2023 Research Agenda
Financial Management | ERP, Platform & Cybersecurity | Governance, Risk & Compliance | Application Development & Integration IT Operations & Administration | Data & Analytics | Human Capital Management | Supply Chain Management Security | CIO | Our Methodology
Financial Management
SAP S/4HANA Finance and Central Finance – February 2023
Launching a digital transformation of financial processes can be a daunting task for any organization, but the current business uncertainty for organizations creates an incredibly complex challenge. There are many factors to consider, such as which technology to use, how to deploy it, and how to ensure that it will meet future needs. SAP S/4HANA Finance and SAP Central Finance represent an increasingly popular roadmap for multinational organizations to help streamline system landscapes and enable finance process automation. In our annual state of the market research, SAPinsider will benchmark the finance and accounting strategies organizations are prioritizing to help deliver a single version of the truth that avoids data silos and accelerates decision making.
Intelligent Finance in the Cloud – April 2023
Intelligent automation has the potential to transform finance and accounting (F&A) operations by unlocking greater efficiency and accuracy in core accounting processes while providing finance teams with actionable insights that drive better decision-making. SAP BTP and its components can enable a strategic approach to cloud-based intelligent F&A automation, allowing organizations to position F&A teams for success in the digital economy. The research from last year shows us one thing: SAPinsider organizations benefiting from intelligent automation of financial processes experienced a much higher satisfaction across automation strategies and solutions than their peers. We’ll explore the intelligent F&A automation priorities, and awareness of SAP BTP, offering insights on best practices for SAPinsider organizations considering intelligent automation investments.
Global Tax Management – June 2023
The move towards digital taxation is gathering pace globally. This impacts the indirect tax function as businesses need to comply with multiple, often conflicting, jurisdictions. The result is greater complexity for businesses as they try to comply with the requirements of various tax authorities. This increased complexity has several consequences for SAPinsider organizations, so it is not surprising that global tax management technology is becoming increasingly popular. This SAPinsider report will benchmark the trends and progress of SAP customers in automating e-invoice processing and tax compliance, identify the tools they use and plan to use, and highlight the challenges and benefits of a global tax management solution.
Cash Management and Cash Visibility – August 2023 
In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, organizations must maintain a clear understanding of their cash position, especially during uncertain periods. By streamlining key operations such as accounts receivable/accounts payable (AR/AP), working capital management, and bank connectivity, organizations can access to more accurate data to enable greater insights into their cash positions, empowering them to make well-informed financial decisions. In this research SAPinsider will examine the automation solutions employed across cash management and treasury functions, which enable organizations to improve cash visibility. Furthermore, we will explore where our members stand in their technology adoption journey, providing valuable context for organizations looking to modernize their cash management and treasury operations.
Financial Close and Record-to-Report – October 2023
The financial close and record-to-report processes have become more complex over time. This is due to many factors, including the globalization of businesses, the proliferation of new accounting standards, and the increasing availability of innovative technology. As a result, organizations are under pressure to modernize their financial reporting processes continually. We see that SAPinsider organizations are investing to help improve the efficiency and accuracy of the financial close and record-to-report processes. In our follow-up to our 2022 report, we will provide information on best practices and leading technologies for using automation or intelligence in core finance functions such as financial consolidation and reporting to drive efficiency across the process.
Tax Technology Innovation and Automation – December 2023
As SAPinsider organizations pursue digital transformation programs enabled by a move to next generation ERP systems, such as SAP S/4HANA, the future of tax compliance is taking shape. The lack of a single silver bullet when it comes to innovation and automation means certain strategies are gaining traction among these organizations. In fact, new technologies are emerging, such as SAP BTP, that can help accelerate new application builds, extend existing ones, and integrate them with third-party systems and partner-built apps. This report will examine the tax technology innovation and automation strategies and solutions of our SAPinsider community, as well as benchmark the utilization trends across SAP ERP, SAP partner, and third-party solutions, tools, and services. The findings will help practitioners understand how their peers are approaching tax technology innovation and automation to ensure efficient and compliant operations.
