SAP is executing the most consequential commercial transformation in enterprise software — moving its entire customer base from perpetual ECC licences to S/4HANA subscriptions via RISE with SAP. This transformation, driven by SAP's 2027 ECC maintenance deadline, creates enormous leverage for SAP and enormous vulnerability for customers who don't understand the commercial mechanics. Our advisors spent careers inside SAP's global commercial and licensing organisations. We have structured the RISE pricing frameworks, the indirect access commercial models, and the audit methodologies that SAP deploys against its customers. Our clients achieve an average of 33% savings on SAP agreements.
SAP ECC mainstream maintenance ends in 2027 (with extended maintenance available until 2030 for eligible customers, at significant premium). This creates a mandatory migration event for every SAP ECC customer — and SAP's commercial teams are using that migration urgency to extract maximum subscription revenue through RISE with SAP. RISE is SAP's cloud-bundled S/4HANA offering, priced on a per-unit basis that typically increases total SAP cost by 35–60% compared to the on-premises ECC baseline.
The fundamental commercial challenge is that most organisations begin their S/4HANA migration conversations from a reactive posture — responding to SAP's timeline pressure rather than driving the negotiation from a position of informed commercial leverage. SAP's account teams are trained to use the 2027 deadline to compress decision timelines and prevent thorough commercial scrutiny of RISE pricing, contract terms, and the indirect access provisions that represent a significant but largely invisible risk for most SAP customers.
Our SAP practice covers the full spectrum: RISE with SAP commercial negotiation, S/4HANA on-premises vs. cloud comparison, ECC support extension strategy, indirect access exposure assessment and remediation, BTP licensing, and SAP audit defence. We have participated in SAP's internal pricing and licensing committees and know exactly how SAP values each customer relationship — and where the real commercial flexibility exists.
RISE with SAP is SAP's bundled cloud subscription combining S/4HANA Cloud, Business Technology Platform, SAP Business Network, and managed services. SAP presents RISE as a simplified, all-inclusive offer — but the pricing, scope, and contractual terms have significant variation between customers and are almost entirely negotiable. The unit pricing, annual escalation clauses, exit terms, and BTP consumption allowances in RISE contracts represent the primary savings opportunities.
The path from SAP ECC to S/4HANA involves two major decisions that have profound commercial consequences: timing (relative to SAP's maintenance deadlines and available migration incentives) and deployment model (RISE cloud, GROW cloud for smaller organisations, or S/4HANA on-premises). Each path has different commercial structures, different contractual protections, and different total cost of ownership profiles. We model all paths and negotiate the commercial terms for the selected approach.
SAP's indirect access and digital access licensing framework is one of the most complex and litigated areas in enterprise software licensing. Any third-party system, custom application, or integration that reads data from or writes data to an SAP system may require Digital Access licences — at costs that can range from negligible to tens of millions of dollars depending on volume and document type. We conduct indirect access assessments, quantify exposure, and negotiate commercial resolution before SAP's licensing team identifies the exposure independently.
Organisations that cannot complete their S/4HANA migration before 2027 face a choice between SAP's extended maintenance (available until 2030 at a premium of 20–25% of standard maintenance fees) or third-party maintenance providers such as Rimini Street. The commercial case for each option is highly dependent on individual circumstances — migration timeline, SAP relationship value, and the specific SAP products in use. We model and negotiate the best-value support continuation strategy for each client.
SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) is SAP's integration, extension, and data management cloud platform — and it is increasingly central to every RISE and S/4HANA contract. BTP is priced on a capacity consumption model with credits allocated for specific services. The BTP credit allocation in RISE contracts is frequently insufficient for actual business requirements, and the commercial consequences of BTP overrun are significant. We assess BTP requirements, negotiate appropriate inclusions, and structure BTP capacity agreements that match actual business needs.
SAP conducts licence audits through its Global License Auditing and Compliance (GLAC) team — one of the most sophisticated vendor audit organisations in enterprise software. SAP audits focus on named user classification, indirect access violations, and cloud deployment metric overconsumption. We have participated in SAP's audit design processes and know every methodology GLAC deploys. Our average SAP audit claim reduction across completed engagements is 78%, with a significant proportion of clients achieving full claim dismissal following our commercial intervention.
RISE with SAP carries significantly higher margins for SAP than the equivalent on-premises licence and maintenance arrangement — which is precisely why SAP's account teams are strongly incentivised to close RISE transactions. This also means that RISE pricing is highly negotiable. SAP's field commercial teams have discount authority on RISE unit pricing, BTP credit allocation, and multi-year pricing locks that most organisations never access because they approach RISE as a product purchase rather than a major commercial negotiation. Our benchmarks show a 28–42% gap between first-offer and best-achievable RISE pricing for large enterprise customers.
