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Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert
Author’s note - I am responsible for the topic of SAP’s industry cloud for channel partners.  This blog post is mainly targeted at SAP’s channel partners and PE sell partners, but the blog post might be interesting for any partner considering building an industry cloud solution on SAP BTP.

I have been thinking about circles and the meaning behind them. The Olympic games’ logo has five circles, one for each participating continent.  The Audi logo has four circles, one for each of the four car manufactures who joined forces in 1932.  For me, SAP’s industry cloud for channel business has three circles, one that represents each of our key stakeholders.


What keeps the three stakeholders together is criteria and definitions of SAP’s industry cloud.

Let's recap our industry cloud strategy:  when it comes to new and innovative industry capabilities, SAP's solution strategy is that these should be developed outside the core, as individual industry cloud solutions, delivered by SAP and solution partners.  SAP’s perspective is that 80% of these solutions should be developed by partners.  SAP itself is using these solutions in its GTM with its own direct customers.  Reselling partners should consider doing the same and it becomes important for reselling partners to collaborate with these solution partners.  The standardization of SAP's industry cloud solutions enables the stakeholders (SAP, Reseller and Solution Partner) to work together on a level which was not possible until now.

Below is a short discussion of the most important responsibilities of each stakeholder.

SAP

SAP develops, maintains, and runs the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) platform, a platform especially made to extend the SAP intelligent suite solutions.  SAP defines the architecture guidelines for industry cloud and runs an approval process of solutions.   SAP also runs the SAP Store to facilitate transparency of available solutions and provide a way for solution partners to display their offerings and for resellers to find solutions and reach out to solution partners.  SAP allows resellers to sell SAP-developed industry cloud solutions via the PE-sell contract and SAP allows solution partners to leverage SAP BTP to developed solution and go to market with them via the PE-build contractual framework.

Solution Partners

Solution partners are responsible for developing industry specific solutions, according to  SAP’s industry cloud architecture guidelines.  Solution partners are also responsible for running these solutions together with SAP on the SAP BTP, packaged as a complete offering of SAP BTP services, partner IP investments and run/maintenance costs.  Further, solution partners are responsible to take the initiative to set up partner-to-partner agreement for the collaboration between reseller and the solution partner, SAP is not responsible to be involved in any aspects of such agreements.

Reseller

Resellers should be up to date with SAP-developed industry cloud solutions available on the indirect price list for the industries they operate in, reseller should resell these to customers and prospects via the PE-sell program.   Resellers should also actively be aware of partner-developed industry cloud solutions on the SAP Store and take the initiative to contact the solution partners to collaborate and use these solutions with customers and prospects.  Resellers should also consider leveraging partner developed industry cloud solutions in their Qualified Partner Packages Solutions’(QPPS).

This is a diagram of the go-to-market framework for the three participants, leveraging the standardization of the SAP’s industry cloud program:


Conclusion

The good news for channel partners is that due to the standardization of solutions, they now have more solutions to leverage to build great systems for customers.  As more and more channel partners uplift their mid-market specific solutions into SAP’s industry cloud solutions and start to offer these solutions for other channel partners to resell, channel partners will really benefit from the SAP’s industry cloud strategy for mid and low mid-market.

For more information, see a previous blog post.

Feel free to follow my profile or the “industry cloud” tag.   I post a blog post on the topic of SAP’s industry cloud and channel partners on a regular basis.  You can find Q&A and post questions in the industry cloud community.