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How Seasoned SAP Customers Succeed with Innovation in the Cloud

SAP cloud innovators are surpassing their peers and gaining more benefits

The Americas’ SAP User Group (ASUG) and Syntax have teamed every year since 2017 to research the nuances of cloud experiences among SAP customers. During the past five years, ASUG and Syntax have debunked common cloud myths, illuminated cloud complexities, uncovered inconsistencies among different cloud providers, tracked where workloads in the cloud are going, and quantified what organizations spend on cloud services.

In 2021, ASUG and Syntax completed a new study about the benefits of moving to the cloud, where SAP customers stand on cloud migration, why SAP customers are moving to the cloud, and the top challenges. The research shows that SAP customers who migrated to the cloud are innovating faster than those not using the cloud. SAP cloud innovators benefit from reduced costs, improved productivity and business process efficiency, and a better customer experience.

The new report shows that cloud adoption by SAP customers grew by 15% over the past year, while 73% of companies not currently using cloud services plan to consider them. The 2021 ASUG and Syntax study also show cloud use has been consistent since 2020 at 81%. Most respondents are still using platform as a service (PaaS) at 74%. This is followed by infrastructure as a service (IaaS) at 71%. Cloud adoption also is on the rise. It has increased by 15% since 2020. A staggering 73% of organizations not using the cloud told us they have plans to consider cloud services next year.

Cloud innovators are unquestionably getting more out of their cloud investments than innovation laggards. Respondents innovating in the cloud (innovators) reap more benefits than those who do not (innovation laggards). Innovators rated themselves higher on every benefit they were asked about in the ASUG and Syntax survey. These results outshined the laggards on ease of scalability, speed to delivery, and reduced workloads for their IT departments. The laggards would benefit from enhancing their cloud solutions with more emerging technology, including business analytics, automation, IoT, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI).

This report points out that SAP customers need to innovate quickly or risk falling behind. To learn more about this research, check out the infographic below. Also, visit our SAP insights page, where you can access our SAP whitepapers, webinars, data sheets, and much more.

infographic of how sap customers succeed in the cloud