ERP, Platform & Cybersecurity
Cloud Innovation and Transformation – January 2023
The move to the cloud continues to accelerate. But while organizations initially looked at the move to the cloud as primarily about infrastructure change, they are increasingly looking for ways that they can drive innovation and transformation using the data and systems they are moving to the cloud. This research will examine what types of innovation organizations are looking to achieve with their cloud moves, what technologies they are using with that innovation, and how it connects to their organizations plans for transformation.
SAP S/4HANA Migration – March 2023
While SAP S/4HANA is seeing strong adoption, approximately half of those moving to the solution are net new to Enterprise ERP which leaves approximately thirty thousand enterprise ERP customers still to make the move to SAP S/4HANA. And while most of those are likely using on-premise licenses for their existing systems, SAP is focusing its efforts on SAP S/4HANA Cloud. This report will examine the adoption trends for SAP S/4HANA over the last four years, the version of the solution that organizations are deploying, and how they plan on innovating beyond their initial deployment.
Cybersecurity Threats and Challenges for SAP Systems – May 2023
Cybersecurity threats continue to increase in both frequency and the extent of the impact that they are having on SAP systems. While organizations have addressed some of these threats by setting up automated monitoring tools, attacks are no longer just focusing on individual systems forcing organizations to look more broadly at their security. This research will explore the biggest threats that exist for SAP systems, and the challenges that organizations face in addressing those threats, examining trends over the last two years of similar research.
Deployment Approaches for SAP S/4HANA – July 2023
The last year showed a mark shift towards centralized SAP S/4HANA implementations that followed a scaled-up approach allowing organizations to bring data from multiple existing ERP systems into one single source of business and financial truth within their organization. This year’s report will track whether those trends continue, whether RISE with SAP continues to have an impact on deployment infrastructure as it started to in 2021, whether the timelines for SAP S/4HANA deployment continue to increase, and what the factors are behind those timelines.
Enterprise Cloud Landscape – September 2023
SAPinsider has tracked the shift of SAP workloads to the cloud over the last four years. During 2021 we saw that shift continue to accelerate with more organizations looking at hyperscaler infrastructure than in the past and organizations exploring new local infrastructure decreasing. This year we will track where SAP workloads are running, how they are shifting to the cloud, the drivers behind that move, and how that plays into the broader SAP landscape. Topics explored will include the timeline to update infrastructure, likely infrastructure choices, hyperscalers and cloud providers being used, and how organizations measure the success of their cloud and infrastructure initiatives.
SAP Cybersecurity Priorities – October 2023
Security for SAP systems has shifted significantly over the last few years. From a focus that was primarily about controlling access to systems and the data within them, this past year has seen threats such as ransomware and malware become the primary concerns for SAP administrators and the IT teams they work with. Adding complexity to this environment is the acceleration of SAP workloads moving to the cloud. Systems such as SAP SuccessFactors have very different security needs than an infrastructure-as-a-service environment or users primarily working remotely. This research will look at what SAP teams are prioritizing from a security perspective, the strategies that they are using to address these priorities, and how they are measuring the success of their initiatives.
RISE with SAP – November 2023
RISE with SAP is the cornerstone of SAP’s messaging for the Intelligent Sustainable Enterprise, and it is having an impact across the SAP landscape. From infrastructure plans to SAP S/4HANA projects already underway, organizations are striving to understand how RISE with SAP will impact their plans. This research will focus on tracking interest in and knowledge about RISE with SAP, trends towards RISE with SAP adoption, providers being selected by those moving forward with the solution, reasons for selection, gaps seen by the broader SAP community, and how those measuring RISE with SAP success will do so.
Security
Cybersecurity Threats and Challenges for SAP Systems – May 2023
Cybersecurity threats continue to increase in both frequency and the extent of the impact that they are having on SAP systems. While organizations have addressed some of these threats by setting up automated monitoring tools, attacks are no longer just focusing on individual systems forcing organizations to look more broadly at their security. This research will explore the biggest threats that exist for SAP systems, and the challenges that organizations face in addressing those threats, examining trends over the last two years of similar research.
