SAP recently announced the evolution of its SAP Services and Support portfolio for enterprise cloud customers, introducing a tiered engagement model intended to drive greater transparency, speed, and flexibility for organizations pursuing SAP transformation.  

The new portfolio includes three tiers of success plans—Foundational Success, Advanced Success, and Max Success—aimed at providing continuous engagement for customers, giving them clarity around what support and services are available to their organizations while aiding their digital transformation journeys in an ongoing capacity.  

The updated portfolio is relevant to cloud, AI, and hybrid-state SAP customers; on-premises customers remain covered under their existing maintenance and services contracts, with no anticipated change in pricing. For additional assistance, these customers can buy or renew on-premises-only versions of premium engagement offerings including SAP MaxAttention, SAP ActiveAttention, and SAP Value Assurance. 

“Customers are looking for orientation in a fast-moving environment,” said Thomas Saueressig, Member of the Executive Board of SAP SE for Customer Value Group, in a press release. “With our renewed SAP Services and Support portfolio, we provide a clearer path to adopt innovation, apply AI responsibly, and run their landscape with confidence. It brings structure to continuous transformation and helps turn strategic priorities into measurable outcomes.” 

Foundational Success Plan  

Included with every cloud solution from SAP, the Foundational Success Plan expands upon SAP Enterprise Support (powered by AI and comprised of curated content, learning, and mission-critical support) and offered at no additional cost. Additions include self-guided onboarding, embedded launch activities, as well as technical cloud operations. Access to support experts is available when a customer requires assistance.  

Advanced Success Plan 

Building on the Foundational Success Plan, the Advanced Success Plan adds proactive guidance supported by AI to detect risks and recommend optimizations as customers adopt new innovations. Assigned subject experts help ensure customers get the most from their solutions and accompanying support plans. Enhanced support-related service-level agreements (SLAs) are also included. 

Max Success Plan  

Customers seeking the highest level of engagement should opt for the Max Success Plan, which includes all benefits within the Foundational and Advanced plans, in addition to dedicated success plan managers, premium support response, and case management assistance. Premium guidance and advisory services can be added, such as process improvement across solutions, transformation advisory services, and customer-specific AI use case adoption.  

The Foundational Success Plan is available at no additional cost for customers with relevant SAP solutions. Pricing for the Advanced and Max Success Plan subscription will depend on the cost of the software supported, per SAP. These recent portfolio shifts build upon SAP’s efforts to help enterprises navigate complex transformations and accelerate their adoption of SAP Business AI.  

With many enterprises in a continuous state of transformation, organizations can ramp these plans up or down at any point and apply different tiers to different SAP solutions in their estate, based on their anticipated level of need. While going through an acquisition, for example, an organization might be more likely to leverage the Max Success Plan to assist during that transformation; but for organizations that have stabilized post-go-live and simply seek to focus on continuous adoption, a Foundational or Advanced Success Plan could work well.  

More specific plan offerings and an informational chart are available to view on the SAP website.

“Our evolved SAP Services and Support portfolio is designed to help customers operate with ease and apply AI to drive business efficiency. It aims at mastering transformation, innovating at scale, and turning decisions into action with clarity and impact,” Saueressig added. “By offering a unified, enterprise-wide engagement model, SAP helps customers continually adopt and derive the latest innovations and realize reliable ROI throughout their entire journey.” 

Add-on service offerings in the form of professional services, development services, and application management are available to complement these plans. Where plans include AI, no limits have been established around AI-enabled guidance, and no AI credits are needed to consume built-in AI capabilities. The success plans will adhere to a quarterly release cycle. 

What This Means for the Customer 

SAP representatives shared that this portfolio orients to three main cornerstones of SAP’s strategy for customer engagement: business continuity through change, guidance for ongoing value realization, and continuous engagement.  

Amid focusing on these main areas, SAP's cloud operations team foresees AI functionalities as an initial resource for customers inquiring about an issue, with chatbots helping them to quickly troubleshoot and find solutions without having to wait for technicians to respond. To design AI for SAP Services and Support that provides monitoring and alerting mechanisms, as well as guidance on how to correct common issues, the delivery organization at SAP compiled feedback from SAP consultants focused on evaluating system health. 

Overall, the new tiered engagement model for SAP Services and Support plans is intended to provide customers with clarity around offerings, as well as flexibility and choice in their service engagement; customers can choose which plan best fits different parts of their SAP solution adoption journey and aren’t locked into one plan across their entire SAP landscape. Because enterprises undergo constant, ongoing digital transformations, SAP designed these success plans to provide continuous support and contribute to ongoing business success beyond go-live.

For more information, visit SAP.