Microsoft and SAP have announced they will be deploying each other’s cloud solutions internally. They will also co-engineer, go to market together and provide joint support services.
SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud — SAP’s private managed cloud service — on Microsoft Azure will allow customers to run SAP S/4HANA in a secure, managed cloud.
In addition, Microsoft will deploy SAP S/4HANA on Azure to help run its own internal finance processes, and SAP will move its key internal business critical systems to Azure.
SAP Ariba is currently utilising Azure and is exploring further use within its procurement applications.
“As technology transforms every business and every industry, organizations are looking for the right platforms and trusted partners to help accelerate their digital transformation,” says Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. “Building on our longtime partnership, Microsoft and SAP are harnessing each other’s products to not only power our own organizations, but to empower our enterprise customers to run their most mission-critical applications and workloads with SAP S/4HANA on Azure.”
Enterprise companies are increasingly moving business-critical systems to the cloud for the benefits digital transformation provides: better customer relationships, more empowered employees, streamlined operations, new business models and new products and services.
According to research firm Gartner, two-thirds of all business leaders believe that their companies must pick up the pace of digitalisation to remain competitive.
“We are taking our partnership to the next level with this new capability to run SAP S/4HANA in the Microsoft Azure environment,” says SAP CEO Bill McDermott. “The world’s significant businesses trust Microsoft and SAP. Together, we will help companies win the customer-driven growth revolution.”
SAP and Microsoft will both run SAP S/4HANA on Azure for their internal operations.
Microsoft is transforming its internal systems — which include legacy SAP finance applications — and will implement the SAP S/4HANA Finance solution running on Azure. Microsoft also plans to connect SAP S/4HANA to Azure AI and analytics services for financial reporting and decision-making.
SAP is migrating more than a dozen business-critical systems to Azure for the optimal efficiencies, flexibility and innovation the platform offers. This includes the SAP S/4HANA software supporting Concur, an SAP company.
Both companies will document the internal projects to provide customers with guidance and enterprise architecture for deployment of SAP applications on Azure.
With SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud on Azure, customers get the best of both worlds: application management and product expertise from SAP and a global, trusted and intelligent cloud from Microsoft Azure, including the range of Microsoft cloud services.
Enterprise customers of all types, such as The Coca-Cola Company, Columbia Sportswear Company, Coats and Costco Wholesale use SAP and Azure.
Pictured: SAP CEO Bill McDermott and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella