5 Things to Know: IBM’s Expanded Partnership with SAP

October 22, 2020

IBM has announced that clients can now run their business-critical SAP workloads in a broad range of secure and open hybrid cloud environments. Here’s what’s important about this announcement, and why it matters to IBM clients and the IBM ecosystem.

What is being announced?

Two things. First, companies to running critical business operations on SAP software now have a broader range of options for how they chose to deploy and run these applications with new offerings and capabilities from IBM -- from the public cloud to their own proprietary on-premises data centers. As part of their global strategic partnership, IBM and SAP together have already helped hundreds of companies digitize their operations using an open, hybrid cloud approach. This is the next step in the evolution of that process.

Second, we are also announcing that more independent software vendors are joining the IBM and SAP ecosystem. The new partners include Syniti, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tech Mahindra and others. These partners will help clients more quickly and easily deploy SAP technologies in the cloud.

What companies are using IBM Cloud for their SAP workloads?

We are announcing three new global companies that have already adopted IBM Cloud for this purpose: Cementos Pacasmayo, a Peruvian construction company; Coca-Cola European Partners; and the Italian fashion footwear retailer Primadonna Collection.

In each case, the companies are using IBM and SAP to modernize their IT infrastructures and are leveraging the hybrid cloud model to become more adaptable, resilient and agile in their businesses.

Why now?

While enterprises all over the world been evolving into digital-first businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the transformation even more urgent, with 64 percent of executives surveyed by IBM reporting that they now plan to shift to a more cloud-based business model over the next two years. With more and more work becoming remote, businesses increasingly need to be able to perform digital workloads at any number of disparate locations—sometimes changing at a moment’s notice.

Many companies are turning to SAP S/4HANA, SAP’s latest generation ERP platform, for their digital transformation, but its implementation can be complex because of the number of business processes it touches. By adding it to IBM’s hybrid cloud network, companies can dramatically speed up that deployment.

What does the announcement mean for IBM and SAP?

The two companies have a partnership stretching back 48 years, involving hundreds of clients and more than 5,500 individual products. We’ve worked together from day one to help enterprises modernize their businesses and make the most of cutting-edge technologies. This announcement is the latest evolution in that relationship.

How does this fit into IBM’s strategy going forward?

We believe that hybrid cloud is the best IT configuration for enterprises going forward, and this conviction is a core component of IBM’s corporate strategy. Along with offering the flexibility needed for enterprises to choose where to deploy a digital workload, it also enables them to choose from the widest array of vendors for software services like AI and data analysis.