How the RISE with SAP Validated Partner recognition enables partners to unlock the power of SAP Business Suite
Businesses today rightly expect faster value realization, streamlined implementations, and solutions that are flexible, scalable, and embedded with intelligent technologies, such as AI.
With the launch earlier this year of SAP Business Suite, a unified system integrating applications, data, and AI to seamlessly connect and optimize every business function, customers can benefit from a continuous cycle of value and unlock innovation faster and easier than ever before.
By embarking on the RISE with SAP journey, existing SAP ERP customers can modernize with a cloud ERP landscape and realize the full potential of SAP Business Suite. To ensure businesses have the foundation needed to fully leverage the suite’s capabilities, a successful implementation is crucial.
Our RISE with SAP project delivery is undergoing a profound shift, empowering our service partner ecosystem to meet these heightened expectations with innovative methodologies, comprehensive tools, and validation programs.
The new paradigm: customer priorities in SAP projects
Today’s organizations grapple with complex legacy processes, siloed data, and highly customized systems. They seek:
- Speed to value: Building a resilient digital backbone that delivers measurable benefits within weeks or months
- Industry-standard solutions: Minimizing costly customizations to enable faster deployment, simplified upgrades, and easier maintenance
- Reusable intellectual property: Configurations over modifications ensure portability and scalability
- Operational modernization: Leveraging automation and standardized processes to reduce redundancies and risks and improve data access
- Embedded AI and automation: Accelerating decision cycles, reducing manual efforts, and enhancing accuracy
SAP’s response: enabling partners to drive customer success
SAP recognizes that delivering on these expectations requires a strategic partnership approach, combining the future-proof cloud and AI innovations with disciplined governance, clear ownership and accountability, and best practices. Our approach centers on the RISE with SAP Methodology, complemented by an integrated toolchain and a dedicated focus on partner capability enhancement.
RISE with SAP Methodology: framework for agile transformation
The RISE with SAP Methodology provides a comprehensive pathway that emphasizes a clean core architecture, standardized best practices, and collaborative implementation strategies. Included are:
- Standardized framework: Building scalable, repeatable project road maps that cater to diverse industry requirements, from streamlined deployments to complex, multinational programs
- Integrated toolchain: Enabling seamless collaboration with SAP tools, such as SAP Cloud ALM, SAP Signavio, SAP LeanIX, and SAP Build — powered by AI — to ensure data consistency and process automation
- Expert guidance: From discovery to deployment, SAP and qualified partners guide projects, focusing on value creation and risk mitigation
The results speak for themselves. Customer outcomes include:
- Up to 30 percent reduction in transformation costs
- Up to 35 percent faster realization of benefits
- Up to 70 percent increase in business agility
- Up to 40 percent acceleration in innovation cycles
RISE with SAP Validated Partner recognition: elevating our service partner ecosystem
SAP is committed to ensuring our partners have the necessary skills and certifications to stay aligned with this evolving landscape. To that end, we’ve introduced the RISE with SAP Validated Partner recognition. Launched in 2024, this program recognizes partners that demonstrate excellence in delivering SAP large and complex cloud ERP projects with consistency and quality.
Qualified partners that accept SAP’s invitation must adhere to clear guidelines, including:
- Global adoption of RISE with SAP Methodology: Ensuring consistency across all delivery teams and regions
- Focus on clean core quality gates: Partner projects must document the respective clean core quality gates in SAP Cloud ALM
- Enhanced toolchain utilization: A strong emphasis on automation, collaboration, and project governance through SAP’s integrated platform suite
- Professional certifications: Equipping key roles — project managers, developers, architects, consultants — with updated, in-demand skills aligned with SAP’s cloud and AI innovations
Ensuring partner success: tools, training, and innovation
The RISE with SAP Validated Partner recognition is underpinned by a close alignment between qualified partners and SAP teams throughout all engagements, from sales to delivery, ensuring early identification of any potential barriers, to success.
Additionally, SAP invests heavily in supporting partners with resources such as funding and incentives, learning journeys and certification programs, certification academies and live sessions, and a vibrant Partner learning manager community where partners can share best practices, access the latest updates, and collaborate with SAP experts (log-in required).
To help customers harness the full potential of AI to drive value, partners must apply tools like Joule to effectively automate and optimize processes for superior outcomes. SAP Joule for Consultants empowers consultants to work smarter, automate routine tasks, and focus on strategic activities. Given its grounding in terabytes of both public and proprietary data, SAP Joule for Consultants can accelerate customer project delivery by up to 14 percent.
Looking ahead
By aligning with SAP’s proven methodologies, leveraging our integrated toolchain, and maintaining high standards of certification and expertise, our RISE with SAP Validated partners are uniquely positioned to deliver solutions that truly meet customer expectations in today’s fast-paced, digitally driven environment.
Together, SAP and its service partners are committed to driving innovation, accelerating time-to-value, and enabling sustainable transformation — ensuring our customers remain competitive in a rapidly changing world.
Karl Fahrbach is chief partner officer at SAP.
