Welcome to the 9th in a series of blogs to dispel myths about SAP and the Cloud. Today we will debunk the myth that Cloud is only used in certain industries.

What is the origin of this myth?

Impressions arose that cloud is only used in certain industries due to a transformational way of engagement with consumers in the digital age. The service-oriented consumer industry transformed already parts of the engagement chain into the cloud. Listen to customer and understanding is wiser than nonstop unreflected sending information. Cloud solutions help those companies to adapt to these changes, driving innovation and put the customer in the center of their business to stay ahead of the game.

As we now identified the 1^st movers we also have to admit that some industries don’t have a high cloud affinity. Companies, e.g. in aerospace & defense industry sometimes face barriers when they want to move to the cloud. They might be forced by additional barriers from their customers to not do.

In between black and white there is a full spectrum of grey and cloud is about to transform all industries as it brings velocity and agility back to business. Cloud delivers a simplified consumption model to bring the pace back to business that is required to stay competitive.

But each industry adopts at own business priorities and own pace. The first business processes we have seen moving to cloud have been

Non-differentiating processes

We talk about processes that are characterized by “Best Practice”. Companies do not differentiate against peers based on these processes. We observe today 3 main areas where cloud leads:

• CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
• SRM (Supplier Relationship Management)
• HCM (Human Capital Management)
• + some generic areas like e.g. Travel and Expense Management.

These functions are moving into a Public Cloud environment, companies share a maximum of resources with other organizations to drive maximum cost-efficiency. The cloud service provider owns and operates the solutions and infrastructure and offers access to the resources via Internet.

The public cloud, we also talk about the LOB cloud is delivered securely and on highest standards, customer data is stored within clients own tenants. If your IT still has doubts, here is a good document for them CIO GUIDE – IT Security in Cloud and Mobile Environments.

This is a trend to continue and we see more and more areas are moving into this cloud category. In contrast customers also have

Differentiating processes and core industry processes

Core functionality, like logistics, IP (Intellectual Property) – or related functions like R&D are specific and tailored to companies individual needs. They are not expected nor wanted to be standardized. And they are – of course – highly differentiating.

These functions typically move into a Managed Cloud environment, where a cloud infrastructure can operate solely for a single organization, whether managed internally or by a third-party and hosted internally or externally.Or they stay on premise. Also see here what hybrid extended means for the solution landscape of customers.

Based on Public Cloud and Managed Cloud environments we see companies of any size and any industry moving into the cloud and gaining their individual advantages with a significantly simplified consumption of services.

Any remarks? If yes, please let us know. We are happy to engage with you.

Stay tuned for the myth buster summary!

Follow us on twitter to stay informed about the hot topics around the cloud.

Bert Schulze (@BeSchulze), Sven Denecken (@SDenecken) and Nikolai Vetter (@NikolaiVetter)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cloud Myth Busting: facts and figures of SAP ́s cloud business

• Myth #0: SAP is not a cloud company
• Myth #1: SAP is not a cloud player
• Myth #2: SAP software is hard to use
• Myth #3: You have to stay on premise – or move to the cloud
• Myth #4: Cloud Myth Busting: Myth #4: Running mission-critical systems in the cloud is not secure
• Myth #5: Cloud Myth Busting: Myth #5: business in the cloud is not proven
• Myth #6: Cloud Myth Busting: Myth #6: Cloud is for small companies
• Myth #7: http://scn.sap.com/community/cloud/blog/2014/03/08/cloud-myth-busting-myth-7-cloud-is-all-about-total-cost-of-ownership-tco
• Myth #8: Cloud Myth Busting: Myth #8 – Cloud can’t adapt to my needs

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Read other relevant blogs:

SAP Cloud – Quarterly update Q1 2014 by @SDenecken

10 #Cloud Computing Trends for 2014

Clearing the Clouds around the Cloud

The Hybrid #Cloud – extended