Information management company OpenText used its (virtual) engagement at SAP’s Sapphire NOW conference to detail its latest wares.
The company’s data management tools are offered as SAP Solution Extensions to complement the RISE with SAP package; they are designed to drive organisations on their journey to SAP S/4HANA Cloud implementations.
As a so-called ‘solution extension’ in this sense, the functionality on offer does not necessarily speak of any shortcomings in SAP’s own core software architecture.
More likely (and more often) these types of partner tools provide the niches and nuances that SAP finds non-core to the competencies it wishes to bring to market in its own platform.
Synaptically syncing to SAP
In other instances, partners providing ancillary and complementary technologies are there to provide synaptic connections to the SAP motherlode. Further (and as anyone who has wandered the back-halls of SAP Sapphire will attest), some of the software on offer exists because it is simply cheaper than SAP’s full-brand price-tag option.
“There has never been a greater need for immediately accessible information and processes than during this global pandemic – putting cloud-based solutions front and centre,” said Mark J. Barrenechea, CEO & CTO at OpenText.
Barrenechea talks of his firm’s twenty-five-year partnership with SAP and reminds us that OpenText offers information management solution extensions for SAP software that complement the RISE with SAP offering.
RISE at Springtime
Introduced this Spring 2021 and initially thought to be a sort of product packaging play to run in-line with the way SAP Leonardo was built to give organisations a ‘solutions suitcase’ of sorts, SAP RISE itself has actually more to do with business process intelligence.
The reason for this is simple enough, SAP bought fellow German technology company Signavio back in January 2021. Signavio is a business process intelligence specialist, a key foundation technology for customers looking to ‘rise’ (hence the name, obviously) up the scale of intelligent cloud and automation services now available.
Back at OpenText, these solution extensions are qualified to run with SAP S/4HANA Cloud to help streamline and simplifying data and content migration, a process that most people would agree to be ‘really useful’ (if not fundamental) on the road to cloud migration.
The functions here also claim to improve productivity and collaboration by automating key business processes.
Did somebody say digital transformation?
“Working with our partners, our goal is to simplify the move to the cloud for customers and to deliver continuous innovation throughout their transformation journey,” said Karl Fahrbach, chief partner officer at SAP. “OpenText’s alignment with RISE with SAP supports that goal.”
The companies point out that cloud subscriptions of solution extensions from OpenText for SAP applications grew 200 percent over the past twelve months, with almost two million users now subscribed globally.
Using its partnership with Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure to extend the OpenText private cloud, OpenText now offers customers in Brazil, Middle East and South Africa.