SAP Cybersecurity Priorities – October 2023
Security for SAP systems has shifted significantly over the last few years. From a focus that was primarily about controlling access to systems and the data within them, this past year has seen threats such as ransomware and malware become the primary concerns for SAP administrators and the IT teams they work with. Adding complexity to this environment is the acceleration of SAP workloads moving to the cloud. Systems such as SAP SuccessFactors have very different security needs than an infrastructure-as-a-service environment or users primarily working remotely. This research will look at what SAP teams are prioritizing from a security perspective, the strategies that they are using to address these priorities, and how they are measuring the success of their initiatives.
Governance, Risk & Compliance
GRC and Automation: State of the Market – February 2023
As the business landscape continues to change and evolve, so too must the GRC function. Regulations are constantly changing, business models are evolving, and security threats are on the rise. This is putting pressure on organizations to transform the GRC function. In this research, we will examine what is driving GRC strategy at top companies and the top technologies, including automation initiatives, that organizations are using to address drivers. We will also closely examine SAP’s GRC practice solutions and how they can help organizations meet these challenges head-on. By understanding GRC teams’ challenges today and the solutions available, organizations can make informed decisions about how to best protect their businesses.
Application Development & Integration
SAP Data Management Strategies – March 2023
With the move to SAP HANA either underway or planned, SAP customers must plan for how to manage, maintain and utilize SAP data for analytics and automation. SAP customers have to decide how to handle legacy data, especially for greenfield SAP S/4HANA projects, how to manage data on the cloud. Balancing the risks, compliance needs, and costs of data management in multiple venues including the cloud while also providing reliable, secure data to the organization is increasingly important to the business. This research will examine the approaches and the technologies SAP customers are taking for where to host data and the factors driving the decisions.
IT Automation for Enterprise SAP – June 2023
Increasing IT process efficiencies with lower costs in a highly interconnected SAP landscape is no longer the luxury of the large companies. Many companies, small to large, are looking to achieve the massive benefits of IT automation, especially with respect to application monitoring, service desk, maintenance, implementation, compliance and security, etc. This research examines the steps companies are taking to streamline and automate IT processes, and the goals and challenges they face in doing so.
Low-Code/No-Code Development and Rapid Application Deployment – August 2023
With SAP accelerating the pace of change and cloud enabling rapid deployments, SAP customers are acclimatizing their teams and processes to deliver rapid updates and implementations. Methodologies like Agile and DevOps have been slowly percolating through non-SAP systems, but with SAP S/4HANA, more SAP teams are experimenting with these methodologies. This report will investigate the true state of new deployment methodologies, the cultural and process shifts, the challenges, and the outcomes. It will look at the impact of overall company culture and the maturity of digital transformation on these processes too.
IT Operations & Administration
IT Automation for Enterprise SAP – June 2023
Increasing IT process efficiencies with lower costs in a highly interconnected SAP landscape is no longer the luxury of the large companies. Many companies, small to large, are looking to achieve the massive benefits of IT automation, especially with respect to application monitoring, service desk, maintenance, implementation, compliance and security, etc. This research examines the steps companies are taking to streamline and automate IT processes, and the goals and challenges they face in doing so.
Analytics and Automation
Process Productivity and Optimization Through Process Automation and Process Intelligence – April 2023
SAPinsiders have consistently indicated in multiple research that leveraging process automation and process Intelligence platforms will enable them to digitalize, discover, understand, and manage business process execution more effectively. While many of them may already have built a foundation in terms of process automation, process Intelligence capability will allow them to leverage advanced algorithms to model specific events across their process, visualize these model to identify deviations, find process bottlenecks and perform root cause analysis of process failures. Majority of SAPinsiders plan to invest in building this capability in next two years.
