Planning Your Move to RISE with SAP: What IT Leaders Need to Know in 2025 Is Your Organization Ready for the Cloud ERP Era?

As organizations increasingly embrace digital transformation, the question is no longer whether to move to the cloud, but how to do so strategically. In 2025, SAP rebranded its core offerings, positioning RISE with SAP as a central solution for business transformation. This platform goes beyond hosting, it combines technology, tools and services to streamline processes, accelerate innovation and simplify management of enterprise systems. For IT leaders, understanding how to leverage RISE effectively is critical to achieving measurable business outcomes.

RISE vs. GROW with SAP: Choosing the Right Path

Organizations often face the decision of choosing between RISE and GROW with SAP. While both options support cloud adoption, they are designed for different business needs. RISE targets mid market to large enterprises requiring complex workflows, multi country operations and deep integrations. It provides private cloud flexibility, industry specific capabilities and long term scalability. On the other hand, GROW is tailored for fast scaling of small to medium enterprises seeking standardized, plug and play solutions with lower deployment costs. Identifying the solution that aligns with your business complexity, growth trajectory and operational needs is the first step in a successful cloud transformation journey.

Assessing Your Current IT Landscape

A successful RISE migration starts with a thorough evaluation of your current ERP environment. Legacy systems often include heavy customizations, outdated integrations and inconsistent data quality, all of which can complicate cloud transitions. IT teams must assess system complexity, data readiness, integration dependencies and internal capabilities. This analysis helps identify risks, streamline planning and ensure a realistic approach to migration that prevents delays, cost overruns or operational disruptions.

Defining Your Cloud Strategy

RISE with SAP offers private, public and hybrid cloud deployment options, making it essential for organizations to define a clear cloud strategy. Factors such as regulatory compliance, data security, process complexity and performance expectations play a key role in determining the right approach. Many organizations choose the private cloud edition for its flexibility and control, while standardized processes may benefit from public cloud models. Aligning your cloud strategy with business priorities ensures the RISE implementation supports both immediate operational efficiency and long term growth objectives.

Evaluating Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Understanding the total cost of ownership is crucial when planning your move to RISE. While cloud ERP eliminates hardware maintenance and manual upgrades, subscription fees, integration reengineering, data cleansing, implementation services and training costs must be factored in. Accurate TCO calculations ensure proper budgeting and executive support while presenting the migration as a strategic business initiative rather than a purely technical project.

Planning the Migration Roadmap

SAP emphasizes a clean core ERP approach to reduce unnecessary complexity and improve future upgrade readiness. Organizations should focus on minimizing custom code, adopting SAP best practices and building extensions on the SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP) instead of modifying the core system. A clear migration roadmap aligned with clean core principles improves efficiency, reduces technical debt and ensures continuous access to SAP innovations.

Change Management and User Adoption

Cloud ERP transformations succeed only when people embrace the new system. RISE introduces new interfaces, reporting models and processes, which require effective management change. IT leaders should prioritize early communication, executive sponsorship, role based training, workshops and phased adoption strategies. Organizations that focus on user readiness alongside technical migration experience faster ROI and higher adoption rates.

Selecting the Right Implementation Partner

The success of a RISE migration heavily depends on selecting the right implementation partner. The ideal partner brings proven experience with SAP cloud solutions, industry specific expertise, integration capabilities and structured migration methodologies. Post go live support and continuous optimization services are also essential. Selecting a partner who reduces risk and accelerates business transformation is more valuable than simply choosing the lowest cost option.

Migrating to RISE with SAP in 2025 is not merely a technical upgrade, it is a strategic business transformation. Organizations that carefully assess their systems, choose the right deployment model, follow clean core principles and prioritize change management will unlock the full potential of SAP’s modern ERP ecosystem. For IT leaders, the question is no longer “Should we move?” but “How can we move strategically to maximize long term value?” Thoughtful planning today ensures your organization thrives in the cloud first era.