SAP and Microsoft Corp. announced plans to integrate Microsoft Teams with SAP’s intelligent suite of solutions. The companies also formalised an extensive expansion of an existing strategic partnership to accelerate the adoption of SAP S/4HANA® on Microsoft Azure. “New ways of working, collaborating and interacting transform how we operate,” said Christian Klein, SAP CEO and member of the Executive Board. “By integrating Microsoft Teams across our solution portfolio, we will bring collaboration to the next level, jointly determining the future of work and enabling the frictionless enterprise. Our trusted partnership with Microsoft is focused on continuously advancing customer success. That’s why we are also expanding interoperability with Azure.”
Much has changed in the last year as work has become more virtual, increasing reliance on Microsoft Teams for meetings, communication and collaboration. To facilitate these business and societal changes, SAP and Microsoft are building new integrations between Microsoft Teams and SAP solutions, such as SAP S/4HANA, SAP® SuccessFactors® offerings, and SAP Customer Experience. This can enable innovation, increase employee productivity and engagement, deliver collaborative learning and support global growth. These integrations are planned for delivery in mid-2021.
“The case for digital transformation has never been more urgent,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said. “By bringing together the power of Azure and Teams with SAP’s solutions, we will help more organisations harness the power of the cloud so they can more quickly adapt and innovate going forward.” The companies also are expanding their endorsed cloud partnership announced in 2019, to introduce new offerings in cloud automation and integration for SAP S/4HANA on Microsoft Azure. Together, Microsoft and SAP are expanding the ability to run a mission-critical intelligent enterprise on Azure while helping customers modernise their enterprise applications. SAP and Microsoft will provide customers with:
- Simplification when moving on-premise editions of SAP ERP to SAP S/4HANA in the cloud. In addition to the industry-specific journey maps to the cloud and reference architectures, SAP and Microsoft will continue to co-innovate around SAP S/4HANA on Azure.
- Expanded joint engagements with customers and partners. In addition to product integration work, SAP, Microsoft and system integrator partners will continue to provide digital enterprise road maps for customers. This includes immediate and actionable reference architectures and technical guidance to help customers on their journey to the cloud.
- Increased investments in platform and infrastructure. The companies will further develop automated migrations, improved operations, monitoring and security.
Customers broadly favour Azure when moving on-premise SAP S/4HANA to the cloud. “As part of our overall transformation, we transitioned to SAP S/4HANA,” said John Hill, Carhartt’s chief information officer and senior vice president of Business Planning.
“Running it on Microsoft Azure provides the velocity, availability, scalability and elasticity we need for more visibility and better efficiency across our business. The pandemic struck as we were in the middle of our SAP implementation, so by using Teams, we were able to continue to work on the project, stay on schedule and keep everyone informed. The combination of SAP and Microsoft was especially helpful during a challenging time.”