Evolving Business Intelligence and Analytics to Build Intelligent Enterprise – June 2023
SAP has made building intelligent enterprise a key focus offering, and it envisions that building this capability will accelerate innovation and help organizations unlock business potential. Modernized BI, Advanced Analytics, AIoT and AI & ML based solutions can play a key role in accelerating innovation, ranging from making business applications and processes more intelligent, infused with the power of data and analytics, and allowing organizations to leverage the power of AI to create new products and services. With more and more AI and ML solutions emerging on the horizon and the imperative to be innovative, SAPinsiders are actively exploring the opportunities to build BI, Analytics and AI and ML based capabilities on the BTP platform to accelerate innovation.
Building An Agile and Connected Enterprise Through Data and Analytics in The Cloud – October 2023
As the volume of data that organizations generate and capture explodes and the need to draw real time insights for business resilience becomes imperative, there is a pressing need for a new breed of data and analytics tools that are scalable, agile, flexible and can integrate seamlessly with other applications. Cloud-based data and analytics platforms provide a plethora of these desired advantages like agility, elasticity, quick deployment and rapid innovation, in addition to cost savings. Due to these reasons, SAPinsider are keenly exploring the opportunity to leverage data and analytics in the cloud.
Data & Analytics
SAP Data Management Strategies – March 2023
With the move to SAP HANA either underway or planned, SAP customers must plan for how to manage, maintain and utilize SAP data for analytics and automation. SAP customers have to decide how to handle legacy data, especially for greenfield SAP S/4HANA projects, how to manage data on the cloud. Balancing the risks, compliance needs, and costs of data management in multiple venues including the cloud while also providing reliable, secure data to the organization is increasingly important to the business. This research will examine the approaches and the technologies SAP customers are taking for where to host data and the factors driving the decisions.
Human Capital Management
HCM and SAP S/4HANA – May 2023
What was once Human Capital Management (HCM) has been rebranded to Human Experience Management (HXM) for SAP solutions, responding to a greater focus on putting the employee at the center of HR strategies. However, many companies are still using the legacy on-premise SAP ERP HCM solution with SAP’s 2027 end-of-maintenance deadline looming. As companies move to SAP S/4HANA ahead of this deadline, they will also be seeking out new HXM solutions, likely in the cloud. SAP is offering a sidecar solution to extend the deadline, but ultimately it is driving customers to SAP SuccessFactors. In this research, we will examine that and other drivers to HXM strategies at SAPinsider companies, and how that fits with SAP S/4HANA migrations.
Supply Chain Management
Supply Chain Resiliency and Agility Through Analytics, Automation and Effective Data Management – February 2023
As supply chain challenges increase due to increasing supply chain complexities, organizations are increasingly looking at leveraging data, analytics and automation tools and technologies to help them address their supply chain challenges better. Data, analytics and automation tools and technologies are being leveraged to manage supply chains across industries for decades. Organizations now plan to amplify their capabilities in this area. They intend to refresh their supply chain data management, automation and analytics capabilities in order to build resilient and agile supply chains. To do this, they are looking at building a robust single-source of truth for supply chain data and then leverage analytics tools that not only provide advanced analytics capabilities but also are user friendly and low-code/no-code.
Building Visibility and Efficiency in Warehouse and Transportation Planning and Management – August 2023
As supply chain challenges increase due to increasing supply chain complexities, the resulting pressure on warehousing and transportation operations has increased manyfold. Warehouse operations are complex in nature as they intersect with many other supply chain domains like transportation, inventory, manufacturing and yard management. Since warehouse and transportation management and planning plays such a critical role in keeping the supply chain flow efficient and optimal, SAPinsiders are paying close attention to how they can transform these capabilities. They are evaluating their existing warehouse management and planning tools and technologies portfolio to understand if it aligns with their business drivers and strategies. Accordingly, they are charting a technology roadmap to upgrade this portfolio.
Managing Supply Chain Volatility Through Optimal Planning – December 2023
As supply chain challenges increase due to increasing supply chain complexities, organizations are exploring strategies to help address those complexities and defining associated requirements. Technology will play a leading role in helping organizations meet the requirements that can help them execute those strategies. Foundational challenges like data silos and lack of visibility can only be addressed by leveraging technology. We believe SAPinsiders are actively leveraging technology to modernize their supply chain planning and management processes and will continue to do that in the future. SAPinsider plan to continue to leverage data, automation, planning and analytics tools to address their challenges, mitigate current state pain points with their portfolio and build future ready supply chains.
