10 Questions about RISE with SAP, with SAP Instructor Kate Wilson

As an SAP instructor, Kate Wilson spends her days developing and teaching courses about RISE with SAP. She’s here to explain why it’s so important that you understand the package, and how you can train to become a RISE expert.

How do you explain RISE with SAP?

Think of it as “Business Transformation as a Service.” In a nutshell, it’s a package that includes SAP S/4HANA software, a starter pack of business network solutions including Ariba, Asset Management, Logistics, enterprise support, and services that enable a customer’s transition to the cloud. All of this is wrapped up into a single package under one contract with SAP.

One contract. Like if you hire a contractor to do work at your house?

Exactly. Let’s say I’m installing granite counters in my kitchen. Aside from doing all the work myself, I have two basic options. I can go to a warehouse and choose my slab. Then I need to find a fabricator to get the slab from the warehouse and cut it to size. Then I have to find someone to get the cut slab from the fabricator and install it in my kitchen. That’s a ton of work and I have to pay each person separately!

The second option is to go to a contractor who does the entire end-to-end process. It’s significantly easier, and I’ll likely get a better deal with everything bundled under one contract. Even more important, I benefit from the expertise of the contractor because they apply their expertise to ensure my project is done the right way. This is RISE with SAP. One contract that brings the expertise and experience of SAP to your deployment, even when your software is hosted in a hyperscaler data center.

Public Cloud package

Private Cloud package

So essentially RISE with SAP takes a lot of the work off the customer’s shoulders?

Yes. For example, with SAP S/4HANA On Premise, a customer has separate contracts and responsibility to manage these contracts and plan their own transition from SAP ECC or a non-SAP ERP. With either RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, or RISE with SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition you don’t have that.

Why should technical consultants care about RISE?

Because the RISE with SAP package is inherently part of the SAP S/4HANA Cloud (public cloud) and SAP S/4HANA Cloud, private edition solutions. Understanding RISE with SAP is essential to successfully implementing these solutions for a customer, and teaching customers about the solution they’ve purchased.

If you had one piece of advice for consultants, what would it be?

Approach each implementation with the perspective of a teacher. While it may be your n^th implementation, it’s always the customer’s first implementation of SAP S/4HANA. Most likely, customers don’t know what questions to ask. A great consultant anticipates and answers questions before they need to be asked. Of course, you can only do this if you completely understand the solution, which is why it’s essential that you complete the relevant training courses.

Let’s talk about training. What do partner consultants need to know for a RISE with SAP implementation?

It really depends on what your role is in the project. We always recommend starting with an SAP Learning Journey, which provides a clear path of training courses to complete. For example, the “Project Management” Learning Journeys are targeted to anyone who is primarily involved in project management, meaning they won’t be getting into the weeds on the technical side of the implementation.

Anyone involved in the technical side of the implementation should check out the “Onboarding Fundamentals” Learning Journeys. Partners will typically specialize in one or more lines of business (LoBs), which require completion of the LoB-specific training course in addition to the core fundamentals course. Customers who are experts in a specific LoB may also choose to complete the LoB-specific training courses.

What about training for customers?

On the customer side, the administrators who have “super admin” access need to become familiar with the solution because they will be running it after go-live. Customers need to select one or two experts in each LoB as team leads. They’ll work closely with the partners to assess standard SAP Best Practice business processes. They’ll also provide configuration data to help partners tailor the solution to their needs during implementation. Bringing together employees across the customer organization into the implementation project team is what we call a Customer Center of Expertise (COE). A Customer COE can even get certified and gain special benefits as a result.

Quick Reference Guide for RISE with SAP training 

Does RISE with SAP come with training?

Yes, it does. But as with any software/services package you need to understand what’s included and what’s optional. All SAP S/4HANA Cloud purchases, including RISE with SAP, deliver a limited number of subscriptions for SAP Learning Hub, edition for SAP Enterprise Support at no extra charge. This gives you access to select training content and Learning Rooms that is geared toward administrators. Access to SAP Learning Hub training and Learning Rooms for the customer project team or end users requires additional subscriptions.

We recommend investing in optional subscriptions for SAP Learning Hub, edition for SAP S/4HANA Cloud. This will give customer project teams and end users access to all SAP training content, SAP training systems for practice, every Learning Room, Stay Current enablement, and even two certification exam tries. Teams appreciate access to these resources, and the ability to ask questions in a live session.

How many optional SAP Learning Hub subscriptions will businesses need?

That depends on the roles of the people on your team. For some people, the Enterprise Support edition will be enough. Others will need the more robust edition for SAP S/4HANA Cloud. Your SAP sales team can help you sort this out.

Most of us don’t know about the great stuff going on in Learning Rooms.

That’s true! Learning Rooms are like communities where you can ask questions and get answers from moderators who are topic experts, as well as your fellow learners. You can also join live sessions delivered by SAP experts, keep your certifications current, and access all kinds of useful resources.

In Part 2 of our conversation, Kate answers some of the questions she receives frequently about SAP S/4HANA and RISE with SAP.