Tricentis Report Reveals Current Trends in SAP Adoption and Implementation

Tricentis, the world’s number one continuous testing platform, today announced the release of its SAP Business Assurance Report: State of Worldwide SAP Testing, in conjunction with Capgemini and Sogeti. The report explores current SAP adoption and implementation trends, and organizations’ preparedness to deal with the challenges emerging from the changing SAP landscape.

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“They are also exploring the use of automation for SAP testing and agree that it can deliver more than 50% efficiency gains. Advanced technologies, such as AI and ML, are also likely to gain more traction in this space in the future.”

The report backed by case studies and testimonials assesses the existing methods organizations use for SAP business assurance, the departments responsible for SAP business assurance quality, and the use of specialist service providers, as well as their future plans around it.

“SAP’s ERP system acts as the backbone of business processes across departments for organizations globally. While businesses continue to benefit from it, the overall SAP environment has undergone rapid disruption in recent years,” said Wolfgang Platz, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Tricentis. “These disruptions pose new business process risks, implementation challenges, cost impacts, and most importantly, an increased level of complexity for enterprises. In our latest report, we set out to explore how prepared businesses were to address these challenges and the steps they were taking to do so.”

More than 750 respondents from organizations with revenue over 1 billion USD in 17 countries from a multitude of verticals were surveyed for the report. Its findings include:

Among the surveyed companies, ECC is still the most common platform – ahead of S/4HANA – though most companies are moving or planning to do so.

• ECC is the most popular SAP version, used by 43.2% of the surveyed organizations
• S/4HANA’s adoption rate is 33.1%
• 91.9% of those organizations that have not upgraded to S/4HANA have either already begun the migration or plan to do it in the next 24 months

Data migration (43.5%) and data security (42.8%) are the two most prominent challenges that organizations face while moving to advanced versions/updates.

• Most organizations (~91%) realize the importance of engaging a specialized service provider to overcome the challenges faced in implementing advanced SAP versions/updates

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There is a strong prevalence of specialist testing service providers.

• 36.2% of respondents rely on them for SAP business assurance
• 27.4% use a hybrid model, which includes both an in-house team and a specialist testing service provider
• 45.1% of respondents use a specialist testing service provider for API testing/component testing
• 43.7% use one for performance testing

The need for faster implementation, growing complexity, and a lack of skilled resources have influenced organizations’ shifts towards the use of automation in SAP testing.

• Around a quarter of surveyed organizations have an automated SAP testing system in place
• 29.9% organizations still rely on a manual approach
• 43.5% organizations use a combination of manual and automated SAP testing

“The report reveals that many organizations are planning to increase the use of testing across all stages of project lifecycles in the coming months,” says Mark Buenen, Global Leader of Digital Assurance and Quality Engineering Services at Capgemini Group. “They are also exploring the use of automation for SAP testing and agree that it can deliver more than 50% efficiency gains. Advanced technologies, such as AI and ML, are also likely to gain more traction in this space in the future.”

Platz commented on the report’s findings: “The changing times have created a pressing need for organizations to take a more focused and structured approach to run end-to-end SAP testing processes to reduce or eliminate any business risks that might emerge from the implementation of SAP updates. However, while most organizations now realize the importance of a robust business assurance process in ensuring the success and efficiency of SAP system, the study found that their level of maturity, approach, use of technology, and readiness for automation still seem to be evolving.”

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