Enterprise Asset Management
Developing an Asset Management Mindset – August 2023
In heavy asset intensive industries, the largest operational expense resides in maintaining the equipment required to do the job. Being able to use your technology, your business processes and your people to help move your organisation from reactive to preventative and ultimately predictive is how you reduce costs associated with both failed equipment and lost production throughput. There are three fundamental areas to get right in achieving effective and efficient asset management and they are Asset Definition, Asset Lifecycle and Asset Management and Performance Analysis.
The drive for improved asset performance is moving Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) from maintenance (response to defects) toward asset management (understand your asset and avoid the defects). The outcome is lower costs and higher asset performance, more planned work and less inefficient unplanned or emergency work. SAP’s latest functionality for Asset Management revolves around the Intelligent Asset Management (IAM) Suite. Beyond the tools available from SAP and third party vendors is the fundamental question of how do you create an overall asset strategy? How do you bring the tools, process and people together into a solution that delivers business value? This paper seeks to unpack Leadership vision, approaches & methodologies to solving the asset management conundrum and will set out to help organisations understand how to begin the journey and what tools to adopt.
CIO
TEF: The CIO 2023 Agenda for SAP, SAP S/4HANA, the Cloud and Beyond – April 2023
2022 brought challenges in the supply chain and staffing for CIOs. What does 2023 hold in store for Tech Leaders who run SAP? This executive benchmark study delves into the key organizational and technology-focused priorities that CIOs who run SAP are investing in for 2023. See what progress they have made in their SAP S/4HANA and Cloud journeys and the skills that CIOs are seeking. We will compare results between our previous years’ benchmark studies so that you can see what trends are speeding up and which ones are struggling to gain traction amongst technology executives.
TEF: How Tech Executives are Leading Org and Technology Change – October 2023
There are many drivers of change in the current business environment at technology companies. Executives must keep pace with the demand for innovation, and that requires them to evolve their organizational and technology strategies. In this executive research report, will look at how leaders are building their organizations to meet the drive for change, and what requirements they have for predicting and meet the need for innovating technologies. We’ll also examine what technologies they themselves have in place to enable their strategies for innovation.
About the SAPinsider DART Methodology
SAPinsider has rewritten the rules of research to provide demonstrable insights from its fact-based approach. The DART methodology serves as the very foundation on which SAPinsider educates end users to act, creates market awareness, drives demand, empowers sales forces, and validates return on investments. It’s no wonder that organizations worldwide turn to SAPinsider for research with results. The DART methodology provides actionable insights including:
- Drivers – These are macro level events that are impacting an organization. They can be both external and internal and require the implementation of strategic plans, people, processes and systems.
- Actions – These are strategies that companies can implement to address the drivers impact on the business. These are the integration of people, process and technology. The should be business first but fully leverage technology enabled solutions to be relevant for our focus.
- Requirements – These are business and process level requirements to support the strategies. These tend to be end-to-end for a business process.
- Technology – There are technology and systems related requirements that enable the business requirements and support the overall strategies that the company is taking, they must consider the current technology architecture and provide for the adoption of new and innovative technology enabled capabilities
How SAPinsiders Participate in the Research
The SAPinsider research process is an invitation-only quantitative survey and a qualitative interview-based methodology that is focused on the voice of the more than 600,000+ global SAPinsider community members. During the course of a year, we survey and interview several thousand SAPinsiders and synthesize their insights. This peer best practices-led benchmarking research process extracts intricate knowledge of SAP and related ecosystem solutions, migration paths, roadmap and other insights in relation to the business drivers, strategic actions and requirements of end users. The ultimate objective of our research is to enable SAP users adopt and upgrade technology efficiently, based on sound decisions, performance parameters and business value.