SAP's account teams are explicitly trained to use the 2027 ECC maintenance deadline as a decision accelerator — a reason to sign RISE contracts quickly, without thorough commercial scrutiny. In reality, the deadline creates as much pressure on SAP as it does on customers. SAP must convert its entire ECC customer base to subscriptions to achieve its cloud revenue targets, and customers who approach RISE negotiations with a credible "we'll extend maintenance and evaluate alternatives" posture unlock significantly better commercial terms. We have used this posture to achieve an average of 19% additional RISE discount compared to customers who negotiate without it.
The majority of large SAP customers have material indirect access exposure that they are not aware of — custom applications, third-party middleware, and integration platforms that generate SAP documents without appropriate Digital Access licences. SAP's GLAC team has been systematically building indirect access claims since 2018, and the settlement values are substantial. The optimal strategy is a proactive assessment and commercial resolution before an audit — conducted with our advisory, which typically results in settlements at 5–15% of SAP's assessed exposure. Customers who wait for the audit and respond without specialist advice routinely settle at 60–80% of SAP's initial claim.
SAP operates multiple migration incentive programmes that provide credit against S/4HANA or RISE subscription costs for customers converting from on-premises ECC. These credits — which can represent 20–35% of the first-year RISE subscription value — are not automatically offered by SAP's account teams, and their scope and eligibility vary by customer size, contract history, and geographic market. We identify applicable migration credit programmes for every RISE negotiation and structure the commercial conversation to maximise credit utilisation, a step that many organisations miss entirely because they are not aware the programmes exist at the available scale.
Conducted full indirect access assessment 18 months before RISE negotiation, quantifying and commercially resolving $24M in potential exposure before SAP raised it. Used the resolved exposure and a credible alternative-evaluation posture to negotiate 31% off SAP's first-offer RISE pricing. Migration credit programmes added a further $6M reduction. Total savings versus initial SAP proposal: $38M over five years.
SAP's GLAC team presented an initial indirect access claim of $31M for a major retail operator whose third-party e-commerce platform generated SAP sales orders. We contested the document count methodology, demonstrated alternative Digital Access licensing structures, and negotiated a commercial settlement of $2.8M — a 91% reduction from the opening claim, with future indirect access compliance framework included at no additional cost.
Client required three additional years on SAP ECC while completing a complex global S/4HANA rollout. We modelled the third-party maintenance case (Rimini Street) against SAP extended maintenance, and used the credible Rimini option to negotiate a 22% reduction in SAP extended maintenance fees plus a price lock on the subsequent RISE contract. Total support cost savings over three years: $11M.
"We were three weeks from signing a RISE agreement when these advisors reviewed the contract. They found an indirect access provision that would have cost us an estimated $18M per year on our current document volumes. That conversation changed the entire negotiation."— CIO, Global Manufacturing Group
Our comprehensive guide to navigating the SAP S/4HANA transition — covering RISE commercial structure, indirect access exposure, migration credit programmes, and ECC support extension strategy. Written by former SAP commercial executives.
Download Guide →Our specialist audit defence practice handles SAP GLAC audits, Oracle LMS assessments, IBM compliance reviews, and all major vendor audit events. Former audit team members from each vendor, now defending buyers with the same methodologies used to build claims.
Learn More →How we defended a global retailer against a $31M SAP indirect access claim, ultimately settling at $2.8M through methodological challenge and commercial negotiation — with a future compliance framework included at no additional cost.
Read Case Study →Written by our former SAP commercial and licensing executives, this guide documents the complete framework for navigating SAP's cloud transition — from indirect access exposure assessment to RISE pricing benchmarks and ECC support extension strategy. Contains the migration credit programme analysis and RISE contract provisions that SAP's account teams don't surface proactively.
Download Free GuideIndirect access assessment, RISE pricing benchmarks, migration credit programmes, ECC support extension strategy, and BTP capacity planning. The guide SAP customers need before signing any S/4HANA agreement.
Download PDF — Free →SAP's commercial teams are highly skilled at creating urgency and limiting commercial scrutiny. Before committing to RISE with SAP, extending ECC maintenance, or responding to a SAP audit, speak to advisors who have sat on the other side of these negotiations. Tell us about your SAP environment and we'll provide a confidential assessment of your commercial position.
We analyse your SAP usage profile, current contract terms, and RISE proposal to identify pricing gaps, missing credits, and contract provisions that require renegotiation before signature.
Before SAP's audit team finds your exposure, we conduct a confidential assessment of your indirect and digital access position — and negotiate commercial resolution on favourable terms.
If you have received a SAP GLAC audit notice or initial claim, our team responds immediately with the methodology challenge framework that has achieved an average 78% audit claim reduction across our SAP engagements.
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