­ly lever­age the plat­form as desired. One-third of respon­dents (33%) report­ed they are still unable to ful­ly lever­age the plat­form, a decrease of 13% com­pared to the 2023 data. 

ASUG also asked respon­dents how exact­ly their enter­pris­es over­came bar­ri­ers to lever­age SAP BTP solu­tions. Pop­u­lar respons­es includ­ed: devel­op­ing knowl­edge and skills across all com­po­nents of the plat­form, ded­i­cat­ing enough time and resources ear­ly in migra­tion projects to opti­mize SAP BTP, con­sol­i­dat­ing and man­ag­ing data, embrac­ing automa­tion of busi­ness process­es, and pos­sess­ing a con­tin­u­ous change man­age­ment focus. 

The full research report dives fur­ther into our lat­est find­ings regard­ing SAP BTP, includ­ing respon­dents’ over­all aware­ness of and expe­ri­ences with the plat­form. Gain access here.