5 SAP Managed Services to Grow Your Revenue

SAP is powering business processes and capabilities at enterprises across industries and around the world. But the ability to get the most out of SAP’s expansive offerings is also becoming more challenging as technology evolves at a rapid pace and IT infrastructures get more complex.

Not only do IT teams need to manage the systems they already have in place, they also need to anticipate and execute plans to transform as modern business demands — to new versions, to the cloud, and in any number of other innovative ways. Doing it poorly or failing to do it at all can set companies behind their competitors and limit the value they’re able to deliver to customers.

Fortunately, SAP managed services providers (like Protera) can help. They offer the resources, bandwidth, and SAP expertise you need to operate with confidence and make the most out of your SAP investment.

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of outsourcing for managed services, plus 5 specific SAP managed services that can help you increase revenue and grow your business.

Quick Takeaways

• Managed services investment is growing across industries, especially for cloud-related transformation services.
• Benefits of SAP managed services include cost savings, better security, streamlined workflows, and access to a wide range of SAP expertise.
• There are several types of technical and strategic SAP services, which include (but aren’t limited to) IT infrastructure management, security and disaster recovery, transformation and cloud modernization, and strategic consulting.

What are SAP managed services?

Managed services are outsourced services that provide comprehensive, end-to-end management and oversight of a range of systems, processes, and initiatives.

SAP managed services involve the technical and strategic management of SAP systems and applications. In recent years, it has also increasingly included guidance for digital transformation and modernizing SAP systems to meet changing business demands.

Cloud-related managed services in particular have experienced a spike in demand as companies look to navigate fast-moving business landscapes and equip themselves with agile capabilities.

Gartner expects the cloud managed service market to reach $80B by 2024 after a steady CAGR 17.5% growth rate since 2020. Given that SAP generates 87% of global commerce, much of this new managed services investment will be coming from SAP clients around the world.

The benefits of adopting SAP managed services are manifold:

• Cost savings — Managed service providers (MSPs) help clients save costs by eliminating IT redundancies and optimizing ROI on tech investments
• Streamlined workflows — SAP systems become better aligned with business processes across the organization and drive more seamless collaboration
• Stronger security posture — Security becomes fully integrated to become a proactive (rather than threat-reactive) part of overall business strategy
• Higher ROI on SAP investments — At every turn, MSPs look for ways to increase ROI driven by SAP systems and capabilities
• SAP expertise — SAP systems are extensive and require a wide range of expertise to operate successfully. With an MSP, you have access to more diverse knowledge sets than you’d typically have internally.

5 Sap Managed Services that Can Grow Your Revenue

Technical infrastructure management

Technical management services ensure that SAP-related applications and systems are available, secure, responsive, and optimized at all times. Specific services include general performance maintenance, system updates, troubleshooting, storage and more. The expansive scope of SAP systems at the enterprise level requires ongoing attention that can take away from strategic, revenue-driving initiatives without MSPs to help.

When you hire an MSP to handle your IT infrastructure, your internal IT team and other business leaders can keep their focus on growing your business.

IT security and disaster recovery

Cyber adversaries are evolving alongside the digital transformations happening at companies across industries, and they’re becoming more sophisticated as technology does the same. At the same time, companies are managing more complex infrastructures with wider attack surfaces that are more vulnerable to threats.

When your SAP infrastructure is compromised, you’re at risk of experiencing costly downtime. A single minute of downtime can cost companies thousands of dollars or more — and a staggering 82% of companies have experienced unplanned downtime in the past three years.

SAP managed security services protect you from this experience by strengthening your security posture and strategy while maintaining reliable disaster recovery plans that minimize the cost of outages when they occur (while also ensuring you don’t lose valuable data in the process).

Transformation management

Digital transformation has become an imperative for most companies over the past few years, but it’s also a complex undertaking. SAP managed service providers can guide you through the journey by helping you scope the project, envision a target state, create a timeline, allocate resources, provide additional resources when needed, and monitor progress.

They can also help you minimize downtown and disruption to business as usual — a priority for many business leaders who know they need to transform but are hesitant about the immediate challenges it presents from an operational standpoint.

Cloud migration and modernization

Gartner predicts that by 2025, 85% of enterprises will operate with cloud-first principles and be unable to execute a digital strategy without the cloud. By the same year, 91% of new workloads will be cloud native.

In other words: It’s time to move your SAP systems to the cloud. The cloud undeniably provides the best environment for collaborative work, innovation, scalability, and organizational agility — all essential capabilities in today’s fast-moving business environment.

For SAP users, today that means adopting SAP HANA or S/4HANA on the cloud. As with any kind of digital transformation, SAP MSPs provide expertise and guidance for developing and executing the right plan for your business. As it relates to the cloud, they also have the expertise you need to select the right hyperscale (like AWS or Azure) for your unique business.

In many cases, cloud migration and/or modernization services translate to ongoing technical management services after the initial journey is complete.

Strategic consulting

As Deloitte aptly put it: “[Modern managed services] move beyond traditional outsourcing, combining cost reduction and discrete value-add, where vendors support complex processes, applications, or full business functional areas requiring specialized expertise.”

In short: SAP managed services provide more than technical support — they help you align your SAP IT assets with your larger strategies and business goals, driving new revenue opportunities and cost savings across the business. Consulting services help you make the right decisions using real-time, data-driven insights from your SAP environment.

Level Up Your SAP Strategy with Protera

Whether it’s through direct cost-savings efforts or driving better strategy, SAP managed services help companies optimize their business, deliver greater value, and grow their revenue.

At Protera, we help you evolve and transform your SAP systems in three key ways:

• Operate — We provide technical management of your SAP-related applications, including basis support, database, OS, security, patching, and performance.
• Support — We support your agile development projects with automations, self-service, and project support to help you improve your business.
• Optimize — We continually improve your performance, reduce your costs, and provide insights to help you optimize how you run SAP.

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