Experienced SAP Partners Help French Enterprises Overcome Concerns About S/4HANA Implementations

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By AIT News Desk On Oct 1, 2021

ISG Provider Lens™ Report Finds France’s Small, Specialized Market for SAP Products Continues to Adopt S/4HANA, with Pandemic Changes Boosting Interest in Digital Transformation

Companies in France are forging ahead with migrations to SAP S/4HANA despite concerns by some that highly customized projects could take years to complete, according to a new report published by Information Services Group (ISG) (III), a leading global technology research and advisory firm.

“French enterprises that turn to SAP partners with higher accreditations gain access to tooling and frameworks that simplify S/4HANA projects”

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™ SAP HANA Ecosystem Services report for France finds most of the nation’s enterprises prefer to modify SAP products for their needs rather than adapt to SAP processes. This can make SAP S/4HANA migrations more complex. Those unaware of automation tools that can accelerate conversions to SAP worry the process could be too time-consuming, the report says.

“French enterprises that turn to SAP partners with higher accreditations gain access to tooling and frameworks that simplify S/4HANA projects,” said Lyonel Roüast, president of ISG SEMEA in France. “The latest technologies can make upgrades and new implementations quicker and less expensive.”

The economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis slowed SAP S/4HANA projects in France in 2020. However, the changes in business caused by the pandemic, including the need for remote work and digital customer channels, gave companies more reason to pursue digital transformation and develop digital services, ISG says.

The SAP market in France is small, dominated by large enterprises that can support the relatively high cost of SAP implementations, the report says. Companies that choose SAP solutions tailor them closely to their business needs, using between 50 percent and 80 percent of the solutions’ standard functions. There is a large ecosystem of applications grafted onto classic SAP modules such as Financial Accounting, Sales & Distribution and Human Resources. The SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP), offered as software as a service (SaaS), is primarily aimed at midsize companies in France and has not gained significant traction, ISG says.

SAP France had about 1,400 employees and generated revenue of €1 billion in 2020, out of total EMEA revenue of €12 billion, according to the report. Typical SAP system integrators in the country have smaller teams than their counterparts in Germany, putting 10 to 30 consultants to work on an average project, ISG says. Providers often partner with other ERP vendors in addition to SAP.

A common challenge for SAP ERP implementations in France is that companies tend to accept changes only so long as they are not too disruptive and have been adapted to existing processes, the report says. Thus, any SAP migration requires strong change management initiatives. The fact that migration to SAP S/4HANA carries significant maintenance and operations costs, without guaranteeing a return on investment from the SAP project itself, can pose an additional challenge.

The 2021 ISG Provider Lens™ SAP HANA Ecosystem Services report for France evaluates the capabilities of 30 providers across four quadrants: SAP S/4HANA System Transformation; Managed Application Services for SAP ERP; SAP Business Technology Platform and Intelligent Technologies, and Managed Cloud Services for SAP HANA.

The report names Accenture, Atos, Capgemini and T-Systems as Leaders in all four quadrants. It names Infosys as a Leader in three quadrants, DXC and TCS as Leaders in two quadrants and IBM and oXya as Leaders in one quadrant each.

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