SAP Licensing

SAP licensing – is compliance a challenge or an achievable goal?

It’s already well known that SAP is a market leader when it comes to enterprise application software. This means that a considerable number of businesses from various domains and from everywhere around the globe make use of the software that SAP provides. But are all these organizations aware of how the SAP licensing works? Are you among the companies using SAP software and wondering how you can make sure you’re using it right? Let’s start with the basics.

The basics of SAP licensing

SAP offers its customers modular software, which means that the functionality of a program can be separated into independent and interchangeable modules, that can be scaled based on a company needs at a specific moment in time. Does this simplify the SAP licensing or makes it even more complicated? It depends. If you understand how the SAP licensing works, it can be easy to use and manage the SAP software, and make sure that you stay compliant at the same time. Things become complicated when specific SAP licensing knowledge is lacking. But there’s nothing to worry about, as there are plenty of SAP specialists who can help you.

How does SAP licensing work?

As mentioned before, SAP provides modular software, but what does it mean for you from a licensing perspective? It means that you have the flexibility to choose how to deploy and license the software that you purchased, more specifically to license and pay only for the specific modules that you need at a specific moment in time.

In order for this kind of licensing to work in your favor, you need to have an extensive overview of the software that you already have in use, as well as your business’ needs and plan ahead. It can seem tempting to purchase a program with many functionalities and think that you’ll license them one by one, when you need them. In theory this sounds like a good idea, in practice it often happens that customers forget they didn’t license a specific module and start using it. One of the great advantages of SAP licensing can also be one of its greatest pitfalls for end users.

How do you make sure you are compliant?

You start by assessing your software entitlements and deployments. If there is no gap between the two, congratulations – you are compliant. If there is a gap, you should consider remediation and optimization. We recommend that you perform this kind of internal assessment of your SAP software every year in order to ensure you are compliant and be prepared in case an audit letter lands on your desk. SAP licensing is not complicated, but it’s not easy either. Make sure you have the right knowledge – in house or through a third party – and you’ll never worry about compliance risks.

Compliance review services

In order to help our customers be in control of their SAP licensing, we’re offering compliance review services meant to provide end users with a full understanding of their compliance position and benefit of remediation and optimization advice if and when needed. If you are not entirely sure that your affairs are in order and want to check if there are any potential risks, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.